Digital Photography: Top 100 Simplified Tips & Tricks (3rd edition)

Reviewed by Dr. Eric Flescher

 

Author: Rob Sheppard Publisher: Wiley http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0470147660.html Released: September 2007 Pages: 221 $20 USD, $24 CND, £14 GBP ISBN 13: 978-0-470-14766-5   Strengths: Nicely laid out out, easy to understand and colorful. The helpful screenshots are well coordinated and integrated with the instruction. Great range of topics and ideas. Great for intermediate and novice users as it starts off from the beginning in many areas dealing with digital photography and integrated the ideas so that you can take better photos.

Weaknesses: Some users who want more information about RAW information should seek another book after reading this  one. If you need additional information, specifically how to use the intricacies of your particular digital camera, using your user manual or a  special book  on the topic  may help even further to supplement this book.

Introduction

 

Learning digital photography is very much a visual medium. But learning smarter and more efficiently in many situations is a difficult to accomplish so that you can become more productive. Sometimes a greater insight is gained with a more visual system versus some of the other how to guides which work more like a text book, detailing how to use the applications while using too much text. Some don't always make for easy reading. But the better ones simplify the instruction by dividing the tutorials and focusing upon step-by-step approaches, using a visual oriented system that makes the learning easy and fun. Such a book is Digital Photography: Top 100 Simplified Tips & Tricks (3rd edition).

 

 The Top 100 simplified tips and tricks series is known for its highly visual style and instruction tutorial. The tips and tricks are more akin to a series of short stylized instructional guides that help you visually learn along the way. In this book, Digital Photography is covered from starting out to more advanced techniques, so that novice to even intermediate and possible advanced users are covered. This 220 page book is divided into ten chapters which span the 100 instructional tips and tricks. The author has divided the book into these six sections: (1) getting ready to take photos); (2) consider light more then imagination ; (3) Control Exposure; (4) Control sharpness' and depth of field; (5) Take better photos; (6) Try creative photo techniques; (7) basic image workflow with adobe photoshop  elements; (8) beyond the basics with Photoshop  Elements; (9) Making photographic prints; (10) share your photos.

 

The colorful screenshots are integrated with the instruction. Numbered red dots point out and highlight the easy to read step-by-step instructions for the tasks. Application laden screenshots demonstrate how the tools can be utilized to complete carefully designed tasks. Each task spans two pages. Under the prominent task number on the top right page is a colored bar. Easy to read, the color bar, on the top of the exercise pages, indicate the difficulty level of each task. The difficulty rating can help differentiate which of the tasks to try first or can target the particular level of your expertise. The lowest level demonstrates a new spin on a common task. The second level, introduced a new skill or task. The third, combines multiple skills requiring in-depth knowledge while the forth requires extensive skill and may involve other technologies. I was glad to see also that these same rating levels are also listed in the beginning of each chapters tasks so at a glance, the difficulty levels easy to see and target what the user wishes to try first. I thought this to be very helpful in gauging the level of expertise as compared to using the novice, intermediate and advance rating.

 

Looking over the tasks gave a better understanding of the complexity of the tasks needs using the tools and the final outcome that needed to be performed. In addition, extra tip sections inserted in the tasks were highlighted. These included Did you know? Customize it, Put it together, Caution. The visuals not only save time but illustrate learning how to make your graphic endeavors more productive. The step-by-step instructions do not read like a text book which makes for easier understanding of learning about digital cameras and photography which is the main intend of the book. But does format of book and tasks hold up to scrutiny in terms of learning all you can know about digital photography?

 

The book and the exercises are well thought out. Exercises like gif animation, text patterns, plug ins, use of scratch disks, use of the brushes and many of the 100 tutorials are not only interesting but using the applications. Making a calendar, postcards and much more can help spark your inner creativity while using the software in different ways you might not have thought.

 

Then I searched for selected topics that are important to photographers, digital photography, intermediate to more advanced users . RAW file format was highlighted on several pages but not really within its own section of tasks. Tonal range and adjustment, important for RAW and other formats, were found on only four pages. But these were well done. The White balance pages were brief and to the point and had some very nice comparison charts to contrast file formats and difference of JPEG to RAW. I was very impressed the layout of the two pages concerning depth of field and sharpness information. Outstanding illustrations for a great visualization of the need for depth of field happened to be some ofthe best I have ever seen, instruction wise. Very helpful as well are the tutorials using Photoshop Elements.

 

Conclusion

 

If you need a comprehensive guide about RAW format or your particular camera, this book may not be for you. But it is an easy to use and great starter that will carry you a long way. Easy to understand, well laid out with 100 interesting tasks, there is something for everyone to learn or take to the next level of expertise. What more could you want from a book that helps you in many ways, visually lays out the instructions and gives you a better understanding while usingPhotoshop Elements 4. This book is not a textbook but an instructional visually based manual for learning how to make your photos better and using the images in different ways. For the price and what can be learned about many issues relating to Digital Photography and improving your photos, this book is a great buy.