Description:
The Digital Darkroomtakes a conventional darkroom technician's approach to a favorite and powerful image editing tool, Adobe Photoshop. With opening discussions on the nature of film versus digital images, and how they relate to printing, this is an excellent book for photographers entering the digital realm, including new users of Photoshop with an eye for black and white printing. The book begins with a section on setting up and configuring the computer, as well as calibrating the monitor and Photoshop. There is no CD-ROM with the book, so readers must have their own files for experimenting and learning. Unlike most computer-centric books, this is an oversize softcover, each page a glossy print with excellent reproduction befitting a book on photography. The quality of the images and the examples is excellent, and the author writes in a clear, concise manner with easy-to-follow short tutorials that include before-and-after images. There is something special about nudging a sheet of photographic paper in a bath of chemicals and watching the latent image emerge. A romantic notion, but there is no undo command, no history palette, and no adjustment layers. Exploring options in a darkroom is a time- and money-consuming task that often leads to wasted sheets and stained clothes. In The Digital Darkroom, the only thing missing is the smell of the chemicals. --Mike Caputo
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