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The Digital Photography Workflow Handbook [Amazon] by Juergen Gulbins and Uwe Steinmueller, Rocky Nook 1 edition (October 28, 2010)

About the Book

Photography is a wonderful and rewarding hobby for millions of people. However, for a photographer's work to really stand out, he or she needs two skills: creativity and technical know-how. The former is more difficult to learn and is largely based on talent and experience. The latter is less an art than a craft and can be learned to perfection.

The work that follows the capture of a photographic image - the workflow in the digital darkroom - has a significant effect on the quality of the final image. This workflow is often underestimated and neglected, leading to weak images and poorly managed image collections. The Digital Photography Workflow Handbook will help you avoid crucial mistakes as you master the craft of photographic post-processing.

This book provides a step-by-step guide through the photographic workflow, from image capture, editing, and asset management, all the way to the perfect photographic print. The workflow presented in this book focuses on RAW images, which will give you maximum quality and flexibility, and is based on two of the most popular and powerful software tools: Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom.

The Digital Photography Workflow Handbook can be used as a reference or textbook by both aspiring amateur and professional photographers, as well as by students.

About the Authors

Juergen Gulbins has extensive experience in writing, technology, desktop publishing, designing high-end document archival systems, and digital photography. He is a prolific author who has written and translated books on topics such as CAD, Unix, DTP, typography, Internet, document management, Linux, and various aspects of digital photography. He has been a passionate photographer most of his life.

Uwe Steinmueller, a native of Germany, has been a photographer since 1973. His first exhibitions were in 1978 in Bremen, Germany with photos from Venice, South Tirol, Germany, and France. He shares a joint copyright with his wife Bettina. Uwe moved to California in 1997 and began working seriously in digital photography in 1999. He currently lives and works in San Jose. He has written a number of books, two of which won the prestigious German "Fotobuchpreis" award two years in a row, in 2004 and 2005. Uwe is the man behind outbackphoto.com, a popular website covering quality outdoor photography using digital cameras.

Photography Book Review

This digital photography workflow book is big.  It's detailed with diagrams, great explanations, and even provides extra content like plugins and actions via downloads from URLs.

It's basically a textbook that is designed to guide a total newbie from image capture to display (however you choose).   I can see this being one of the textbooks at a college for a "Digital Photography 101" class where the technical know-how is the emphasis.

I don't think there's anything wrong with that and I certainly learned a few things while flipping through the book's over 550 pages even though I've already established my own workflow.  I will be adjusting my workflow to incorporate a few of these lessons and referring to the book when I come across something new or different I'm sure.

While this book is as comprehensive as you can get when tackling a subject as large, and fast changing, as digital photography workflow, it does have a few drawbacks.  The meat of the lessons are based on a workflow using Adobe Lightroom and/or Adobe Photoshop and, while many of the lessons could be adjusted to whatever programs you use, I don't know that I would find full value in the book if I didn't already (or plan to in the future) use either of those programs.

This book is for...

The photographer who is struggling with a ton of mismanaged files of photos on his/her pc or perhaps even the photographer who finds they spend too much time on their workflow and wants to tighten that area up.  You know who you are.  You take tons of pictures, you occasionally look through them, but you find yourself in a bit of a kerfuffle when it comes to organization or you simply never do anything with them.

The photographer planning on switching from any other photo management software to Adobe Lightroom and/or Adobe Photoshop might also find this book highly valuable as well.

Conclusion

If you keep all of you photos tossed in a virtual "shoebox" to be sorted later then this book may be just what you need to get things organized and get you away from your monitor and back behind your camera.  You'll probably want to already be using (or plan to purchase) Adobe Lightroom and likely Adobe Photoshop.

If you are using Adobe Elements, Apple's Aperture, or any other photo managament software you may be better off finding a book specific to that program unless you plan on switching.

I'm giving this book on digital photography workflow a

4 out of 5!

Get your copy of The Digital Photography Workflow Handbook at Amazon today!