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Contents at a Glance
Introduction ...... 1 Book I: The Digital Single Lens Reflex Camera...... 7 Chapter 1: Taking a Shot at the Digital Single Lens Reflex Camera...... 9 Chapter 2: Revealing Exposure Controls...... 19 Chapter 3: Understanding Exposure’s Overs, Unders, and Right-Ons ...... 41 Chapter 4: Working with Lenses, the Camera’s Eye...... 55 Book II: The Digital Photograph...... 71 Chapter 1: Storing Your Images from the Camera and Beyond...... 73 Chapter 2: Supporting Your Local DSLR...... 87 Chapter 3: Making Better Photographs ...... 101 Book III: The Digital Negative ...... 123 Chapter 1: Choosing the Best Format: JPEG or RAW...... 125 Chapter 2: Archiving Your Digital Negatives...... 147 Chapter 3: Presenting Proofs to Friends, Family, and the World...... 195 Chapter 4: Introducing Adobe Camera Raw 3...... 215 Book IV: Working with Photographs in Photoshop CS2...241 Chapter 1: Building Bridges: Working with Adobe Bridge ...... 243 Chapter 2: Controlling Colors and Balancing White ...... 253 Chapter 3: Refining Exposure ...... 269 Chapter 4: Commanding Colors and Using Layer Masks ...... 283 Book V: Preserving Pixels ...... 315 Chapter 1: Understanding Nondestructive Editing...... 317 Chapter 2: Creating Stunning Black and White...... 343 Chapter 3: Retouching Photographs of People ...... 355 Chapter 4: GettingCOPYRIGHTED What You See Onscreen to ComeMATERIAL Out in Print...... 391 Book VI: Appendixes ...... 397 Appendix A: Resources...... 399 Appendix B: Kevin’s Essential Photoshop Keyboard Shortcuts ...... 401 Bonus Chapter 1: Beating the Shoebox Syndrome via Cataloging...... 405 Bonus Chapter 2: Presenting Electronic Proofs...... 423 Index ...... 431 02_595776 ftoc.qxd 11/15/05 7:21 PM Page xiv 02_595776 ftoc.qxd 11/15/05 7:21 PM Page xv
Table of Contents
Introduction...... 1 About This Book...... 1 Foolish Assumptions ...... 2 Conventions...... 3 How This Book Is Organized...... 3 Icons, Sidebars, and Tips . . . Oh My!...... 5 And Wait . . . There’s More! ...... 6
Book I: The Digital Single Lens Reflex Camera...... 7
Chapter 1: Taking a Shot at the Digital Single Lens Reflex Camera . . . .9 Introducing the Digital Single Lens Reflex Camera...... 9 Parts Are Parts ...... 11 On the back and top...... 11 Up front...... 13 Wondering if Sensor Size Matters ...... 14 Back story ...... 14 Format, grain, and resolution ...... 14 How digital sensors see...... 15 Adding Up Lens Magnification Factors ...... 16 Sizing up digital sensors...... 16 Keeping the true focal length...... 17 Chapter 2: Revealing Exposure Controls ...... 19 Controlling Your Exposure...... 19 Getting to Know Your ISOs...... 21 ISO and Measuring Light ...... 22 Trading Off with ISO...... 23 The Long and Short of Shutter Speeds...... 26 Shuttering in Creativity ...... 27 Exercising the Shutter’s Genius...... 31 Opening Apertures...... 34 Holding Your Focus — or Not...... 35 Focusing in on Depth of Field ...... 38 02_595776 ftoc.qxd 11/15/05 7:21 PM Page xvi
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Chapter 3: Understanding Exposure’s Overs, Unders, and Right-Ons ...... 41 Knowing Your DSLR’s Light Meter’s Limitations...... 41 Thinking Like Your Light Meter...... 42 Telling Horse Tales of Black, White, and Gray...... 43 Shades of gray in a colorful world...... 43 Metering practice ...... 44 Reviewing the results...... 48 Putting it together ...... 53 Chapter 4: Working with Lenses, the Camera’s Eye ...... 55 Doing That Thing They Do...... 55 Understanding focal lengths ...... 56 Doing the math on focal length numbers...... 57 Broadening Your View from Telephoto to Wide Angle...... 58 Normal lenses ...... 59 Wide-angle lenses ...... 59 Telephoto lenses ...... 62 Getting picky with selective focus ...... 64 Comparing Focal Lengths ...... 65 Pampering Your Lensbabies...... 69
Book II: The Digital Photograph ...... 71
Chapter 1: Storing Your Images from the Camera and Beyond ...... 73 Exploring Storage for DSLR Cameras ...... 73 IBM/Hitachi Microdrives ...... 74 CompactFlash Cards...... 75 Getting inside...... 75 Showing some speed...... 76 Sizing things up...... 76 Durability...... 76 When flash cards fail...... 77 Formatting CompactFlash cards ...... 78 Caring for CompactFlash cards ...... 79 Copying Images from CompactFlash Cards ...... 80 Seeing a psychic: Card readers...... 80 Copying your images ...... 81 Backing ’em up...... 83 02_595776 ftoc.qxd 11/15/05 7:21 PM Page xvii
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Making a permanent archive...... 85 Deleting files...... 85 Chapter 2: Supporting Your Local DSLR ...... 87 Hand-Holding Your DSLR Camera ...... 87 Amateurs with wings ...... 87 Showing the right stuff...... 89 Gripping vertically...... 90 Supporting Your Local Camera ...... 91 Picking a tripod...... 92 Taking time exposures...... 95 Chapter 3: Making Better Photographs ...... 101 Finding White’s Color ...... 101 Feeling the heat ...... 102 White and gray matter...... 102 Taking white and digital photography...... 104 Playing your neutral reference card ...... 107 Composing Some Basics ...... 110 Schooling on composition principles ...... 110 Dusting in the Wind: Your Sensor ...... 116 Sensing what dust does ...... 116 Choosing cleaning tools ...... 117
Book III: The Digital Negative...... 123
Chapter 1: Choosing the Best Format: JPEG or RAW ...... 125 Diving into Bit Depth ...... 125 It’s all about the number of tones ...... 125 Doing some 8-bit and 16-bit math...... 130 Making digital color happen ...... 137 8-bits in living color...... 138 The JPEG Format...... 139 Weighing JPEG’s pros...... 140 Seeing is understanding ...... 140 Capturing JPEG ...... 142 Serving It RAW ...... 143 Eyeing the Bottom Line: RAW versus JPEG...... 145 02_595776 ftoc.qxd 11/15/05 7:21 PM Page xviii
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Chapter 2: Archiving Your Digital Negatives ...... 147 Playing the Renaming Game ...... 147 Computing literally...... 148 Naming conventions ...... 150 Giving Your Digital Negative Files New Names...... 153 Enhancing Digital Negatives ...... 158 Backing Up Your Copied Files...... 162 Going with external hard drives...... 164 Backing up other ways ...... 164 Weighing CD against DVD...... 165 CD or DVD? That is the question...... 166 Burn Baby, Burn ...... 167 Burning the CD or DVD...... 167 Printing the label ...... 169 Goof-Proofing the Discs...... 173 Making a copyright notice file ...... 175 Writing the action to proof your disc ...... 178 Checking your action ...... 186 Reviewing your disc...... 187 Chapter 3: Presenting Proofs to Friends, Family, and the World . . .195 Proof Sheets: Showing Your Work the Classic Way...... 195 Using Contact Sheet II...... 197 Going Once more onto the Bridge: Web Photo Galleries...... 207 Making your own photography web site automatically...... 207 Web photo gallery styles...... 213 Chapter 4: Introducing Adobe Camera Raw 3 ...... 215 Cooking with Adobe Camera Raw 3...... 215 Tooling around ACR3’s Bar ...... 216 Zoom Tool (Z) ...... 216 Hand Tool (H or Spacebar) ...... 217 White Balance Tool (I) ...... 218 Color Sampler Tool (S) ...... 218 Crop Tool (C) ...... 218 Straighten Tool (A)...... 222 Rotate Tools: CCW (L) and CW (R) ...... 223 Toggle Mark for Delete icon ...... 225 Setting the White Balance in ACR3 ...... 225 02_595776 ftoc.qxd 11/15/05 7:21 PM Page xix
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Fine-Tuning Exposure ...... 228 Applying the new settings...... 230 Sliding into perfect exposure...... 233 What’s Black and White and Raw All Over?...... 234 Setting Workflow Options ...... 238
Book IV: Working with Photographs in Photoshop CS2 ...241
Chapter 1: Building Bridges: Working with Adobe Bridge ...... 243 Tripping the Digital Light Box . . . Fantastic!...... 243 Getting Choosy about Images...... 245 Resorting to Sorting Photographs ...... 247 Sorting manually...... 247 Shooting them a star...... 249 Labeling in color...... 249 Filtering...... 250 Opening the chosen ones in Adobe Camera Raw 3 ...... 251 JPEGs, Bridge, and Photoshop ...... 251 Chapter 2: Controlling Colors and Balancing White ...... 253 Photoshop Color, Neutral Color, and All Those Numbers ...... 254 Playing the Correcting Color Numbers Game ...... 256 Setting up...... 256 Balancing the highlights ...... 260 Neutralizing the shadows...... 264 Daring to compare...... 267 Chapter 3: Refining Exposure ...... 269 Exposing Yourself Well ...... 270 Going by the numbers ...... 270 Going by the histogram ...... 272 Overexposure...... 272 Boosting Exposure Values...... 275 Setting up...... 275 Adding a Levels adjustment layer ...... 277 Working up dark shadows...... 277 TANSTAAFL: There Ain’t No Such Thing as a Free Lunch...... 280 Seeing missing pixels ...... 280 Combing...... 281 02_595776 ftoc.qxd 11/15/05 7:21 PM Page xx
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Chapter 4: Commanding Colors and Using Layer Masks ...... 283 Filtering Photos ...... 283 Introducing Layer Masks: Black Conceals, White Reveals...... 286 Filling the layer mask with black...... 289 Setting up your brush ...... 291 Painting on the layer mask...... 296 Cooling the dress and background ...... 296 Working smarter...... 299 Getting Special Effects with nik Color Efex Pro 2.0...... 301 Beginnings ...... 301 Having weird dreams ...... 302 More weird dreams ...... 305 Seeing weird dreams ...... 306 Painting in the skin...... 308 Bringing in the background...... 310 Finishing touches ...... 312
Book V: Preserving Pixels...... 315
Chapter 1: Understanding Nondestructive Editing ...... 317 Erasing the Evil Tools ...... 318 Hiding versus Erasing...... 318 Erasing ...... 318 Hiding...... 321 Cashing in on unlimited undos...... 326 Protecting the Background Layer ...... 328 Backing up the background ...... 328 Doing the minor fixes...... 329 Recovering from Big Mistakes...... 336 Chapter 2: Creating Stunning Black and White ...... 343 Making Color Happen ...... 343 Converting Color to B&W Three Ways ...... 344 Grayscale...... 345 Desaturate ...... 346 Channel Mixer...... 347 Mixing It Up Right...... 350 Selecting multiple layers ...... 350 Comparing the mix results...... 353 02_595776 ftoc.qxd 11/15/05 7:21 PM Page xxi
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Chapter 3: Retouching Photographs of People ...... 355 Debunking the Vanity Myth...... 355 Making Up a Difference...... 356 Mapping Out Your Strategy...... 357 Outlining How It’s Done...... 361 Softening lines...... 361 Healing the lines ...... 361 Bringing back some lines...... 367 Softening Laugh Lines with Nondestructive Editing ...... 368 Copying visible layers the hard way...... 368 Copying visible layers the way easy way ...... 369 Removing a flyaway or two ...... 371 Checking Your Work with the Strategy Map ...... 374 Cleaning up the Windows to the Soul...... 377 Darkening the pupils...... 377 Blending the enhancement of the pupils and iris edge ...... 380 Brightening the irises...... 381 Reducing the intensity of the enhancements ...... 384 Bucking the Dentist: Whitening Teeth...... 386 Brightening...... 386 Whitening ...... 388 Brightening and whitening ...... 390 Chapter 4: Getting What You See Onscreen to Come Out in Print . . . .391 Calibrating Your Monitor ...... 391 Understanding Color Profiles ...... 393 Applying Color Profiles and Printing...... 394
Book VI: Appendixes...... 397
Appendix A: Resources ...... 399
Appendix B: Kevin’s Essential Photoshop Keyboard Shortcuts . . . .401
Bonus Chapter 1: Beating the Shoebox Syndrome via Cataloging ...... 405
Bonus Chapter 2: Presenting Electronic Proofs...... 423
Index...... 431 02_595776 ftoc.qxd 11/15/05 7:21 PM Page xxii
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