Product Description

Scott Kelby, the man who changed the "digital darkroom" forever with his groundbreaking, #1 bestselling, award-winning book The Photoshop Book for Digital Photographers, now tackles the most important side of digital photography--how to take pro-quality shots using the same tricks today's top digital pros use (and it's easier than you'd think).

This entire book is written with a brilliant premise, and here’s how Scott describes it: "If you and I were out on a shoot, and you asked me, 'Hey, how do I get this flower to be in focus, but I want the background out of focus?' I wouldn't stand there and give you a lecture about aperture, exposure, and depth of field. In real life, I'd just say, 'Get out your telephoto lens, set your f/stop to f/2.8, focus on the flower, and fire away.' You d say, 'OK,' and you'd get the shot. That's what this book is all about. A book of you and I shooting, and I answer the questions, give you advice, and share the secrets I've learned just like I would with a friend, without all the technical explanations and without all the techno-photo-speak."

This isn't a book of theory—it isn't full of confusing jargon and detailed concepts: this is a book of which button to push, which setting to use, when to use them, and nearly two hundred of the most closely guarded photographic "tricks of the trade" to get you shooting dramatically better-looking, sharper, more colorful, more professional-looking photos with your digital camera every time you press the shutter button.

Here's another thing that makes this book different: each page covers just one trick, just one single concept that makes your photography better. Every time you turn the page, you'll learn another pro setting, another pro tool, another pro trick to transform your work from snapshots into gallery prints. There's never been a book like it, and if you're tired of taking shots that look "OK," and if you’re tired of looking in photography magazines and thinking, "Why don't my shots look like that?" then this is the book for you.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #224 in Books
• Published on: 2006-08-31
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 219 pages

Review

"Kelby's laid-back writing style is perfect for those looking for fascinating insights without getting caught up in technical detail. An essential series for anyone wanting to take professional looking images."

Laurence Howell, Short List

From the Back Cover
Scott Kelby, the man who changed the "digital darkroom" forever with his groundbreaking, #1 bestselling, award-winning book The Photoshop Book for Digital Photographers, now tackles the most important side of digital photography--how to take pro-quality shots using the same tricks today's top digital pros use (and it's easier than you'd think).

This entire book is written with a brilliant premise, and here’s how Scott describes it: "If you and I were out on a shoot, and you asked me, 'Hey, how do I get this flower to be in focus, but I want the background out of focus?' I wouldn't stand there and give you a lecture about aperture, exposure, and depth of field. In real life, I'd just say, 'Get out your telephoto lens, set your f/stop to f/2.8, focus on the flower, and fire away.' You d say, 'OK,' and you'd get the shot. That's what this book is all about. A book of you and I shooting, and I answer the questions, give you advice, and share the secrets I've learned just like I would with a friend, without all the technical explanations and without all the techno-photo-speak."

This isn't a book of theory—it isn't full of confusing jargon and detailed concepts: this is a book of which button to push, which setting to use, when to use them, and nearly two hundred of the most closely guarded photographic "tricks of the trade" to get you shooting dramatically better-looking, sharper, more colorful, more professional-looking photos with your digital camera every time you press the shutter button.

Here's another thing that makes this book different: each page covers just one trick, just one single concept that makes your photography better. Every time you turn the page, you'll learn another pro setting, another pro tool, another pro trick to transform your work from snapshots into gallery prints. There's never been a book like it, and if you're tired of taking shots that look "OK," and if you’re tired of looking in photography magazines and thinking, "Why don't my shots look like that?" then this is the book for you.

About the Author
Scott Kelby is President of the National Association of Photoshop Professionals (NAPP) and Editor-in-Chief of both Photoshop User and Layers magazines. Scott serves as training director for the Adobe Photoshop Seminar Tour and is the technical chair of the largest Photoshop gathering in the industry, Photoshop World. He has written numerous best-selling creative technology books.

Customer Reviews

Great nuggets of wisdom
There are lots of big shiny books out there that tell you all about digital photography and while many of these are great books, they can be a little intimidating too.

Scott Kelby, author of many of the better photography boooks out there has now come up with the antidote. The Digital Photography Book is a mere 200 odd pages and is just slightly bigger than A5 in size yet contains a whole lot of useful information that will almost certainly improve anyone's photography.

Each page is a self-contained tip or concept, often with an inspiring image for illustration. The text is rarely more than a paragraph or two yet manages to get important and useful stuff covered concisely and clearly.

Taking for instance, a chapter on tips for getting sharp pictures. You get a page for tripods, ballheads, cable releases, self-timers, mirror lockup (for really sharp pictures), Image stabalization, aperature, lens quality, ISO, sharpening, pro-sharpening and steadier hand held shots. All in a few pages and without leaving you feeling short changed.

The rest of the book continues with coverage of flower photography, weddings, landscapes, portraits and so on. Unlike many digital photography books, the bulk of the information presented is aimed at getting the original photos right, not in fixing things in Photoshop. Best of all, as the cover notes, much of it applies to point-and-click cameras as well as Digital SLRs.

Another useful (albeit potentially expensive) side effect of this book is the discovery of all sorts of interesting accessories you could or indeed should be considering. Things like flashguns and tripods are pretty obvious but things like spirit levels, extension tubes and neutral density filters may be news to some. Certainly, for landscape photography, a graduated nuetral density filter is a must have.

Excellent and very readable introduction
If you are stepping up to to digital SLR photography and want to know the absolute essentials in as easy a format as possible, together with plenty of illustrations, then this book is for you.

Each individual page addresses an issue or technqiue related to the theme of the chapter. For instance, the chapter 'Shooting Landscapes Like a Pro' has pages entitled 'how to show size', 'why you need a wide-angle lens', 'where to put the horizon line' and so on.

The pictures are of subjects that illustrate the topic in hand, or of buttons on the common cameras, or screenshots of settings menus. In this book you are rarely, if ever, confronted by a page full of nothing but text.

This book is a joy to read and one to which I will regularly refer - and I'm now ready, after some practice, to read some of the larger, more technical books.

It does exactly what it says
Some of the reviews posted seem put out that there is not enough information contained, it can be finished in one sitting and that other books are much better ie more technical. Personally I can't understand where these people are coming from. The author states that this is not a technical book, it won't go into the science behind exposure and depth of field etc rather if you want a certain type of shot you get told the settings to use ie keep it simple. So if you are new to photography and want a point in the right direction on how to start achieveing some decent results then this is a great book. I would only recommend this book to someone who knows nothing or little about photography, if you are already an expert then don't buy it. As for the references to photoshop that others complain about, well if you haven't got it you should have, it is an excellent program that can do all sorts to help sort out mistakes in your pictures (I've only got elements - it's enough for me).
In all it's a great book to get you started and yes you will still need to practice but at least you'll know where to begin!