Start With a Digital Camera, Second Edition

A lavishly illustrated demonstration of what you can do with a digital camera, Start with a Digital Camera mimics a traditional photography text. It teaches how to choose a subject, arrange lighting, compose frames, work with models, and capture fast action. The author, a graphic designer, also discusses various styles of photography (landscapes, still lifes, portraits, and so on) available for exploration. But rather than discuss film, chemical development, and darkroom techniques, Odam digs into the special quirks and capabilities of digital photography. He explains--with the help of many beautiful color illustrations--how to manipulate electronic photographs on a personal computer.

Rather than focus on the mechanics of image editing, the book explains digital manipulation terms and techniques in a mostly generic way. For example, he provides a page full of variants of the same image, each under- or overexposed to a different degree. He treats color correction and other techniques similarly. However, he acknowledges the power and popularity of Adobe Photoshop by explaining specifically how to achieve certain effects--such as those created with filters--in that program. The examples of clipping and combining photographs involve Photoshop too. The result of his work: a superior guide for anyone wanting to get into photography via the digital route. --David Wall