Digital Photography for Dummies, First Edition

Author Julie Adair King, a photographer and graphics-software specialist, deftly explains such concepts as resolution, f-stop, and compression. She is also refreshingly upfront about the differences between film-based and digital photography, spelling out the latter's shortcomings early on. Her advice on all aspects of the field is well thought out and simple without being condescending. She informs readers, for example, that you needn't use high-pixel resolutions simply for placing images on a Web page. Such tips will come as a relief to fledgling photographers on a budget, or novices who may have thought they had to use the highest-quality settings at all times.

Aside from the technical concerns of working with the camera and computer, King also gives sound tips on composition and lighting. And since retouching is one of the principal benefits of digital photography, she spends a fair amount of time discussing photo-editing software. And while most of the examples are in black and white, the most important examples, gratefully, are included in a 16-page color plate section in the middle of the book.

For those of you considering jumping into the world of digital photography, you'll be hard-pressed to find a better guide to getting started than Digital Photography for Dummies. --John Frederick Moore

Product Description
Armed with a digital camera, you can take professional-quality images and have them ready for the world in a matter of minutes. And manipulating your images -- cropping them, fixing flaws, changing colors, and applying special effects -- is even easier with your computer than it would be in the darkroom. Digital Photography For Dummies is the plain-English guide to getting started and wowing your friends and associates with digital images. Author and graphics expert Julie Adair King shows you how to Discover what digital cameras can do and choose the best camera for your projects Find out all about lighting, focus, and composition Get the images from your camera into your computer and explore the options for formatting and storing your digital pictures Make your images look great by using an image editor to crop and resize pictures, adjust colors, fix glitches, and apply special effects Play with your pictures by painting on them and adding text Choose the right printer and paper to make picture-perfect printouts Convert your images into formats ready for the Web or e-mail You can have a great deal of fun taking your pictures and playing with them. Plus, you can absorb all that fancy technical jargon and start talking like a digital camera pro. Digital Photography For Dummies also features a valuable bonus CD-ROM containing timesaving, creativity-enhancing software and resources, including Sample images so you can get started learning image manipulation techniques Image editor demos, including MGI Photosuite SE, Paint Shop Pro, PhotoDeluxe 2.0, and PhotoImpact Image organizing tools, including ACDSee, Graphic Converter, and Portfolio Polaroid Corporation's Before & After, a one-step image editor Graphic Converter, from Lemke Software, for organizing your images in any file format LivePix, from the LivePix Company, to help you use images in publishing projects, and Presto! PhotoAlbum, from NewSoft, for creating digital photo albums