Adobe Elements 11, Lightroom 4, and Photoshop CS6
Question:Â “I’m looking at photography courses online. The courses are free but some require students to own or have access to various versions of Photoshop. Does anyone know if Photoshop 6 is the same as Photoshop CS6?”
Can a world class, National Geographic photographer lose his passion? Yes! How does he get it back?
Gifts for Photographers
Looking for the best photo gifts for a photographer? You’ve come to the right place. I have dozens of gift recommendations with prices starting at less than $4.
I have no idea when I was first entranced by the photos of Ansel Adams. There is a wonderful, luminous quality to his work. Small wonder he is America’s best known landscape photographer. Collections of his work would make a worthy addition to any photographer’s library. This is also the time of year that Ansel Adams calendars pop up like snowstorms.
The best advice I can give you is: Don’t buy any book or calendar with photos by Ansel Adams unless it is published by Little, Brown and Company, or by NYGS (New York Graphic Society, which is also published by Little, Brown).
Why?
Star Trails, Rocky Mountain National Park
Interested in getting into astrophotography? The simple stuff is simple to do (like the photo above). The hard stuff is hard and complicated to do if you want eye popping photos like you see in Astronomy and Sky and Telescope magazines. Here’s my advice.
Golden Brook. Photo © Tony Sweet
I’ve been reading two excellent nature photography books by Tony Sweet. They are published by Stackpole Books. They choose first class photographers who have written an excellent and ongoing series of photography books. I’ve been giving high praise to Stackpole’s photography books for years and I now have two more to add to the list.
Wildlife Location Guides
The first step to photographing wildlife is finding wildlife. In the case of common wildlife, that’s easy. If you are looking for squirrels you may not need to look any farther than your own back yard. But if you want to photograph something a little more exotic, like Chachalacas or Green Jays, you need to know where to look for them (the southern tip of Texas).
Some of my favorite nature photography books.
Want to be a better nature photographer? Read anything by John Shaw, Galen Rowell, Art Wolfe, Freeman Patterson, Tim Fitzharris, George Lepp, Larry West, Arthur Morris, Allen Rokach, John Netherton, Leonard Lee Rue III, Brenda Tharp, and the Stackpole (publisher) nature series.
Here are some specific books to look for.
Is composition something that can be taught, or is it innate? Probably a bit of both. It is hard to look at photographs by Frans Lanting, Art Wolfe, Galen Rowell, and Dewitt Jones without coming to the conclusion that they were born with some kind of magic sense of composition. On the the other hand, it is clear that photographers can improve dramatically with the right kind of guidance.
This is a list of books that I found the most helpful when I took a serious interest in photography. These books were written back when film was king, but that makes them all the more valuable to today’s digital photographers. Some digital photography books get so lost in technical information that the heart and soul of photography can get lost. The best film photography books are about light and shadow, subjects, form, texture, line and shape – all of which applies to digital photography. Some of these books are out of print but well worth finding on the used book market.
Many photographers would say Light: Science and Magic is THE best book on photographic lighting – and I agree with them. If you intend to be seriously involved in photography, this book should be on your required reading list.
Digital Photography Exposure for Dummies
With 12 books, hundreds of magazine articles, over a dozen instructional videos, and numerous workshops to his credit, digital photography expert Tim Grey really knows his stuff. In one of his eNewsletters, Tim gives this excellent recommendation for Digital Photography Exposure for Dummies:
Digital Photography Exposure for Dummies
Looking for a great gift for someone who loves photography? Digital Photography Exposure for Dummies is a great gift for anyone who wants to improve their photography. Several ratings and review highlights follow below. Details about the book’s contents are in this article and you can order it at a discount at Amazon.com.
Balanced Rock, Arches National Park
If you are heading for Arches and Canyonlands National Parks (and you should if you are a photographer), I highly recommend you read Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey before you go. No other book will give you quite the feel that Abbey does for what this harsh and unforgiving land was like more than a half century ago before it became more accessible to the average tourist.
Double Arch, Arches National Park, Utah
Arches National Park is an iconic destination for both tourists and photographers. It is one of the more spectacular locations in North America with a wealth of photographic possibilities in Arches and other nearby parks.
All of the photos in Digital Photography Exposure for Dummies.
The digital contact sheet above has all 271 photos in Digital Photography Exposure for Dummies. Curious about the statistical breakdown of the photos, I gathered them all together and went through them one by one to make note of the location, the type of photo (portrait, landscape, etc), camera used (film or digital), and the year each photo was taken. Obviously, the photos reflect the content of the book. You would expect to see wildlife photos in a chapter on wildlife photography. But I thought the photos might say something about my general photographic preferences as well.
Wildlife Location Guides
It’s spring and photographers are thinking about places to go and subjects to photograph. If you are thinking about photographing wildlife this year, the first is finding wildlife. In the case of common wildlife, that’s easy. You can find squirrels in your own back yard and ducks at a pond in your local park. But if you want to photograph something a little more exotic, like Chachalacas or Green Jays, you need to know where to look for them (the southern tip of Texas).
Great Gray Owl, Whitefish Point, Michigan’s U.P.
My photo of a Great Gray Owl and the story behind the photo inspired the e-mail question below. My answer follows, along with some additional information, visuals, and links.
I just found out! Â Digital SLR Photography, the “UK’s biggest photography magazine”, reviewed Digital Photography Exposure for Dummies and gave it a 5 out of 5, their top rating.
UPDATE: The $3.00 off coupon from Amazon is no longer available.
Amazon has been offering a $3.00 off coupon for the last couple of days on their usual discount price for Digital Photography Exposure for Dummies. I don’t know how long this coupon offer will last. When you get to Amazon . . .
Gorillapod
There are a lot of practical and inexpensive gifts for photographers. Here is a nice list in order of approximate cost from $4 to $80. All of these items can be found at my photography store (powered by Amazon.com with Amazon’s terrific ordering, shipping, guarantee, and service).
My photography book, Digital Photography Exposure for Dummies, received a great review from yet another professional photographer, Jennifer Blakeley. She is the most recent pro to give my book high praise. She wrote the following:
Want to be a better nature photographer? Read anything by John Shaw, Galen Rowell, Art Wolfe, Freeman Patterson, Tim Fitzharris, George Lepp, Larry West, Arthur Morris, Allen Rokach, John Netherton, Leonard Lee Rue III, Brenda Tharp, and the Stackpole (publisher) nature series.
Here are some specific books to look for.
The short list:
The Joy of Photographing People, Kodak
Robert Caputo, National Geographic Field Guide: People & Portraits
The Portrait: Professional Techniques and Practices, Kodak Workshop Series
Steve Sint, Digital Portrait Photography: Art, Business, and Style
Christopher Grey, Master Lighting Guide for Portrait Photographers
Jeff Smith, Posing for Portrait Photography: A Head-to-Toe Guide
You can learn more about these books, and buy them, by going here.
This is a list of books that I found the most helpful when I took a serious interest in photography. These books were written back when film was king, but that makes them all the more valuable to today’s digital photographers. Some digital photography books get so lost in technical information that the heart and soul of photography can get lost. The best film photography books are about light and shadow, subjects, form, texture, line and shape – all of which applies to digital photography. Some of these books are out of print but well worth finding on the used book market.
Star Trails, Rocky Mountain National Park
Interested in getting into astrophotography? Here’s my advice.
I have no idea when I was first entranced by the photos of Ansel Adams. There is a wonderful, luminous quality to his work. Small wonder he is America’s best known landscape photographer. Collections of his work would make a worthy addition to any photographer’s library. This is also the time of year that Ansel Adams calendars pop up like snowstorms.
The best advice I can give you is not to buy any collection of Adam’s work, either book or calendar unless it is published by Little, Brown and Company, or by NYGS (New York Graphic Society, which is also published by Little, Brown).
Why?
Many photographers would say LIGHT: SCIENCE AND MAGIC is THE best book on photographic lighting – and I agree with them. If you intend to be seriously involved in photography, this book should be on your required reading list.
If you want to master Photoshop, a complete course can be found in the books in the posts below.
FOUNDATIONS
Begin with one or two of the basic to intermediate books in this post. After that, jump into the list of advanced books in the posts below.
ADVANCED SKILLS AND TECHNIQUES
Your image processing begins with how you process your RAW files with Adobe Camera Raw (ACR). One of your best guides is Bruce Fraser and co-author Jeff Schewe. What you do with your RAW files determines how much or how little you can do with the file later on in Photoshop. You maximize your possibilities later on by making the right choices in ACR. Make the wrong choices, and you have limited what you can do later on.
Two essential and challenging Photoshop skills are Masking and Compositing. Fortunately for all of us out in Photoshop land, Katrin Eismann has written a masterful book on developing these skills, Photoshop Masking & Compositing
You will learn about selection tools and techniques, how to use masks and layers, advanced selection techniques for difficult subjects like human hair, and how to do flawless composites.