World Famous Comics: Advanced Digital Black & White Photography (A Lark Photography Book)
Advanced Digital Black & White Photography (A Lark Photography Book)
By: John Beardsworth Publisher: Lark Books Average Rating: Binding: Paperback Label: Lark Books Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 192 Publication Date: October 01, 2007
Digital photographers can now attain the enduring beauty of black-and-white photography in their own work! There’s more to monochrome than just discarding the color in Photoshop, but many books simply treat it as an afterthought. Not this one! John Beardsworth teaches every major method of making a color picture black and white, and explains what kind of images are best, and why. Both ambitious newcomers and advanced enthusiasts will learn how to achieve the richest tonal depth and balance, use black and white to interpret the subject for the viewer, reproduce historic and darkroom processes, add creative and special effects, and produce exhibition-quality prints.
Excellent How-To Book For Creating Better B&W Digital Images I borrowed this book from the library along with several other 'how-to' photography books, and this was the only one that pushed me to get up and actually try some of the tricks at the computer. To get the most out of this book, you're shooting with a D-SLR in RAW and you've got PhotoShop. Yes, it's possible to shoot in black-and-white straight out of the camera, but that isn't really getting the most out of your camera. Converting to b&w via grayscale or desaturation isn't the best option either. PhotoShop will help you convert your color RAW images into stunning monochrome or Duotone, and this book is an invaluable guide. I am not a PhotoShop novice, but I'm not an expert either. I'm an intermediate-level photography hobbyist. This book provided many tips and tricks that I did not yet know. It is so useful that I'm putting it on my Christmas list, because I haven't absorbed all of the info yet. It's by far one of the best specific guides to learning more about PhotoShop.
Revised edition needed "Advanced Digital Black and White Photography" is not a bad book, it just needs a bit of polishing to be good, is all.
The author does give a lot of good advice about how to make good monotone photographs and I think he covers quite a lot of ground. He does, however, not present his material in a acceptable manner. First of all, there are far too many tpye-o's in the text, which is quite irritating. Secondly, and far more importantly, the author presents his photoshop methods in a less than clear fashion, often keeping the reader guessing as exactly how to go ahead and put them to use. He assumes the reader has some knowledge about photoshop, which naturally means, that one shouldn't expect a step by step guide, but the descriptions are at times downright confusing.
I believe that the work of a good editor in conjunction with a good proofreader is needed here. It's not a bad book, but with a little effort, it could be so much better.
Great insights to mastering B&W Excellent explanations and examples - highly suggest it for those interested in mastering B&W digital photos!
Black & White photography This book can be good for beginers but otherwise disapointing if you are looking for ways to better your work.
A good dtarting point This book is a great starting point for learning digital B&W conversions. It starts out with a little history and terminology of the B&W world, then dives into the different ways you can achieve this effect in Photoshop CS2, then in how to use the new B&W conversion tool in CS3. It does have a small section on Lightroom as well, but since Lightroom was new at the time of printing, this section is very thin.
I don't think the book is the definitive book for digital B&W, but I have found it very useful. I will say you will get more out of this book if you have CS3.
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