I’ve been reading The Digital Photography Handbook by Doug Harman recently.
Working from the very basics, (What’s a digital camera then Bob?), through so some of the more advanced shooting techniques including motion blur etc, it gives a good basic overview of the world of Digital Cameras. Once the basics are covered, there are a series of good sections covering post processing, these include simple things like getting your pictures from your camera right up into cloning and special effects.
All in all I found it a good little read. Maybe a little patronising at times, but given it’s aimed at the likes of me who knows nothing maybe I shouldn’t complain about the few times it told me stuff I already knew…
The pictures in the book are all in keeping with the theme and for the most part you left feeling as if you will be able to achieve them as well (unlike some of the other books I’ve seen).
My only complaint is that the tutorials all appear to be for Photoshop Elements, which is a pain if you’re just getting into the hobby and don’t want to splash out for it on top of the camera, lenses, batteries, bags, memory cards… For such a cheap and friendly little book, they would have done well to use something like GIMP as the basis for tutorials.
Still, when all is said and done. It’s a good little read for beginners and at under a fiver it’s good value too…