Book Recommendations

MarkBarbieri

Semi-retired
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Aug 20, 2006
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What are some photography books that you recommend?

Understanding Exposure: How to Shoot Great Photographs with a Film or Digital Camera by Bryan Peterson is the most recommended book on this forum. Regardless of your skill level or equipment, anyone with an interest in photography should own this book.

Light: Science and Magic: An Introduction to Photographic Lighting is a great guide to the way photographic lighting works. Most lighting books are lists of setups that the author likes. This book goes well beyond that and teaches you the why of lighting instead of just the how. If you want to improve your lighting, I strongly recommend this book.

The Portrait Photographers Posing Guide: How to pose people for portraits is a simple, cartoonish book that illustrates lots of useful tips on posing.

Stephen Johnson on Digital Photography was highly recommened to me. I found it to be OK, but it never really captured my imagination.

The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Book for Digital Photographers is, I think, the best of the young field of Lightroom books. Scott Kelby does a great job of taking complex subjects and making them understandable without watering them down.

Real World Color Management by Bruce Fraser is a handy overview of color management. If you want to have consistent colors all the way from your subject to your monitor and to your printer, this is a good book for learning color management.

Real World Image Sharpening with Adobe Photoshop CS2 also by Bruce Fraser is a good guide to sharpening photos. It's probably overkill for most people, but if you want to take your post processing up a notch, advanced sharpening skills is a worthy area of focus. I recently made the point that making a tack sharp photo of your wife's face may do more harm than good to your photography budget - learn what to sharpen and how to do it right.

Mastering Digital Printing is a good overview of printing technologies with some specific information on how to make better prints. It's overkill for most people, but if you really want to improve your understanding of the printing process, it's the best book that I've found.

Photoshop Color Correction is a reasonably good book on color correction. If you want to move beyond the basic white balancing, it's a way to learn more. I've been told by others that Dan Magulis book Professional Photoshop: The Classic Guide to Color Correction is a better book on the same subject.

Photographing Disney Theme Parks - Why doesn't this book exist?
 
I like these...

Just included a link to this one - you already mentioned it.

Understanding Exposure: H...


This is my favorite for photoshop. I use it all the time. Scott Kelby's books are very easy to follow - he's a really good teacher.

The Photoshop CS2 Book fo...


This is his newest book. I just got it. I haven't read much yet, but so far I really like it. It is set up like a lesson book.

Scott Kelby's 7-Point Sys...


This one is great for beginners.

The Digital Photography B...


This is volume 2 to the one above. It is brand new.

The Digital Photography B...

 
Thanks for the list. I have added several to my wish list. Light ,Science, and Magic is exactly what I have been looking for!

Scott Kelby is also great for Elements as well. I learned more from his book than any other book I have read.


Charlotte K. Lowrie's " XTI Digital Field Guide" is a wonderful book as well. Canon should seriously consider getting rid of their ridiculous manual and using this book instead.
 

This is my favorite for photoshop. I use it all the time. Scott Kelby's books are very easy to follow - he's a really good teacher.

The Photoshop CS2 Book fo...

:thumbsup2

That series is a must for those that are already well versed in photography and are moving over to digital.

they have books dedicated to many different software packages.
 
The books I most often refer to are Ansel Adams series:

The Camera

The Negative

The Print

Of these, I refer to "The Negative" the most for it's thorough explanations on exposure. "The Print" explains how to get a fine print from your great exposure, it's a lot more involved than it appears.

Mastering Digital Printing is a very detailed book on digital printing that also explains a lot about the process.
 
For a good general purpose (digital specific) book, I have found "Complete Digital Photography" 4th edition by Ben Long to be pretty good.

Chris
 














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