Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:  
Summary: One star for each good section
Comment: This book was fantastic from Page 1!
(... All the way to page 161.)
Then I'm afraid the author spends about 200 pages on topics clearly outside his expertise. He seems a good and enthusiastic photographer and while most of the photography sections were review, I found them engaging and full of useful reminders.
But I couldn't stomach his spouting on the digital side.
He seems clearly out of his element. Most of the information was at least somewhat wrong, and some was laugh-out-loud silly. (For example recommending using PDFs to e-mail images to friends instead of the pervasive JPEG standard.) His advice on choosing Mac versus Windows was balanced (good), but missed the salient points like tolerance for errors, desire to be more "mainstream", and what your friends have. Virtually all the technical content is extremely pin-point dated, as well, which makes the book useless in this area about 12-months later.
His product mentions are the other offensive point.
He omitted any mention of alternatives! I can understand the strong (if unmerited) weight placed on Photoshop Elements--after all, it's in the book's title. But to only mention one specific name-brand plug-in filter or some specific memory-card rescue software without ANY mention of the dozens or so other options is unforgivable. It's either lazy or a sell-out to sponsored product placement. (I expected him to say things like, "Your camera uses a device called 'Sandisk Extreme II' to store its pictures...") I would not be surprised if Adobe Marketing had first crack at editing this 450-page advertisement.
I don't review things often. And it's usually when I find something so disappointing that I must warn people against it.
Bottom line: (a) I would find the book worth the read, for the first 160 pages or so, if you can borrow it from a friend or library. But skip from page 161 to about 350 where he gets back into some useful (albeit lightweight) photography tips.
Better yet, (b) get a separate good book on photography (there are hundreds), and get some *other* dedicated book on just digital workflow or Photoshop, or whatever.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A better than average book for beginners
Comment: First let me say that I enjoy Mr. Sammons's style of writing. It keeps one interested even when covering dry material.
This is a large book full of information that will not appeal to all readers. This book (I would assume) covers the broad spectrum of digital photography in a general way. For example the printing section was of no interest to me as I do not print my own photos. It will help other readers I'm sure but not me.
I saw other reviews that commented about how this book was laid out. I would guess that Mr. Sammon's had his reasons for doing it this way. I had no problem with it because when in doubt check the Index!
It's still a worthwhile read for beginners and for intermediate photographers.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Easy to Read & Understand
Comment: I've only recently begun shooting pictures digitally. I took a short class on Crime Scene Photography that scratched the surface, but I wanted to learn more. Rick Sammon writes in a very conversational way that makes his book fun to read and easy to understand. This book is great for the beginner and the advanced alike. There are countless tips on general photography as well as editing your photos in PhotoShop. This book is certainly worth the time to read and re-read. I keep it around now as a reference.
Customer Rating:
Summary: An enjoyable but not completely satisfying read.
Comment: I'm giving this book four stars based almost solely on Rick Sammon's enthusiasm. He is obviously a person who enjoys what he does and likes interacting with others. His writing was lively enough so I read the book in one afternoon. The bottom line problem with this guide is the same bottom line problem I'm finding in all digital photography guides I've encountered. The first thing they want to do is teach you a little basic photography knowledge and the next thing they do is tell you how to use Photoshop tricks to create "artful photos" that, in effect, minimizes the need for knowledge of basic photography. Photography is more than tricks and "secrets of the pros" and Photoshop is a fine tool for photographers to augment their work. Unfortunately, most digital photography teaching vehicles today emphasize the ghastly and tasteless manipulations in Photoshop and fail to emphasize learning basic camera technique. To Rick Sammon's credit, he does provide a measure of how to use tools available for in-camera control as opposed to relying solely on Photoshop corrections and manipulations in post production. But when the chapters on the various Photoshop tools and manipulations come into play, it's still a lot of ghastly and tasteless trickery that takes center stage.
The higher quality, professional and advanced amateur digital cameras that are available today are so sophisticated, it's difficult to really screw up your pictures if you have a basic grasp of photography and how to use the camera's features. Despite this, a lot of people are screwing up their pictures in post production by relying on photo editing software. Sammon's examples in the Photoshop Elements portions of this book point this out very clearly. The "before Photoshop" photos are often preferable to the "after Photoshop" photos. I'm not speaking of basic operations such as minor color corrections, cropping, sharpening, etc. I'm speaking of the use of filters and borders and the cut-and-paste collages that Sammon often refers to as "artistic" which are, in fact, perfect examples of over-processed pseudo-art.
I'm not really picking on Rick Sammon here. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and I've enjoyed Sammon's writing and photography in other publications as well. It's just that we really don't need more people playing around with their computers to create the photographic equivalent of black velvet paintings.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A must read Digital Photography book for everyone
Comment: I bought this book about 3 months ago . This book as well as its earlier edition changes my concept about digital photography. One thing that I am missing in the 2nd edition is the absence of Adobe photoshop CS2 treatment. I think that would be more attractive option. The approach of Rick Sammon is wonderful. He covers picture for almost all the remote corners of the world, specifically Asian and South American countries. I strongly suggest this book for everyone involved in digital photography.
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