Complete Digital Photography

by Long, Ben

• ISBN13: 9781584505204
• ISBN10: 1584505206
• Edition: 4th
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2007-06-26
• Publisher: Cengage Learning

Summary

Complete Digital Photography has become a classic book for helping traditional photographers move to digital! It's also the book of choice for many new digital photographers who want to learn how to take great digital photos. Now in its 4th edition, this bestseller has been fine-tuned and updated to provide the most current information available. Covering everything from the inner workings of the camera to the subtle intricacies of image editing software, the book is divided into four sections. The first section provides the basic technical foundation needed throughout the rest of the book. It details the basics of how digital cameras work and provides a quick photography primer. The second part explores everything needed to make an informed decision about which camera, computer, and software to choose. Section three has been thoroughly updated and expanded to cover the nitty gritty of shooting, including metering, choosing the right exposure, using histograms, flash photography, and much more. And the final section, teaches the latest digital editing and correction techniques, including new coverage of workflow and raw conversion.

Table of Contents

Introduction	p. 1
Is This the Right Book for You?	p. 3
How This Book Is Organized	p. 3
What Counts as Digital Photography	p. 6
The Best-Laid Plans	p. 6
What Software Do You Need?	p. 6
Digital 101: A Few Basic Ideas	p. 7
How a Digital Camera Works	p. 11
Something Old, Something New	p. 12
A Little Color Theory	p. 13
How An Image Sensor Works	p. 15
How Your Camera Makes an Image	p. 22
How JPEG Compression Works	p. 26
Meanwhile, Back in the Real World	p. 27
Basic Photography: A Quick Primer	p. 29
Lenses	p. 30
Exposures: Apertures, Shutter Speeds, and ISO	p. 33
Mostly the Same	p. 39
Evaluating an Image	p. 41
How Things Look On-Screen Doesn't Always Matter	p. 42
The Top Nine Imaging Problems You're Likely to Encounter	p. 43
Good or Bad, Who Can Tell Why?	p. 53
Choosing a Digital Camera	p. 55
Budget	p. 57
Point-and-Shoot or SLR	p. 57
Resolution	p. 61
Point-and-Shoot Lens Specifications	p. 68
Basic Controls	p. 70
Camera Design	p. 78
Features	p. 91
What's in the Box?	p. 119
Special Features	p. 121
Accessories	p. 124
What Should I Buy?	p. 131
Building a Workstation	p. 133
Choosing an Operating System	p. 134
Building Your System	p. 135
Software	p. 141
Accessories	p. 153
Preparing Your Monitor	p. 154
Ready! Aim!	p. 158
Shooting	p. 159
Seeing, Interpreting, and Composing an Image	p. 160
Five Practices for Better Shooting	p. 175
Initial Camera Settings	p. 183
Building a Shot	p. 186
Simple Flash Photography	p. 212
Power and Storage Management	p. 219
And That's Just the Beginning!	p. 223
Metering and Exposure	p. 225
What You Can Do with Exposure Adjustments	p. 226
How to Adjust Exposure	p. 236
In-Camera Histograms	p. 244
Bracketing	p. 249
Exposing for Raw	p. 251
Exposing to Avoid Chromatic Aberration (Purple Fringing)	p. 255
Taking Control	p. 256
Special Shooting	p. 257
Stable Shooting	p. 258
Black-and-White Photography	p. 262
Black-and-White Shooting	p. 263
External Flash	p. 267
Controlling Available Light	p. 273
Macro Photography	p. 276
Landscape Photography	p. 279
Shooting Panoramas	p. 283
High Dynamic Range (HDR) Imaging	p. 293
Underwater Photography	p. 295
Tethered Shooting	p. 296
Using Filters	p. 296
Shooting in Extreme Conditions	p. 299
Halfway There	p. 304
Workflow	p. 305
Post-Production Workflow	p. 306
Apple Aperture and Adobe Photoshop Lightroom	p. 313
Learning More	p. 316
Correcting Tone and Color	p. 317
Histograms Revisited	p. 319
Cropping and Distortion Correction	p. 320
Cropping an Image	p. 320
Straightening an Image	p. 324
Correcting Barrel and Pincushion Distortion in Photoshop CS2/CS3	p. 328
Correcting Perspective in Photoshop CS2/CS3	p. 331
Correcting Chromatic Aberration with Photoshop CS2/CS3	p. 333
Corrrecting Tone	p. 335
Using Levels Input Sliders	p. 337
Adjusting a Real-World Image	p. 342
Should You Worry about Data Loss?	p. 346
Curves	p. 348
Correcting Tone with Curves	p. 350
Levels and Curves and Color	p. 356
Correcting a Color Cast	p. 358
Correcting Color with Curves	p. 351
Hue/Saturation	p. 365
Adjusting Saturation	p. 366
The Story So Far	p. 368
Raw Conversion	p. 371
Raw Workflow	p. 372
Raw Editing	p. 376
Copying Your Edits from One Image to Another	p. 390
What More Do You Need?	p. 391
Building Your Editing Arsenal	p. 393
What You'll Learn in This Chapter	p. 394
Brushes and Stamps	p. 394
Cloning Video Tutorial	p. 397
Masks	p. 399
Creating Complex Masks	p. 407
Layers	p. 414
Other Editing Tools	p. 419
Imaging Tactics	p. 421
Editing Order	p. 422
Converting Color Images to Grayscale	p. 423
Finding Black and White Images	p. 427
Retouching	p. 428
	p. 430
Additional Editing Techniques	p. 433
	p. 436
	p. 441
Color Adjustment	p. 445
	p. 446
Editing	p. 453
Video Tutorial: Painting Light and Shadow	p. 461
Photoshop CS2/CS3 Smart Objects	p. 462
Working with Smart Objects	p. 462
Special Effects	p. 469
Simulating Depth of Field	p. 470
Shortening Depth of Field in an Image	p. 470
Stitching Panoramas	p. 475
Creating "Hand-Tinted" Images	p. 478
Applying Effects by Painting	p. 481
Adding Texture, Grain, and "Film" Look	p. 482
Cleaning Portraits	p. 483
Compositing	p. 485
High Dynamic Range Imaging	p. 486
Output	p. 491
Resizing	p. 492
Understanding Resolution	p. 495
Sharpening	p. 500
Painting Sharpening	p. 503
Selective Sharpening of a Portrait	p. 504
Web and E-mail Output	p. 509
Outputting Electronic Files	p. 512
Choosing a Printer	p. 513
Printing	p. 524
Generating a Soft Proof in Adobe Photoshop	p. 529
Printing from Photoshop	p. 531
Conclusion	p. 538
Glossary	p. 539
About the CD-ROM	p. 553
Index	p. 555
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