Here are my recommendations for a basic digital photographer's library
Every
week I get people asking me for recommendations on photography
books of various kinds (besides the ones I write, of course). So
here goes:
Photoshop
The number one request I get is for a Photoshop book designed specifically
for digital photography. There used to be a number of books that
did a decent but not great job, but the arrival of Scott Kelby's
The
Photoshop Book for Digital Photographers upped the ante (the
link above is for the newer Photoshop
CS2 for Digital Photographers). If you're a "tips
junkie" (the
kind of person that loves to discover new shortcuts and techniques
in abstract
and apply them to your own work), then also consider Kelby's Photoshop
CS2: Killer Tips. Also highly recommended is Fraser's Real
World Camera RAW with Photoshop.
I used to recommend the The
Photoshop 7 Wow! Book and a few others, but the three Kelby
and Fraser books ought to more than satisfy most. Deke McClelland's Photoshop
One-on-One changes the game: it's by far
the best organized, best teaching-oriented, and gem-laden of
the bunch. If you're trying to master digital photography using
Photoshop, this book will absolutely have something in it for
you, no matter what your ability. Moreover, if you just follow
the lessons from beginning to end, you can't help learn many
new and useful techniques. It's now the primary Photoshop book
I recommend. And I've added Dan Margulis' classic Photoshop LAB Color book; every Photoshop user should read this book for some out-of-the-box ideas on how to manipulate images. If you're moving from CS2 to CS3, then check out Ben Willmore's Photoshop CS3: Up to Speed, which concentrates on the differences in the new version of Photoshop from the old.
Update: The best of the most recent Photoshop books, by far, are from two of the best-known NAPP (National Association of Photoshop Professional) authors: Scott Kelby's 7-Point System for Adobe Photoshop is probably the most lucid the "here's how I do it" type of books. While the "groundbreaking system" hype is mostly just that, Kelby does indeed reduce Photoshop's huge array of features down into a manageable set of key techniques that solve most of the issues digital photographers face. It doesn't teach you Photoshop, it teaches you how to use Photoshop effectively, a very key difference, and one missing in a lot of the Photoshop books that are out there. At the other end of the spectrum is Matt Kloskowski's Layers: The Complete Guide to Photoshop's Most Powerful Feature. This book does try to teach you about specific Photoshop features, though it also adds the "how to use it" layer (sic) that makes the book useful for virtually any photographer using Photoshop. If you don't know anything about layers, don't worry, Matt does a fine job of getting you up to speed. If you do know about layers and use them, I'll bet you that you still find lots of useful information and tips in this book. Both these books are a must for any Photoshop-using photographer, in my opinion:
Lightroom and Aperture
Workflow is the new topic of concern to most digital photographers, and both Adobe Lightroom and Apple Aperture try to address it directly. For Lightroom, the two books that are the best are Scott Kelby's Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Book for Digital Photographers (not much creativity in his titles, but you'll find that the inside makes up for it) and Martin Evening's Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Book, which is a good basic introduction. For Aperture, there's no book that totally stands out, but I find Aperture Exposed to be pretty good as far as it goes. For a more general approach to workflow, try The DAM Book (that's Digital Asset Management).
Update: Lightroom's popularity has provoked a plethora of publishing, but most of what I've read so far doesn't really distinguish itself from the ones I mention above. One that does is Juergen Gulbins' and Uwe Steinmueller's Managing Your Photographic Workflow with Photoshop Lightroom. This is probably the best and most to-the-point introduction to Lightroom I've seen yet, but it also has a sprinkling of worthwhile advice within its framework that I find accurate and useful. (One note: all these Lightroom books need a pretty thorough rework with Lightroom 2.0 on the horizon.)
Color
Management
sRGB and AdobeRGB and ICC profiles and all those other wonderfully
confusing things that get in the way of good color on our digital
cameras deserved a book of their own, and Bruce Fraser, Chris Murphy,
and Fred Bunting teamed up to give us an excellent one: Real
World Color Management, now in its second edition. Thank goodness, because color management
is the number two question I get from new to digital photographers.
The sample screens are all Macintosh OS-X, but don't that bother
you, this book is useful for Windows users, too. I wish that it
was a little more 1,2,3 (i.e., instructional) in style, but this
book covers it all, and gives plenty of good advice. Two other decent choices are Andrew Rodney's Color Management for Photographers and Dan Safir's Mastering Digital Color.
Technique
Basic photography techniques have long been the subject of writers,
with Ansel Adams being one of the most recognized names to tackle
these challenging subjects. If you haven't read the classic Ansel
books, now updated, you should. The Camera is a good starting place. If exposure is your hang up,
try Bryan Peterson's Understanding
Exposure, a straightforward and understandable book that should
get you thinking correctly. For nature photography, go to John
Shaw,
one of the preeminent practitioners for John
Shaw's Nature Photography Field Guide. Another more recent choice that's decent is Alain Briot's Mastering Landscape Photography.
Update: It's not exactly a technique book, but it has so much technique advice in it that I've put it in this category: Joe McNally's The Moment it Clicks. McNally is one of the best-known American photographers and I'm certain you've seen some of his pictures along the way (especially true if you read Life or National Geographic). This part-autobiography, part-photo retrospective, part-teaching conglomeration is one of those rare hodgepodge collections that works, both in individual sections and as a whole. McNally's personality, style, and methods come across loud and clear, and it's fascinating how the three interact to form a cohesive whole. There have been a few people who've raved about the reproduction in this book, but I find it only adequate; McNally's photos aren't fully done justice here, though you'll get a strong sense of them. This is a highly recommended work simply because it reveals what goes on behind the camera in a way that you don't get elsewhere. The fact that the photos are exceptional and there's plenty to learn if you pick through some of the details make for an even bigger payoff:
Composition
Freeman Patterson is a well-known Canadian photographer whose work
I admire. Like me, he teaches small workshops and prefers coming
up with challenges for individuals. But what I like most about Freeman's
approach is that he likes to push the visual composition rules and
mold them to his own vision, something all photographers talk about
but very few achieve. To get a flavor for one of his workshops,
get Photographing
the World Around You. His better known book is Photography
and the Art of Seeing. Both are highly recommended by me. Freeman has quite a free other books available, all worth looking at, but the two I mention first are the best starting places for his work. I've also added a Michael Freeman book that I can recommend on composition, as well. For a more conceptual approach to what works in art, try the 96-page Picture This: How Pictures Work. This simple little book is an eye-opener for anyone who hasn't studied art. Don't let the fact that's it was targeted as a child's book throw you off, this book presents basic concepts of art you need to know to successfully compose photographs.
Update: While not directly a compositional book, Developing Vision & Style: A Landscape Photography Masterclass is one of those "almost" books that can inspire you and get you thinking about composition. I say "almost" because there's nothing concrete you'll take away from this book. Most of the discussions of vision and style are often vague and unhelpful (e.g. "I try to trust my own reaction to a particular scene"). Still, if you dig hard you'll find things that can help direct your thinking (e.g. allow "your eyes to absorb the relationships that all the elements of the landscape have with one another") [the key word there is "relationships" by the way; most photographers don't stop to examine the relationships before composing]. The photos, fortunately, are mostly excellent, often inspiring (though not often "inspired"), well reproduced, and if nothing else give you something to aspire to. A good book to ponder on a gloomy, non-photography day.
Light
Working the Light is an interesting book in that it delivers three British pro views about how light plays an important role in a large number of example photos; basically a good thought provoking exercise. Peter Watson's Capturing the Light is in a similar vein, with excellent explanations of the issues involved with lighting and landscape photography (the photo reproduction leaves a bit to be desired, though). Joe Cornish's First Light is an inspirational book of excellent photographs, with decent explanations about how they were created.
Update: What was missing in the above was a good book on the basics of light. I'm happy to say that I've found one that I can recommend: Light Science and Magic. If you don't know about reflections, diffusion, color temperature, inverse square laws, directionality, and a whole host of other light basics, this is the work to start with:
The Rowells
Many of you know that I grew up down the street from Barbara Cushman
Rowell and that her husband, Galen, was my photographic mentor for
many years. Their deathswere tragic, but their spirit
lives on in their writing. Barbara's book Flying
South: A Pilot's Inner Journey didn't get much publicity because
her unexpected demise came just prior to her pre-publication promotion
tour. But it's a story well worth reading, if for no other reason
than to see what a person can accomplish in the shadow of a better
known partner. Barbara wanted an adventure of her own, and she got
one heck of a ride. Galen, too, had a book published posthumously: High
and Wild: Essays on Wilderness Adventure. Not a photography
book, per se, in many ways it is one of his better books. Since
Galen supervised the scans and color management in all of his recent
books and was still learning new tricks, the images here are reproduced
as well as I've ever seen his work. Another recent Galen book is a retrospective of his photographs, and well worth the time for someone who hasn't seen the best of his work in decent reproduction: Galen Rowell, a Retrospective. Also worth picking up is the book that really kicked off Galen's photography essays, Mountain Light.
Miscellany
All outdoor photographers need to understand the weather and sky
phenomena, and John
Naylor's Out of the Blue is a superb book that'll
tell you
everything
from how to find rainbows to inferior mirages to eclipses, and
even the infamous "green flash" at sunset. This book needs to be
in your library. Along similar lines, Color and Light in Nature by Lynch and Livingston explains natural phenomenon that every photographer needs to understand. The two books, taken together, pretty much cover it all, and are necessities for every photographer's bookshelf.
Lee Frost's panorama book is a good starting place for panorama beginners.
|
