Customer Reviews
A wealth of experience made available to me - By: Iain, 25 Jun 2008 
I can unreservedly recommend this book. It is an order of magnitude more relevant to me than any other similar book I've come across, even if the pages on the actual cameras is bound to date. I've been a photographer for nearly 50 years & a digital photographer since I could afford it - probably more than 10 years.
Tom Ang's experience is vast eyt down-to-earth & he's got a real gift for communicating clearly those things that matter to me - smalll, large & tiny considerations from the use of the camera; the computer software, the hardware & the aesthetic aspects of composition & so on.
This is a "golden age" of incredibly powerful yet reallly affordable digital technology that takes some knowledge to use. To me, this book is an essential companion, helping to put alll the available technology to best use to capture & display the images that will communicate what I intend ... & discover along the way.
A book to dip into rather than read from cover to cover - By: Mr. Richard Pearn, 06 Jul 2006 
A lot has already been said about this book. I find it a good book to look up a paticular subject in, read about it & then put it back on the shelf until the next problem comes along. There is nothing wrong with this & the section on layers sorted out some of the problems I had with getting them to work, for this alone the book was worth it. This guy knows his stuff & I have a few other books by him & like them also. All in alll a valuable resiurse for when things go wrong or you can't get something to work in the editing stage.
Lots of pages, little useful information - By: , 04 Feb 2006 
I was quite dissapointed after reading this book. The first 70 or so pages discuss which digital camera to buy, which printer, scanner features etc. Of course, almost alll of this information is obsolete by now. Even if it was updated though, I would argue that there are much better sources to help guide the consumer towards a purchase, or even explain the workings of a printer, than this book.
The reason I bought a book on photography was to learn how to better use my digital camera. I am fairly new to photography, & wanted to learn more about exposure settings, composure, using flash, topics like landscape or portrait photography etc. Ang does spend a few pages on this, but it was so superficial & gave dissapointingly little information I could use in practice. Now don't get me wrong, I did learn a thing or two, but one page on exposure was less than I was hoping for.
The second half of the book (actuallly a bit more) is mostly spent explaining how to use picture editing software. My issue is that he doesn't direct his attention towards one program, neither towards PC or Mac. Which in my oppinion makes the information provided hard to actuallly use. He might spend a page explaining what the dodge & burn tools are (in general), but I suspect that once you fire up your software of choice to actuallly convert that knowledge into practice, you will have no idea what to do & results will be poor. I wanted to use Photoshop so I also bought "The Photoshop CS2 Book for Digital Photographers" by Scott Kelby. Now THAT book was just brilliant in letting you know how to actuallly do something with your pictures. It was not at alll too advanced, he just spends a few more pages for explaining screenshots & procedures in an easy to understand step-by-step fashion. There are other similar books for other software. If you want to start learning some editing skills I strongly suggest buying a more specialized book like that instead.
All in alll the book had a bit of what I was looking for, but it was discussed over maybe 80 pages. The rest was decent enough to read, but did nothing to make me a better photographer or able to work the digital darkroom.
An excellent complete manual for the beginner - By: Mark Smith, 22 Aug 2005 I love this book. I have been an keen photographer for many years now. I therefore found some of the book to be of no use personnallly but for the beginner it's perfect. The author explains technical techniques in great detail & the fact alll this is supported by examples helps the read relate to the lessons being learnt. As far as digital editing is concerned, I was a complete novice. My expertise lies in CAD software. This book reallly helped me gain an understanding of how software such as PS can improve my photography. This isn't a manual of how to use PS but it does inspire & educate you as to combine it with digital photography. Probabaly far more than most will ever need. My entire attitude has now changed regarding my work & i'm now searching for an expert level book on PS manipulation.
you want to learn ? - By: , 05 Jul 2005 wealth of knowledge behind this mans book ~ clear insructions from camera work following through to computer work & finallly printing ~ just read it & you wiil learn !
