Product Description

Digital photography gives you the power to take pictures on a whim, or to create careful, professional quality work that others may be willing to pay for. The choices are all yours, and digital photography puts all the opportunity right in your hands. All you need is a little information on how to choose and use your tools, and how to put them to work.

Digital Photography All-in-One Desk Reference For Dummies is the perfect companion for the person who has confidence using a computer and navigating the operating system and at least some familiarity with their own digital camera. Acquaintance with an image editor, such as Paint Shop Pro, Corel Photo-Paint, or Adobe’s Photoshop or Photoshop Elements, is also helpful. Expect to get the goods on the

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #713006 in Books
• Published on: 2003-01-15
• Format: Illustrated
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 816 pages

Review
...layout is clear&language is never confusing... -- Computer Active, 17 April 2003

From the Back Cover
7 books in 1– your key to digital photography success

Shoot, edit, retouch, and print digital photos like a pro!

Do you dream in digital color? If you picture yourself sharing great vacation shots with family and friends or restoring your grandmother’s baby pictures, this fun reference guide can make that dream come true. Seven minibooks cover equipment from economical to extravagant, studio setup, enhancement and restoration, picture-taking tips, online galleries, and a whole lot more.

The Dummies Way

• Coverage of the essentials and beyond
• Explanations in plain English
• "Get in, get out" information
• Thumbtabs and other navigation aids
• Tear-out cheat sheet
• A dash of humor and fun

About the Author
David D. Busch has twenty years of experience as a professional photographer. He’s also the author of Digital Photography For Dummies Quick Reference

Customer Reviews

Best Digital Photography Book I've Seen
This is a real photography book! I've purchased eight or nine "digital photography" books before and most of them emphasized the digital aspect more than photography. They seem to have been written by Photoshop gurus who know a lot about image editing and very little about honest-to-gosh photography.

This book is big enough and thick enough to deal with all the topics I wanted to read about. There's the usual material about how digital cameras work, and some helpful chapters on image editing, but the most useful parts are the photography chapters in the middle. These chapters seem to have been written by an actual professional photographer with tons of experience with digital cameras. There are tips about lighting, posing, shooting close-ups, and taking pictures for publication.

Everything is written with the special needs of digital cameras in mind. For example, I've had problems shooting sports photos because of the noticeable lag between the time that I press the shutter button and when my digital camera finally takes the photo. The author addresses this problem, along with many other digital camera peculiarities, such as the noise problems you get when you use higher ISO ratings to increase sensor sensitivity.

Even though some of the advice is fairly technical in nature, the author never resorts to jargon. Everything is explained quite clearly in terms that even a beginner can understand. I never really understood why selective focus was so difficult to achieve with a digital camera until I read the explanation here.

I recommend this book for all photographers, from beginner to advanced. The neophyte can learn how to vastly improve their skills, and even veteran photo hobbyists will learn something.

Everything you need in one book!
What a great extension to the Dummies concept! I love Dummies books, but always finished each book wishing there were more information. This "All in One Desk Reference" has that information! It's two or three times the size of a typical Dummies book at 800 or so pages, and it's all meat. Everything you need to know about digital photography and basic image editing is in here.

The emphasis on photography, rather than digital technology, is refreshing. Certainly, there are chapters on how digital cameras operate, and guidelines for choosing a digital camera. But the center of the book has solid chapters on good old fashioned photography, as it applies to digital cameras. There's a chapter on composition, one on close-up photography, another on sports photography, and a great travel photo section. The thick section of color photos are great, too. It's good to see color images in a book about color photography.

The sections on image editing are fairly complete and will get beginners started and more experienced people trying some new things. Both Photoshop and Photoshop Elements are covered, but there is a chapter that evaluates most of the popular image editors and compares and contrasts them. This book really is thorough.

However, if you want to buy this book, purchase it for its great coverage of digital photography. That alone makes this the leading digital photography book. The other chapters make it a useful "All in One" reference book.

I'm using this as a textbook in my classes.
I teach digital photography at a community college, both for college credit and in evening adult education classes, and have found this book to be the perfect textbook for my beginner and intermediate courses. The first Overview book is about 82 pages long, and provides a good introduction to digital photography. My students learn a little about digital equipment, how to acquire photos, do simple editing, organize them, and make prints. I generally either skip the second book or assign it for extra credit, because it talks about choosing a camera and accessories, setting up a computer, and working with printers and scanners.

The Taking Great Pictures chapters in the third book are the core of my curriculum for both the beginner and intermediate classes, as the content is easy to understand, explains photographic techniques clearly, and can be applied by any digital photographer. The beginner classes simply receive less challenging picture taking assignments, as they work with composition, close-ups, portraits, and sports photography. They also get a lot of use out of the section on scenic photography, as the landscapes here are spectacular.

The beginner classes stop when they finish the fourth book on the Basics of Image Editing. The more advanced image editing chapters, which use Adobe Photoshop Elements, are reserved for the intermediate classes. I do put both groups to work learning to restore old photos, because everyone seems to enjoy this.

All in all I have found this book to be a wonderful learning tool, and like it better than traditional textbooks for teaching digital photography.