CRAFT, VISION, ARTISTRY hether photography is your profession, your recreation, or just an aspiration, we hope this book will provide a whole new inspiration for making images in the digital world. It Is Time to Get Back to Making Images W Learning and effectively integrating the latest imaging hardware and software is an important step for stimulating new avenues of creativity and, ultimately, for realizing your creative goals. Although the digital age in photography has brought us many great technological advances and a tremendous leap in ease and speed of creative and photographic processes, the technology has also introduced many new challenges for the traditional craft. For many of us ­ visually adept and technically inept ­ these challenges have been diffi cult to surmount. With the onslaught of a seemingly endless array of choices it is almost impossible not to get caught up in the hype, become overwhelmed, and lose sight of one's photographic goals and passions. Cameras, equipment, computer technology, image manipulation programs, software, hardware, peripherals, and along with them countless books, how-to manuals, guides, tutorials, classes, workshops, training seminars and DVDs ­ all changing and evolving rapidly and continuously. The industry conveyor belt just keeps moving ahead, either with you or without you. So whether you abandon your traditional roots altogether, embrace the digital world without ever using film, or want to try to integrate the best of the old and the new, at some point most of us will have to get on that conveyor belt and hang on for the ride. Albeit a dazzling ride, with the latest and greatest in ease and speed, the industry continuously sells us more stuff, more techniques, more lessons, more algorithms, more plug-ins. Each new method, device or manual promises more advanced methods to help you create better pictures, take better pictures ­ or even more enticingly ­ to make better pictures for you. Although much of the latest equipment has made astounding improvements to our quality of capture and reproduction, and some of the increasingly diffi cult techniques are in fact necessary and exciting to master, it is not necessary to conquer every trick available in the digital domain. While learning to use better, faster and more effi cient tools, let us not forget that digital photography is more than just digital, it is also photography and goes far beyond the technical. xvi