The second book in this acclaimed series from noted photographer and digital imaging expert Eddie Tapp delves into color management, a topic that has needlessly become a mystery to experienced digital photographers, whether they're avid amateurs, serious students, or working professionals. With his easygoing yet authoritative style, Eddie sheds light on this topic and supplies an understanding of color management that readers apply to their own work.

Clear and concise, this highly visual book explains how color management is a part of the overall photographic workflow. Eddie demonstrates the three stages of color managed workflow, from choosing a color space, to calibrating your devices, to applying appropriate profiles, and shows you exactly what you need to know and why you need to know it. Color management scientist Rick Lucas contributes a chapter on the hard-core technical aspects. Other books on color management are much too long, involved and intimidating. This absorbing book sets the right tone and supplies you with key answers quickly.

Our Eddie Tapp on Digital Photography book series brings you the focused knowledge you need on specific areas of digital photography. Acknowledged as one of the premier trainers of digital imaging in the world, Eddie brings his teaching experience to bear on issues that other books gloss over or bury under general coverage. Now, you don't have to buy a doorstop-sized book to get the key information you need on color management, efficient workflow, or a variety of other specific digital imaging topics.

Eddie Tapp on Digital Photography also covers workflow setup; advanced and professional production techniques; controlling digital color and tone; creative enhancement techniques; and more. This series is a perfect complement to O'Reilly's general list on Photoshop and digital photography, and offers you focused books that cover technical issues at prices that are affordable and solutions that are quickly accessible. We're thrilled that Eddie Tapp has finally agreed to publish books -- and with O'Reilly.

Amazon.com® Reader Reviews (Ranked by Helpfulness)

Average Amazon.com® Rating:  Based on 10 Ratings

Very disappointing - 2008-10-25
Reviewer Rating:
Yet another large format photography book with an emphasis on pictures and very weak on explanation. I endured only the first four chapters, within which terms were repeatedly introduced which had yet to be defined or explained. The author credits his "color guru" as a supporting author but the extraordinarily poor and suspicious explanations of basic color management concepts leads me to conclude that the author doesn't understand the material in a fundamental way and should have let the "guru" write the book. I tossed the book in the trash after the author equated a pixel with a photon.

Really valuable information on an arcane subject - 2007-05-05
Reviewer Rating:
One of the major hurdles of the digital imaging revolution has been learning a whole new set of concepts and their associated language. It's a very different science from the analog, silver-based photography of the last hundred years or so and it takes a certain amount of serious concentration and persistence to master. One of the core threads running through all of it is the concept of color management - the control of color data from start to finish so what you end up with is as close as possible to what your eyes saw in the first place.

This is no small order as it includes multiple input, editing, and output devices along with completely different methods of gathering and displaying color information. In addition, there's as much art as science in the process, and agreement on standards has been slow to evolve. Fortunately, we've reached a point in the technology stream where a serious photographer or graphic artist can now do a very credible job of keeping colors on track with a modicum of specialized tools and the purposeful discipline to use them.

For the average digital photographer, color management theory can be mind-numbingly arcane, even though it is crucial to setting up an efficient and effective overall workflow. If you want to color manage properly, you have to assimilate a certain amount of theory or the whole process will fail to make any sense. This is where Eddie Tapp does an excellent job of simplifying the information as much as possible, presenting it in a logical order, and is able to pack a very thorough discussion of the topic in less than 150 pages - a real feat.

The book is laid out in an interesting fashion with text on the outside third of each page and the center section filled up with colorful pictures and screen shots. Some of it's eye candy, but that's what sells books these days I'm sure. Many of the screen shots and other illustrations are valuable though as they answer important questions regarding particular selections in critical software dialog boxes, and the explanation of terms and methods is very lucid and direct. The author does an excellent job of going deep where it's important while avoiding unneeded complexity for its own sake. There's a certain amount of technical heavy lifting that one has to do to become competent in this arena, but Eddie's made it as easy as any document I've seen. In addition, the appendix contains a highly useful excerpt from the Universal Photographic Digital Imaging Guidelines and extensive additional resource listings.

Good advice and information about a confusing subject - 2007-05-13
Reviewer Rating:
Eddie Tapp is a great photographer who travels and gives practical inforamation in workshops. I have attended his workshops and so I wasn't reluctent to try his book. I am glad I did. It gave me the information I needed to correct my color management workflow.

too general and thin on theory - 2008-11-19
Reviewer Rating:
I've read a LOT, really a lot, on this subject and what I was looking for was not a book like this. I wanted something that offered more theory, something that would help me understand what color models are all about and why they are different, why sRGB can't encompass the same wide gamut as Adobe RGB for example (instead of being told flat out that it just doesn't), and what does it mean that there are colors that can't be seen by humans. I guess that being a mathematician by training and a software engineer by practice, I was looking for something more than click here and press that. It's a slick beautifully produced book, but it's not what I was looking for.

Eddie Tapp Book Series - 2008-10-09
Reviewer Rating:
Practical Color Management: Eddie Tapp on Digital Photography (Eddie Tapp on Digital Photogra) This book is the next best thing to being in a classroom. Color management is a huge undertaking for even the best of professionals, and this book is an excellent place to start. There are many books on color management, but this work by Eddie Tapp is truly outstanding!

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