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| Book: | The Creative Digital Darkroom | |
| Subject: | More than teaching Photoshop, this book is an education in how to see. | |
| Date: | 2008-06-12 09:05:23 | |
| From: | Donna Kamper | |
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Rating:
This is not a “how to use Photoshop” book. This is a book for photographers who use Photoshop and want to produce excellent photographs. Beginning at the moment an image is acquired, whether by shutter or scanner, the reader is walked through the entire workflow process. Not only the steps and details of what and how, but the often-missing “why” is also provided. Now it makes sense! Both Katrin Eismann and Seán Dugan, authors of this book, have traditional film photographic backgrounds. It is our good fortune that they turned to digital photography and created this book. Artists in their own right, they are also talented educators with the oft-elusive ability to explain complex subjects simply and understandably. Relevant images can be downloaded from the book’s website to use when working through the examples. It’s very helpful using the same image the author shows in a lesson – for one thing, if your results differ you know it’s not the image. When I worked through the lessons I didn’t always see a change until I Zoomed in – wa-a-ay in (200%-500%). Once I knew what I was looking for, I could then Zoom back out incrementally and the difference was more apparent. This book is more than an education in Photoshop; it’s an education in what to look at and how to see. Chapter 1 introduces the five steps of the “Digital Darkroom Workflow.” These are Part 1: Acquire; Part 2: File Preparation; Part 3: Global Enhancement; Part 4. Selective Enhancement; and Part 5: Output. The rest of the book breaks down the first four parts into easy-to-understand chunks with lots of detail. Chapter 2 reviews the requisite digital darkroom components. These include the working environment, the hardware, and the software. How to properly set up the Preferences in Photoshop is covered in depth, as are assigning profiles and choosing color settings. Chapter 3 starts with image acquisition and quickly moves into file organization. This includes how to properly set up and use Bridge and Lightroom. Each image adjustment palette in the Adobe Camera Raw interface is shown, with instructions on how to use each one. The pros and cons of file formats such as DNG and RAW and the virtues of high bit-depth images are discussed in enough depth to actually be understandable. In Chapter 4 we (finally) open Photoshop and begin working with images, but don’t get too excited. This is the file preparation step. The authors compare this part of the process with the need to stretch and prime canvas before actually painting a picture. Tedious, perhaps, but not to be skipped over or skimped on because it directly affects the final image’s quality. The work done here comes under “general clean-up:” noise reduction, input sharpening, lens and perspective correction. Not to be skipped over! Global and Selective enhancements are the next steps. These take us from Chapters 5 through 8. Here the image, both as a whole and its component features, is evaluated and adjusted for tone, contrast, and color. The array of techniques and features available to work in this area can be mind-boggling. Working through them with the authors brings order to the process and makes sense of what to use and when – or even if. The authors not only stress that rules are made to be broken, but that a critical skill is knowing when to stop. Once the original pixels of an image have been changed, there may be no going back. Throughout the book, techniques for doing as much editing in as non-destructive a manner as possible are emphasized frequently. Non-destructive editing gives you the freedom to experiment and know your decision isn’t irrevocable. Multiple lessons teach you how to achieve this using Layers, Masks, Adjustment Layers and Smart Objects/Smart Filters. This really gets exciting when you finish working on a lesson and the little light goes on: you suddenly realize how to apply the technique you just learned to your own images! Two hours later when you come up for air, that technique is yours forever. Next! “Creative Enhancement” is the subject of Chapters 9 and 10. The authors use these chapters to explore ways in which you can change the image beyond its original message. Techniques include how to create special lighting effects, distress an image, add texture such as film grain or paper texture, or creatively enhance edges. The final step, Output, is not addressed in this book. However, the authors have a 20-page bonus chapter “The Print” that’s available on the book’s website. This is a rich resource that covers resizing, final output sharpening, working with profiles, soft-proofing, printing from Photoshop and working with a service provider. This is as well written as the rest of the book, and the information is invaluable. This is a must-have for my bookshelf. Working through these lessons not only teaches what a certain feature or tool does, but gives insights on other ways to use them that carries over to new images. That’s the real value of a book like this. Highly recommended! |
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