Introduction

For the bulk of photography history, change and innovation have come in the form of new types of hardware. Look back over the history of the development of photography and you’ll see breakthrough moments of all kinds: roll film, the SLR, the light meter, the electronic flash, the zoom lens, image stabilization, and on and on. I would also include in that list the advancement of film and paper technology: color film, more sensitive film, and film stocks with unique contrast and color qualities. Still, all of these changes represent advances in the physical hardware realm.

Those advances are still occurring, of course. The shift to digital imaging was one of the most significant events in all of photographic history, and digital image sensors continue to improve, as does lens technology. Camera vendors also find all sorts of new features to pack into their hardware from face recognition autofocus to the ability to capture video.

But these days, the dramatic breakthroughs that open up new photographic possibilities are software-based as often as they are hardware-based. For example, the development of panoramic stitching software in the early 2000s made it possible to shoot wide angle vistas that were previously unobtainable. Software advances allow us to now capture scenes with very high dynamic range, to shoot in low light, and to correct perspective and lens distortion. These advances not only allow us to repair what would previously have been unusable images, but they also let us visualize and capture scenes that were simply impossible to photograph before.

This sixth edition of Complete Digital Photography has seen a lot of changes from start to finish, but the most profound changes occur in the postproduction chapters of the book because, right now, the most profound changes in photography are happening in software.

But while software advances mean there are new tools to learn, ultimately, learning photography has not changed from the earliest days. Technically, the most critical concepts to understand are still the fundamental concepts of exposure. And while new technologies open up new avenues of visual expression, these possibilities are irrelevant if you don’t understand the fundamentals of composition and how to see photographically. These fundamentals come into play both when shooting and editing, which is why fully half this book is devoted to the essential foundations of the photographic process.

With each new edition, I get more feedback about what does and doesn’t work, in terms of instruction. Alongside this, my workshops and classroom instruction have continually helped me refine and revise my teaching concepts. Consequently, there are changes and, what I hope are improvements, to explanations and discussions throughout this book.

So, no matter what your skill level, you will most likely find something in these pages that will help you advance your shooting to a new level.

How This Book Is Organized

If you’re familiar with one of the first five editions of Complete Digital Photography, then you’ll notice some huge changes with this latest revision. In addition to lots of new material, the book has a radically altered structure, borne of my teaching experience over the past few years.

Photographic technology, whether digital or film, sees the world very differently from your eyes, and it’s important to understand how your camera’s results will differ from your visual experience at the scene. Therefore, Chapter 1, “Eyes, Brains, Lights, and Images,” leads you through an exploration of your visual sense and how it differs from your camera. Many of the concepts in this chapter will become critical when you learn more about exposure.

Chapters 2 and 3, “Getting to Know Your Camera” and “Camera Anatomy,” serve to familiarize you with your camera. Like any tool, you’ll get better results from your camera if you know how to use it well, and these chapters should get you up to speed with all those buttons and dials.

To assess the results of the exercises in Chapters 2 and 3, you’ll need to move your images into your computer. Chapter 4, “Image Transfer,” will walk you through the process of importing images from your camera.

The great film photographers of the past didn’t just understand composition and exposure theory, they also had detailed understanding of the chemistry of their film and darkroom technologies. It was this understanding that provided them with such fine control over their final result. Digital photographers similarly benefit from an understanding of digital image capture, so Chapter 5, “Image Sensors,” walks you through the basics of how the guts of your digital camera work.

Chapters 6, 7, and 8—“Exposure Basics,” “Program Mode,” and “Advanced Exposure”—provide a thorough, detailed series of lessons in exposure theory. Starting with the most basic concerns and controls, you’ll progress steadily up to the most advanced exposure features of your camera and learn how these tools can be used to broaden your expressive palette.

Chapter 9, “Finding and Composing a Photo,” gives you a break from the technical concerns of shooting, and offers a lengthy discussion of how you go about finding a potential subject, and how to craft that subject into a final image. Photography is a discipline that rewards constant practice and experimentation, and this chapter will provide you with an understanding of the nontechnical subjects that you will explore for the rest of your photographic life.

Just about any digital camera you buy these days will have a built-in flash unit, and learning to use it can be tricky. Chapter 10, “Lighting,” will walk you through the process of modifying light using flashes and reflectors.

All SLRs and many point-and-shoot cameras offer the ability to shoot in raw format, which provides several advantages over the JPEG shooting that your camera defaults to. Chapter 11, “Raw Shooting,” discusses the particular advantages of raw shooting and addresses specific concerns that you’ll face when shooting in raw mode.

Chapter 12, “Special Shooting,” takes the detailed understanding of shooting that you glean from the first 11 chapters, and applies it to specific situations. In this chapter, you’ll learn to shoot sporting events, theatrical events, how to shoot in low light, and much more.

With Chapters 13 and 14, “Workflow” and “Editing Workflow and First Steps,” your post-production education will begin, starting with a discussion of what workflow is and why it matters.

As you’ll learn in the workflow chapters, one of your first image editing tasks is to correct tone, so Chapter 15, “Correcting Tone,” will walk you through basic tonal adjustments. This is followed by Chapter 16, “Correcting Color.”

While raw editing is very similar to the editing tools you’ll learn in Chapters 15 and 16, there are some important differences, and you’ll learn about these in Chapter 17, “Image Editing in Raw.” Here, you’ll also learn about raw workflow and where raw editing fits into your overall postproduction pipeline.

Chapter 18, “Masking,” presents some of the most important tools that you’ll add to your editing arsenal. With masks, you can make localized edits and adjustments, and good masking skills can be crucial to getting the results you want.

Black-and-white processing is given a detailed discussion in Chapter 19, “Black-and-White Conversion,” while layers and other special effects and retouching tools are covered in Chapter 20, “Layers, Retouching, and Special Effects.”

Panoramic stitching and HDR (high dynamic range) merging are covered in Chapter 21, “Panoramic Stitching and HDR Merging.” These lessons build on the panoramic and HDR shooting discussions that are introduced in Chapter 12.

Finally, the last stage of your workflow is covered in Chapter 22, “Output,” where you’ll learn how to turn your finished images into files for email, Web pages, or archival prints.

However, this book offers you much more than what’s printed on these pages. Throughout the book, you’ll find Web links to movies and additional PDF documents that you can download. These resources will provide you with further discussions, examples, and tutorials on a wide variety of topics.

What You Need

Obviously, to take pictures you need a camera, and this book assumes that you already have one. However, if you don’t, the companion Web site offers an additional chapter, Chapter 23, Choosing a Digital Camera.” This chapter offers a comprehensive, exhaustive discussion that provides a detailed methodology for assessing and choosing a camera. You can download it from www.completedigitalphotography.com/CDP6.

The postproduction chapters of this book are built around Adobe Photoshop, and you can download a 30-day demo of Photoshop from www.adobe.com/downloads. However, most image editing programs use similar interfaces, so you should find that the editing lessons herein translate very easily to many other image editing programs.

The Photoshop tutorials are built around the latest version of Photoshop (as of this writing), which is Photoshop CS5. Most of the tutorials will work on earlier versions, and Photoshop Elements can easily be used for the book’s tutorial sections. I’ve noted places where discussed features are CS5-only.

Finally, you need to have some curiosity about photography and the world in general. As with any art form, photography is a process of exploration. There’s no recipe for a good photo, and while I recommend some specific ways of doing things, it’s very rare that my recommendations are the best for everybody. Don’t ever stop exploring on your own and trying to find the methods that work best for you.

There are many more tutorials, reviews, essays, and articles at the book’s companion Web site www.completedigitalphotography.com. You can also email me through the site by clicking on the “Contact Us” link.

Glossary

Photography has always involved a lot of jargon and technical terms, and to help you with those I’ve built a glossary on the companion Web site. You can find it at www.completedigitalphotography.com/glossary.

Companion Web Site Downloads

You may download the companion Web site files from www.completedigitalphotography.com/CDP6.