Brimming with beautiful pictures, this successful book guides you through a project-based, progressive curriculum so that you can build all the essential skills to enhance photographs creatively and professionally with Photoshop CS3. If you are an aspiring professional, enthusiastic amateur photographer, or a student learning photography, digital imaging, art and design, or design graphics, you'll be amazed at the stunning results you can achieve! New! Downloadable resources are included FREE. Additional learning materials include * full-resolution, royalty-free images to download for trying-out your new techniques * over 8 hours of QuickTime movie tutorials to support the practical projects * Presets from layer styles to curves, shapes, and gradients * indispensable RAW files for editing practice And don't miss the companion website with updates, practice material, and more at www.photoshopessentialskills.com! "The perfect companion guide for Photoshop users of multiple levels." Photoshop Creative Magazine "This book provides excellent coverage of Photoshop as a digital darkroom tool, as well as covering a truly amazing amount of background information. It is very readable and is truly a gem." Mark Lewis, Director, Mount Saint Mary College, USA The Essential Skills Photography Series from Focal Press uniquely offers a structured learning experience for photographers of all ages, with both the underlying theory and loads of invaluable 'how to' and real-life practice projects - all from the most talented photography practitioners/educators in the world. Each subject includes: * learning objectives for each section - for class use or self-study * color images of student and teacher/author work * activities to check learning outcomes * assignments to put theories into creative practice * full glossary of terms Other titles in the series: Studio Photography: Essential Skills by John Child, Photographic Lighting: Essential Skills by John Child and Mark Galer and Digital Photography in Available Light by Mark Galer.

This groundbreaking survey of significant work and ideas focuses on imagemakers who have pushed beyond the boundaries of photography as a window on our material world. Through interviews with more than 40 key artists, this book explores a diverse group of curious experimentalists who have propelled the medium's evolution by visualizing their subject matter as it originates from their minds eye. Many favor the historical techniques commonly known as alternative photographic processes, but all these makers demonstrate that the real alternative is found in their mental approach and not in their use of physical methods. Within this context, photographer and photography historian Robert Hirsch outlines the varied approaches these artists have utilized to question conventional photographic practices, to convey internal realities, and to examine what constitutes photographic reality. Hirsch explores the half-century evolution of these concepts and methodologies and their popularity among contemporary imagemakers who are merging digital and analog processes to express what was thought to be photographically inexpressible. Read an interview with the author at Photo.net: http://photo.net/learn/photographer-interviews/robert-hirsch

If you already have a good knowledge of Adobe Photoshop and are looking to advance your skills, Adobe Photoshop CS5 for Photographers: The Ultimate Workshop is the book you've been waiting for. Renowned photographers Martin Evening and Jeff Schewe impart their Photoshop tips and workflow, showing you how to use a vast array of rarely seen advanced Photoshop techniques. Whether the subject is serious retouching work, weird and wonderful compositions, or planning a shoot before you've even picked up a camera, you can be sure that the advice is based on years of practical experience.Full of inspirational photographs and hundreds of full-color screenshots to show you how it's done, this book features:-Advice on becoming a retouching master with advanced masking and compositing techniques-A detailed workflow for preparing your images for the best possible output, showing you how to meet both deadline and budge without sacrificing quality-26 movie tutorials on the downloadable resources, offering over 3 hours of movie contentThe ideal companion to Photoshop CS5 for Photographers, this is a must-have resource for any serious user of Adobe Photoshop.

If you are a photographer who sees the beauty in abandoned buildings, crumbling facades, and preserving a fading history, and who also has a love of urban exploration, you have stumbled on a must-have for your photographic library. Urban and Rural Decay Photography offers expert tips and techniques for capturing breathtaking photographs of your favorite decay scenes, whether in urban or rural settings. Author J. Dennis Thomas guides you through the history of decay photography, shows you what equipment you will need, and discusses digital, film and HDR capture and composition. The book addresses which artistic considerations work best for the kinds of shots that capture a moment and convey a story. He also provides you with important safety advice and matters of the law when entering and working with decaying structures. Chock full of inspiring images that will ignite your creativity and your passion for decay photography, Urban and Rural Decay Photography is just the book you need to get you out and discovering your newest urban or rural exploration adventure.

Photoshop users of all levels need access to the crucial information in a flash. Techniques books provide the step-by-step instructions and how-to advice but this easy to navigate, dip-into guide provides quick answers to the inevitable 'what does that do?' questions that all too often bring progress to a grinding halt. The full colour A to Z format covers hundreds of tools, features and menu options clearly and succinctly, with cross-references to related topics, screen shots and illustrative examples to help things fall into place. A new techniques section delves deeper into key areas, providing more instruction on essential tasks in an easy, step-by-step format. Fully updated with new CS3 features throughout, this is the Photoshop desk reference to adorn every digital image-maker's shelf. Intuitive A to Z format and clear, concise definitions make this the ideal desk reference guide to Photoshop's multitude of tools, options and features. Find the explanations, answers and practical advice you need to quickly get on with the task in hand - don't waste time looking anywhere else! Fully updated for CS3, with source images from the book and supporting tutorials provided on the accompanying website: www.photoshop-a-z.com.

Completely updated for the latest version of Adobe Photoshop Elements, Philip Andrews returns with his comprehensive guide to this popular software package. Akin to Martin Evening's bestselling Photoshop title, every feature and function of Elements is covered here in step-by-step detail. Accompanied by helpful screenshots and colorful images, highlighted in an updated and modernized design, this versatile guide is perfect if you're a first time user wanting to dip your toe into the world of digital image adjustment, or a seasoned pro wanting to hone your skills for perfectly fine tuned images. The more advanced projects, such as completing a photo book from scratch, stitching together multiple images to create fantastic panoramas, working with raw files, and more, are perfect if you want to push your images even further for amazing results from this fabulous software package. The easy to follow tutorials are complemented by general photography tips and tricks to give your images that masterful edge. Truly geared toward the photographer's needs, both pre and post-capture, this essential guide is a perfect companion for anyone wanting to take their images a step further with Elements.

The difference between getting the shot and missing the shot comes down to split seconds and how you manage your gear and your technique. In Outdoor Action and Adventure Photography professional adventure sports photographer Dan Bailey shows readers how to react quickly to unfolding scenes and anticipate how the subject and the background might converge. Capturing those significant moments to produce powerful imagery that evoke the feel and mood of adventure requires specialized skills and a wide variety of creative ideas. This book teaches photographers how to think geometrically and how to pull together the elements that make for a successful shot, all while being immersed in the action. The practical manual will improve your technique for creating more compelling adventure imagery, whether you're shooting ultra-marathoners splattered in mud, rock climbers in a crevasse, or mountain bikers hurtling past you. In this book, you'll: Discover the necessary equipment for shooting action, learn how to use it to its full potential, and develop a comprehensive adventure photography camera system that you can adapt to different shooting situations. Learn specific techniques and creative ideas that help you freeze the moment and create images that convey excitement, mood, and the feel of adventure. Learn advanced skills that can help you start defining your own particular style of action photography and create a "brand" of photography that's based around your passion and your vision. Examine case studies that break down the process for shooting different types of action subjects and see the nuts and bolts of how to create powerful imagery from start to finish.

You want to look through the lens of your camera and change the world. You want to capture powerful moments in one click that will impact the minds of other people. Photographic images are one of the most popular tools used to advocate for social and environmental awareness. This can be as close to home as drug use, prostitution, or pollution or as far away as famine, war, and the plight of refugees and migrant workers. One well-known example of an activist photographer would be landscape photographer Ansel Adams, who trudged to Washington with stunning images of the American west to advocate protecting these areas. His images and testimony were instrumental in creating the National Park System and garnering specific protection for Yellowstone National Park. More recently Robert Glenn Ketchum's images of Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge raised awareness of why this area should be protected. Nigel Barker's seal photographs advocates against seal clubbing. What is your cause and how can you use your camera to make the world a better place?This book provides a comprehensive theory of, and history of, photography as activism. It also includes interviews with contemporary photographers. It is a call to action for young photographers to become activists, a primer of sorts, with advice for how to work with NGOs and non-profits, how to work safely in conflict zones and with suggestions for distribution on websites, blogs, and interactive agencies.

In his best-selling book Creative Photoshop, award-winning artist Derek Lea previously revealed to the digital art world his secrets for creating stunning, sophisticated works of art using Photoshop. Now, he goes one step further in this all-new book to demonstrate his unique methods for using Photoshop in conjunction with other software packages. Derek's compelling images will inspire you to think creatively about the ways in which you can use Photoshop alongside other popular programs such as Illustrator, Poser, Painter, Cinema4D, and ZBrush to take your own art to the next level. Whether you are a digital artist, illustrator, cartoonist, graphic artist, designer, 3D enthusiast, or serious hobbyist working for print or the web, this fantastic new book will open your eyes to a whole new world of digital art that's never before been uncovered. Challenge yourself and discover the more artistic aspects of these programs with one of the world's best teachers by your side.

In Fundamentals of Forensic Photography, Keith Mancini and John Sidoriak offer practical techniques for common situations encountered in forensic documentation. Topics include equipment selection, lighting techniques, crime scene and evidence documentation, macro and micro photography as well as aerial, high speed and computational photography. Techniques for photographic documentation in both the laboratory and the field are discussed.

Even in an age when the photograph has changed from a physical object into a data file that can be easily manipulated, we tend to believe what we see. But photographs can and do lie. As an object in a film, a photograph's meaning and function can be even more malleable and deceiving, as new developments in technology are altering how we perceive reality. In Reel Photos: Balancing Art and Truth in Contemporary Film, Wendy Sterba examines the use of photographs in cinema to explore issues of objectivity, subjectivity, fabrication, and fact. This study first looks at the traditional use of the photograph in films such as Blow-Up and then considers similar issues as they relate to the search for truth in detective films like Along Came a Spider, The Bone Collector, and Forgotten. Subsequent chapters explore ambivalence and photographic objectification in films about art photography, including The Governess, Fur, and Closer. Other movies discussed include Inception, Paparazzi, Under Fire, and Somebody Has to Shoot the Picture. By examining the function of the photograph in movies rather than the role of film photography as art, Sterba provides an innovative approach to cinema studies. Utilizing theory in an intelligent but easily understandable way, this book allows readers to re-examine the role of authorship and the value of authentic art. Reel Photos will appeal to students and scholars of cinema, as well as anyone interested in the aesthetics of art and truth in film.

Using a combination of artistic approach and impeccable technique, professional photographers John and Barbara Gerlach guide you through the field as you photograph intriguing and captivating subjects out in the wild. Learn how to integrate equipment with technique to capture superb wildlife images of birds, mammals, amphibians, and more, with an emphasis on precision and speed. This book includes all of the details you need to capture wildlife photos easily and consistently - choose the right lens and best lighting while following simple composition guidelines that are perfect for wildlife. John and Barbara Gerlach have taken more than a million wildlife images since 1978 and run seminars and workshops all over the world. Their pictures have been published in Outdoor Photographer, Audubon, Popular Photography National Wildlife, Sierra, Natural History, Petersen's Photographic, Ranger Rick, Birder's World, as well as books published by National Geographic Society, Sierra Club and others.

What is photography? Is it a source of knowledge or an art? Many have said the former because it records the world automatically, others the latter because it expresses human subjectivity. Can photography be both or must we choose? In On Photography: A Philosophical Inquiry, Diarmuid Costello examines these fascinating questions and more, drawing on images by Alfred Stieglitz, Berenice Abbott, Paul Strand, Lee Friedlander, James Welling, and Wolfgang Tillmans, among others, and the writings of Elizabeth Eastlake, Peter Henry Emerson, Edward Weston, Siegfried Kracauer, Andre Bazin, and Stanley Cavell. This sets the scene for the contemporary stand-off between "sceptical" and "non-sceptical" Orthodoxy in the work of Roger Scruton and Kendall Walton, and a New Theory of Photography taking its cue from Laszlo Moholy-Nagy and Patrick Maynard. Written in a clear and engaging style, On Photography is essential reading for anyone interested in the philosophy of photography, aesthetics, art, and visual studies.

This sixth edition of The Practical Zone System by Chris Johnson updates the classic manual on Ansel Adams's landmark technique for the digital age. For photographers working digitally or with film, in color or black and white, in the studio or on the go, this simple visual language helps to control contrast and, through a process called Previsualization, provides photographers with the power of free creative expression. This new edition discusses recent advances in technology and potentials for their use in zone photography, including HDR, smartphone cameras that shoot in raw format and smartphone light meters. Johnson demonstrates how the Zone System is a universal visual and conceptual language that dramatically simplifies the problem of creating and rendering complex lighting setups.

Learn the advantages and capabilities of medium-format cameras and examine all aspects of medium-format operations, including SLR, twin lens, panoramic, rangefinder, wide angle, press, and view cameras. Also explained and illustrated are lenses and their accessories, motor drives, films, flashes, filters, slides and slide projectors, and more. Includes black and white and color photographs and drawings to illustrate proper use of equipment and various techniques, effects, and possibilities that produce successful photographs with the best possible image quality.The medium format is truly the format in the middle. It combines many of the benefits of 35 mm photography with those of the large format, making a medium format system an excellent choice for almost all types of photography from candid action with a hand-held camera to critical studio work from a tripod. Special chapters are devoted to these different applications and the type of equipment that most likely meets your photography needs. This book explains clearly the medium format's benefits, advantages, and disadvantages and provides a comparison of the medium format to other formats so you can decide whether it is right for you and your photography.

You have the camera, you have the skills, and you have the pictures. Now what? Author Shirley Read expertly leads you through the world of exhibiting your photography one minute detail at a time. From finding a space and designing the exhibition to actually constructing a show and publicizing yourself, every aspect of exhibiting your photography is touched upon and clarified with ample detail, anecdotes, and real life case studies. In this new and expanded second edition, Shirley Read further illuminates the world of social networking, exhibiting, and selling photography online so your work is always shown in the best light.Packed with photos of internationally successful exhibitions, check lists, and invaluable advice, this essential reference guide will help amateur and professional photographers alike successfully showcase their bodies of work with confidence and finesse.

Cosplay, dressing up as characters from pop culture, has swept fan conventions around the world. Now, explore the adult side of this popular phenomenon. This enormous collection of pin-up style photos provides a tantalizing look at sexy female cosplayers from around the world. They are not afraid to shed their costume to bring your character fantasies to life. Stepping away from the "booth babe" stereotype, Cosplay Deviants' models are engrossed in nerd culture along with the fans who make up the community and appear as popular characters from gaming, comics, anime and manga, and science fiction. With a foreword by Edgar Munster, model interviews, and more than 360 images, you will see just what it means to undress the art of playing dress up.

Canon Speedlites and Nikon Speedlights are small, off-camera flashguns that can provide big results - if you know how to use them properly. Acclaimed Boston photographers Lou Jones, Bob Keenan and Steve Ostrowski guide you through the technical and creative aspects of how to get the most out of these powerful tools in this indispensable guide, packed full of inspirational images and comprehensive diagrams of the lighting set ups used to capture them.They are significantly more advanced, lighter and considerably cheaper than a standard flashgun, and have many advantages. They are small (and cheap) enough that a number can be carried in your kit, and they can be used in combination, triggered wirelessly. They use through-the-lens (TTL) metering, which allows you to use the in-camera LCD and histograms to calculate the required power/direction, rather than havng to use a light meter or trial and error. They use proprietary, dedicated technology (from Canon and Nikon) that means there are no compatability issues.Getting the most out of them, however, remains a mystery - most photographers still just use their speedlights in the same way as a standard flash gun. This is where this book comes in.

Volume II of The Watch Book follows on the successful and comprehensive earlier volume with a magnificently illustrated book about the additional functions and refinements of wristwatches. For centuries, so-called "complications" - any feature of a mechanical timepiece beyond the display of hours, minutes and seconds - have embodied the crowning glory of fine mechanical watchmaking. Among the earliest of these are alarm clocks and calendar movements. Moon phase displays have also been known for several centuries. Striking movements can be considered among the most complex and technically elaborate additional functions, while finishing techniques such as skeletonising, which is mainly done by hand, also characterise the high art of watchmaking. This superbly illustrated volume by watch expert and historian Gisbert L. Brunner is dedicated to advanced functions of mechanical timepieces, their historical development and special technical features. Topics covered in this book include: Hands and numerals; Spring; Astronomical display (moon phases etc.); Tides; Double balance; Alarm clock; Altitude/depth measurement; Skeletonisation. Text in English and German.

Women Photographers and Feminist Aesthetics makes the case for a feminist aesthetics in photography by analysing key works of twenty-two women photographers, including cis- and trans-woman photographers. Claire Raymond provides close readings of key photographs spanning the history of photography, from nineteenth-century Europe to twenty-first century Africa and Asia. She offers original interpretations of well-known photographers such as Diane Arbus, Sally Mann, and Carrie Mae Weems, analysing their work in relation to gender, class, and race. The book also pays close attention to the way in which indigenous North Americans have been represented through photography and the ways in which contemporary Native American women photographers respond to this history. Developing the argument that through aesthetic force emerges the truly political, the book moves beyond polarization of the aesthetic and the cultural. Instead, photographic works are read for their subversive political and cultural force, as it emerges through the aesthetics of the image. This book is ideal for students of Photography, Art History, Art and Visual Culture, and Gender.

The Victorian era heralded an age of transformation in which momentous changes in the field of natural history coincided with the rise of new visual technologies. Concurrently, different parts of the British Empire began to more actively claim their right to being acknowledged as indispensable contributors to knowledge and the progress of empire. This book addresses the complex relationship between natural history and photography from the 1850s to the 1880s in Britain and its colonies: Australia, New Zealand and, to a lesser extent, India. Coinciding with the rise of the modern museum, photography's arrival was timely, and it rapidly became an essential technology for recording and publicising rare objects and valuable collections. Also during this period, the medium assumed a more significant role in the professional practices and reputations of naturalists than has been previously recognized, and it figured increasingly within the expanding specialized networks that were central to the production and dissemination of new knowledge. In an interrogation that ranges from the first forays into museum photography and early attempts to document collecting expeditions to the importance of traditional and photographic portraiture for the recognition of scientific discoveries, this book not only recasts the parameters of what we actually identify as natural history photography in the Victorian era but also how we understand the very structure of empire in relation to this genre at that time.

Shimon Attie's Writing on the Wall: History, Memory, Aesthetics theorises images from Attie's 'The Writing on the Wall 1991-1993' installation as a memorial activity, and as an index or habitation for history. The images, which appeared in Berlin's Scheunenviertel district, are suspended by the palimpsestic associations established between the fixated dead of the past and their ghostly appearance in the present. Part of that palimpsest is a collective cultural knowledge of the impending obliteration of community (both the Jewish and non-Jewish citizens of Berlin) by mass-produced death. Peter Muir analyses Attie's work by responding to a series of propositions arising from Walter Benjamin's Thesis 'On the Concept of History.' Shimon Attie's Writing on the Wall: History, Memory, Aesthetics's presiding metaphor is that of loss - the central problem that the book addresses is that of forgetting.

Capturing Japan in Nineteenth-Century New England Photography Collections examines the evidence left behind from a famous first encounter-that of prominent New England Americans with the remnants of feudal Japan in the 1870s and 1880s. The study reveals that, despite these Americans' varied reasons for traveling to Japan and studying its culture, a common desire united all of their collecting activities: to gather photographic documentation of a Japan they believed was disappearing under the pressures of trade and industrialization. Eleanor Hight focuses on the case studies of six New Englanders, whose travel and photograph collecting influenced the flowering of Japonism in the late nineteenth-century Boston area-still visible today in institutions such as the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the Peabody Essex Museum, and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. The book also explores the history of Japanese photography and its main themes, from images of travel and historic sites, to exotic subjects such as geisha and samurai. The first history of its kind, this study makes fundamental points about the ways photographs, seeming conveyors of fact, imprint mental images and suppositions on their viewers.

Women Photographers and Feminist Aesthetics makes the case for a feminist aesthetics in photography by analysing key works of twenty-two women photographers, including cis- and trans-woman photographers. Claire Raymond provides close readings of key photographs spanning the history of photography, from nineteenth-century Europe to twenty-first century Africa and Asia. She offers original interpretations of well-known photographers such as Diane Arbus, Sally Mann, and Carrie Mae Weems, analysing their work in relation to gender, class, and race. The book also pays close attention to the way in which indigenous North Americans have been represented through photography and the ways in which contemporary Native American women photographers respond to this history. Developing the argument that through aesthetic force emerges the truly political, the book moves beyond polarization of the aesthetic and the cultural. Instead, photographic works are read for their subversive political and cultural force, as it emerges through the aesthetics of the image. This book is ideal for students of Photography, Art History, Art and Visual Culture, and Gender.