Katrin Eismann and Sean Duggan set out in 'The Creative Digital Darkroom' to share some of the creative concepts and techniques they use when working in the digital darkroom. It's " ... more than just a book of Photoshop recipes and quick tips ... [it's about] How to look at the image and 'listen' to it; how changes to the delicate matrix of light and shadow tones can transform the mood and meaning of a photo; how to sculpt with light and contrast; and how to imagine colour and tonal changes that will best express your vision for the photograph."

Katrin is an internationally respected artist, teacher and writer specialising in creative digital photography. Sean is an art photographer, educator and Adobe Certified Photoshop Expert.

They hope the book will serve as a good travel companion as the reader explores their photography in their own creative digital darkroom.

The book was written for Adobe Photoshop CS3 and Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, whether on a Windows or Mac platform. The authors contend that the book's general principles can also be applied by those who prefer using other software.

Comprised of ten chapters, the book proceeds on its way along a sensible and well-organised path. A brief introductory chapter summarises the tools, terms and techniques in digital darkroom work and overviews the workflow from image capture to print, reflecting the structure of the book.

Chapter Two covers in much helpful detail the requirements of setting up a workable digital darkroom. Hardware, peripherals and software, system calibration and a range of Photoshop preferences and settings are described. It includes a very clear exposition on the bane of digital darkroom users' lives - colour management.

Now that the darkroom is set up, the following eight chapters work their way sequentially through scanning, developing, and organising; file preparation; tone and contrast; dodging, burning, and exposure control; colour correction; creative colour; creative enhancements and, finally, enhancing focus.

Each of those areas is dealt with authoratively and with finesse.

There are several things I liked about the book. It's a remarkably thorough and well organised guide. Graphics and photographs are used sufficiently to illustrate the authors' points. It has good ample use of dialogue box screenshots which are concisely annotated where appropriate. Comparative and before/after images are used effectively to highlight the effects of applying different creative ideas.

There's a handy summary at the beginning of each chapter to introduce the reader to what follows. A comprehensive index is included.

Finally, there's a companion website offering additional information plus download access to many of the book's images to help achieve a richer learning experience. It's at www.creativedigitaldarkroom.com.

Greg Davies
The Apple Users' Society of Melbourne
www.ausom.net.au

Great book for those familiar with Photoshop. Not a book for novice users. Well written, good support images.

At first glance the title might make you think this s an digital art type book but it is not. Katrin and Sean are experts on how to enhance your photos from RAW to finished print (online bonus chapter). The book is filled with color examples and explanations on how to modify a picture for the best look. While it is centered around Adobe Camera RAW and Lightroom, I find the examples to be quite easily applied to Bibble. If you are trying to upgrade your skills using todays computers and software, this book will greately enhance them. It is like being tuttored by Katrin and Sean. I highly recommend this book. Also, take a look at [...] for RAW software.

We all know that film photography will likely be around to some degree forever and ever, but we also know that just as snapshot processing kiosks have disappeared from parking lots, the general public's dedication to film cameras is already dead. Computerized post-processing is now squarely in the hands of John Q., and ever-increasing numbers of people are learning how to take and produce better photographs. In addition, really excellent and complex cameras are finding their way into the hands of more and more people.

"The Creative Digital Darkroom" is for people who are interested in making their photos better than the ones in Uncle George's cell phone. It's thorough, solid, informative, and serious in its approach to photographic post-processing. Yes, it's Photoshop and Lightroom specific, but let's face it: despite the many good digital dark-room programs available, Adobe's are the flagship standard.

In my photo club, there are still the hold-outs who think that "photo-shopping" is cheating ... that the best photograph is the one that is perfect right out of the camera. While there's more than an element of truth in that, it's also true that what all of us shutterbugs are ultimately after is a compelling image. It's also true that plenty of chemical manipulation goes on under red lights and closed doors. This book does a wonderful job of explaining what Adobe software tools do and teaching how/why to use them. Anyone wanting to learn how to effectively approach digital photoprocessing professionally(there's a nice section on scanning film pictures or old family photos into Photoshop, too,) from workflow and choosing storage systems to the creative manipulation of photographic elements, will find this book a great place to start.

The title suggests that the book will help readers to be more creative digital photographers. What I found is that it helps by providing useful techniques for developing digital images. I found the techniques well presented and quite useful. The creative part is the photographer's responsibility.

I found this latest publication of Katrin Eisman very informative. It covers subjects of Photoshop I have never seen commented upon previously. I would recommend this book who want to learn more of photoshops abilities that have encouraged the field of digital photography.

It is a complete guide with clear explanations, covering most of the actions possible in photoshop. Very usefulThe Creative Digital Darkroom

This review is belated because as time permitted I wished to read this book in detail before commenting on it. I have now done so, and my overall perception is that The Creative Digital Darkroom (CDD) is destined to be a foundation text in many digital photography learning environments for years to come. While versions of Photoshop come and go, the fundamentals remain and get improved, so the techniques discussed here will be valuable for many years.

The market is over-flowing with instructional material about how to use Photoshop. This book is much more than that. It is a creative odyssey about vision and how to convey our vision with compelling images using effective techniques of digital photography. Vision is at the heart of this book. The authors stress the "what" as much as the "how", because first we need the photographic content, then the techniques for conveying it. When I look at a photograph - my photographs, any photographs - there is a filtering process: what's the purpose of this picture; what's it showing me, and how good is the graphic language. CDD, unlike so many other books on the subject, teaches a very skillful integration of exactly these considerations.

The authors treat the subject as photography - harking back to the days of film and wet process, showing how the same and new effects enabled by the new technology are created in the digital darkroom.

The book is organized according to the most fundamental themes of the photographic process. After an extensive, but necessary, introduction to the fundamentals of digital imaging and digital image management (which anyone serious about the subject really, really needs to know correctly), the content moves into managing tone and contrast, dodging, burning and exposure control, color correction, being creative with colour, creative image enhancement, working with focus (sharpness and blur), and finally there is an on-line chapter on printing, which I really wish had been included in the book for sake of completeness and convenience.

Those who have read these authors' previous works will recognize the painstaking attention to the clarity, completeness and logic of the processes they systematically explain and illustrate. It's hard to go wrong following these techniques on our own images, a number of which I have done very satisfactorily. I like to call this approach "Photoshop's Joy of Cooking", but it's really much more than that. The Joy of Cooking, clear as it is, doesn't need to explain why you need 2 cups of flour in a waffle mix, but this book does need to tell you, e.g., why you need a Curve of a particular shape to achieve a specific kind of contrast, and it does so. This helps us think about the "why" underlying the "how", which is so important to a true understanding of how to move beyond the book and use the program in ways of our making. One of the wonderful things about Photoshop is the limitless ways in which one's vision can be achieved. The authors have accomplished a very judicious selection by zeroing-in on the really important ones which help us do what we would most like to do with our photos very effectively. Highly recommended.

I enjoyed this book for what it is, and what it isn't. First, the book IS a great read for the philosophy and background of creating wonderful photographic images as art. The first part of the book takes you through a cursory, though better than average history into how film photography was not only developed but enhanced in the darkroom.

This book IS well laid out into themed chapters on ideas and tools you can use to enhance a photo from something average or good into something great. This IS NOT a recipe book with impressive yet funky and unusable Photoshop tricks. No, you will not learn how to make a page peel or ghost in your image. What you will learn are very practical and useful techniques that I find myself using everyday.

There are those that call themselves "purists" and believe any Photoshop work to an image is wrong. Hogwash I say! Difficult techniques that have been a part of the darkroom for years are now much more accessible to the photo enthusiast and should be used to their fullest. That said, I am very pleased with the efforts this book makes to teach enhancement techniques more than outright modification.

I highly recommend "The Creative Digital Darkroom" for any budding or serious photographer that is looking to learn some of the best ways to bring out the best in their photos. The WHY and the HOW are both covered effectively for each technique taught with full color examples and practical screen shots. This title will get an arsenal of arrows in your quiver when approaching the development stage of your photo workflow.

I have all Katrins' books as well as her DVD's and am constantly impressed with the level of detail in her books, her presentation skills and her ability to convey the concepts in an easy to understand manner. I can readily follow Katrin's processes and I can apply her ideas to my own photographs. She makes learning Photoshop and workflow enjoyable. I have repeatedly recommended her books to our camera club memebrs and friends. After reading her books I find myself time and again returning to them for reference. Buy it! You will not be dissapointed.

I came to photography recently, without the benefit of darkroom experience. I've read several photoshop books, but this was the only one that really helped me with the creative aspects of post processing.

I have been through a number of photoshop books in the past few years. Of all of them I can say that the authors were certainly prepared and that they put a lot of effort in their book.
But if on the one hand the authors knew pretty well what they were saying, the same could not be said about their readers, whom I guess were having a few problems connecting their experience and previous understanding of Photoshop to what they were being taught.

This book is a step forward in this regard, in that it has a very real-life, down-to-earth, experience-based approach with what it talks about. Photoshop books are normally organised around conceptual areas or tools. This book is organised around what you get to do with it and around the experience of dealing with images.
I appreciate the occasional divagation of the authors who sometimes interrupt the flow of the information to mention something that they believe is important but that does not fit in the paragraph itself.

What I don't like about this book - and about al other photoshop books I've ever encountered - is the tutorial, step-by-step approach to teaching. There are things you can be taught, and things that you can only learn. Other things, you can only be taught to a certain extent, or be pointed at.
Creative skills belong to this last group. I don't want to be told to "enter mask mode, set the brush to 32 pixels and 20% hardness [...] do this, do that and here is the final image". Creativity doesn't come packaged in procedures, and nor do its tools.

I have read more than a dozen books on CS3 and this is by far the best. It is very complete and readable. These two authors are a couple of the most knowledgeable and understandable available today.

Classic photo and darkroom concepts are important for using even modern digital cameras and tools - and thus a manual pairing tested photo techniques with Adobe Photoshop, which includes original photo examples with each lesson. From coverage of traditional darkroom skills and abilities and how these translate into Photoshop CS3 and Lightroom to the basics of producing initial high-quality images and understanding both black and white and color darkroom techniques, this packs in details and lessons for both artists and educators, making for an outstanding and colorful lesson plan.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

I love Katrin books on Photoshop and this last one is a must have, specially if you teach Photoshop, it will help you a lot to organize your classes. Beautifull edition with plenty of concise explanations. It may lack profound information on some aspects but it's still a must in your digital photography library

This is an excellent resource, and one that I will use over and over. It may be sexist, but I find that women bring an invaluable dimension to photography. It is very difficult to describe, but, for me, quite real nonetheless.

Katrin Eismann is amazing. She's an amazing teacher and an amazing writer. I absolutely LOVE her other books, especially Photoshop Masking & Compositing (VOICES), Adobe Photoshop Restoration & Retouching (3rd Edition) (Voices That Matter), and Real World Digital Photography (2nd Edition) (Real World). I don't know much about Sean Duggan, but Katrin's books have always amazed me.

Katrin teaches concepts very thoroughly; describing not only what to do, but how and why the method works. I've never been left wondering, "What about ...?" because she covers it ALL. With that said, here's what I thought regarding this specific book:

Photographers transitioning to a Digital workflow will benefit from this book the most. It will teach you how to make your images look their very BEST.

This is NOT the best book for well seasoned Photoshop users, although it has it's jewels of insight. Why? Because this book will hold your hand and walk you through every single tiny little step to teach you the method you're trying to master. If you already know Raw processing, retouching, layer masking, curves, layer adjustments and layer modes, then you're probably going to know most of this book already. With that said, there are still lots of "Advanced" Photoshop users that don't know these things and would benefit greatly from this book.

I've been using Photoshop for 10 years now and so reading this book was painfully slow going for me because the steps were written so thoroughly. I kept hoping the next chapter would be about creative enhancements, but most of the book covered the essentials of prepping your files to produce the highest quality final product (which is important but can be boring).

I gave this book a 3 of 5 not because it wasn't a well written book, but because it didn't live up to my expectations as an intermediate to advanced user book. Had it been described as a book for Digital Imaging beginners then it would get a 5. I've always learned TONS from every page of Katrin's other books, but this one left me feeling like a professor attending an entry-level course... possibly because Katrin has already taught me most of the information through her other books.

This book is not for beginners. Neither beginning photoshoppers or photographers. Although it is a book that you can grow with. It does not presume that the reader knows a lot already, and thus covers the basics as well as going over the basics of proper PS and monitor settings.
I thought, from what i've read so far, that it a very good book, aimed at the intermediate PS'er and experienced photographer. It is just what i was looking for.
The tone is professional, without glibness or condescension. It is not geared to the "Dummy" market. If you know how to take decent pictures and are looking for ways to make them better using PS than this book is for you. I think this book will provide a whole course of study to the persistent reader. I recommend this book to those photographers who have a handle on the digital end of things, but want to know more. It is not light reading, but it will be rewarding reading.

Yes, Katrin and Sean review many things that are "basics" in regards to digital photography, but their review of this information is well thought out and presented logically. Then, the fun begins. I'm not yet quite through the book, but it's a wealth of information and practical use education. WELL worth the price of admission.

The "Creative Darkroom" is, in my judgment, the best book ever written on understanding and applying the power of Photoshop in the digital darkroom. It joins a long shelf of other Photoshop books in my "darkroom". Soon however, many of the others will be available on Amazon's used book market.

This book is so clearly written and profusely illustrated that it will make even the most obtuse tools of PS come alive and become valuable in the hands of newly enlightened readers.

It is clear enough to meet the needs of newbies to PS, while thorough enough to be of great value to long time advanced users.

Furthermore, the writing style and organization of the book make it a pleasure to read and, encourage the reader to read on and learn more even after their initial question has been answered.

With one notable exception, this book is a rock solid foundation on the digital darkroom. It's very well written and the authors explain things in a very understandable way. It's full of information that every serious digital photographer should learn and master. Lots of this information can be gleaned from other sources, but this book rounds up all the really important info into one place. I can see this book being used as a text in digital photography classes. Although there is a section on creative enhancements, this is not the book for you if you're looking to learn to remove your ex from a photo, or create photo art. But, if you're looking to make your photos look great and understand how and why, this is your book.
The one flaw is the lack of information on printing. Sure, the authors have a website where you can download the "bonus" printing chapter, but why was this chapter not included in the book? Printing is as important as any other subject in this book, so to claim the printing chapter is a "bonus" is a great disservice to buyers of this otherwise great book. I find it disturbing that the publisher is trying to pass off a flaw as a "bonus".
I would have given this book 5 stars if not for the omission of the printing chapter. Otherwise, this is a valuable resource for your digital darkroom.

With one notable exception, this book is a rock solid foundation on the digital darkroom. It's very well written and the authors explain things in a very understandable way. It's full of information that every serious digital photographer should learn and master. Lots of this information can be gleaned from other sources, but this book rounds up all the really important info into one place. I can see this book being used as a text in digital photography classes. Although there is a section on creative enhancements, this is not the book for you if you're looking to learn to remove your ex from a photo, or create photo art. But, if you're looking to make your photos look great and understand how and why, this is your book.
The one flaw is the lack of information on printing. Sure, the authors have a website where you can download the "bonus" printing chapter, but why was this chapter not included in the book? Did the publisher run out of paper and ink? Printing is as important as any other subject in this book, so to claim the printing chapter is a "bonus" is a great disservice to buyers of this otherwise great book. A PDF will do you no good without a computer. I find it disturbing that the publisher is trying to pass off a flaw as a "bonus".
I would have given this book 5 stars if not for the omission of the printing chapter. Otherwise, this is a valuable resource for your digital darkroom.

With one notable exception, this book is a rock solid foundation on the digital darkroom. It's very well written and the authors explain things in a very understandable way. It's full of information that every serious digital photographer should learn and master. Lots of this information can be gleaned from other sources, but this book rounds up all the really important info into one place. I can see this book being used as a text in digital photography classes. This is not the book for you if you're looking to remove your ex from a photo, or create photo art, but if you're looking to make your photos look great and understand how and why, this is your book.
The one flaw is the lack of information on printing. Sure, the authors have a website where you can download the "bonus" printing chapter, but why was this chapter not included in the book? Did the publisher run out of paper and ink? Printing is as important as any other subject in this book, so to claim the printing chapter is a "bonus" is a great disservice to buyers of this otherwise great book. A PDF will do you no good without a computer. I find it disturbing that the publisher is trying to pass off a flaw as a "bonus".
I would have given this book 5 stars if not for the omission of the printing chapter. Otherwise, this is a valuable resource for your digital darkroom.

I'm a multi-media artist and I've used Photoshop since PS 6. I consider myself an intermediate to advanced user, and my library includes "specialist" books by John Paul Caponigro, Dan Margulis, Daniel Giordan, Vincent Versace, Eddie Tapp ... I could go on. I also have Katrin Eismann's other books, and when I was first coming properly to grips with Photoshop, her earlier collaboration with Sean Duggan, on digital photography, was my bible. So I eagerly awaited publication of this one.

The strength of this book, as with the earlier volumes, is its clarity and user-friendliness. As the Amazon book description states, it is aimed at those photographers in the transition from film to digital, as well as those who want to take further steps to realise their creative vision. In my experience, it's unusual to find a book that successfully marries both objectives, as I found this one to do. There are short sections on the architecture of Photoshop and the RAW settings, the suggested workflow and the basics of file preparation. The bulk of the book is about how to come into relationship with the captured image and develop its potential to the point where it finally says what you wanted it to say. Along the way there is a lot of how-to, and a great deal of why, and a concentration on photographic concepts as opposed to plain Photoshop technique. There was little in the book that was mind-bogglingly new to me, but the layout, the lucidity of the text, and the underlying philosophy made it, for me, greater than the sum of its parts. Perhaps this had something to do with the accessibility of the authors' thought processes and the way their personalities came through.

You won't find flash and dazzle in this book, just a lot of solid, workable methods for improving your workflow and fine-tuning your images. If you're hesitating about buying it, read the authors' Preface. I found that the book delivers what they promise, so for me it's 5 stars.

With the exception of photojournalists, most serious photographers do not aim at trying to create photographs that are "real". Instead they aim at creating an image that will convey the photographers' vision. Photoshop software allows the manipulation of the image to accomplish that purpose, and this book shows photographers techniques for doing that.

This book is aimed at intermediate and advanced photographers who already know the basics of Photoshop. Anyone interested in an introduction to Photoshop would do better to read a book like "Complete Photoshop CS3 for Digital Photographers (Graphics Series)" by Colin Smith and Tim Cooper. There is little here about downloading pictures with Photoshop tools, or placing windows on the screen, or even, except in tutorials that may require their use, about making selections in Photoshop. There is an online chapter available on printing.

Instead the authors concentrate on adjusting tonality and color to reveal the photographers vision. Some of the content discusses the role of these factors in revealing vision. There are a large number of tutorials that present the ways to adjust tonality and color, and in fact, often there are explanations of multiple ways to achieve the same result. The authors provide downloadable images on a website that can be used in conjunction with these tutorials. Many of these techniques may be familiar to advanced image processors, but I encountered many that I had never seen before.

The book deals not just with Photoshop and its included stand alone plug-in, Adobe Camera Raw, but also with Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, a separate piece of software that provides a different (and in my opinion, easier to use) method of processing images that also integrates with Photoshop. Eismann and Duggan usually deal with Photoshop in a manner that will allow users of older versions than CS3 to benefit. At the same time they provide detailed instructions on the newest tools, including, I'm pleased to say, the new sharpening facility provided in Adobe Camera Raw and Lightroom that is so useful for input or capture sharpening.

This is not an easy read like a narrative novel. Most of the tutorials follow step by step instructions on using Photoshop tools that are not very exciting to read, and unlike some other Photoshop authors, Eismann and Duggan use little humor to ease the way. All of the tutorials seem to be written in accurate steps that easily enable the reader to understand how to use the tool. There are no sweeping tutorials that take the reader from beginning to end of the processing of an image. Many readers will not want to actually try all of the tutorials as they read them (although I found myself stopping to use many of the tutorials that deal with image problems on which I was currently working). Instead this is a book that I expect to keep next to my computer to consult as I seek to improve my images.

One of the hardest tasks photographers will face will be deciding just what adjustments will help in realizing their vision. The authors provide some excellent suggestions. Readers looking to develop this skill may also want to look at Rob Sheppard's "Adobe Camera Raw for Digital Photographers Only (For Only)".

This book will prove extremely useful to advanced photographers interested in learning techniques for communicating their vision.

If you've bought a Katrin Eismann book before, you're no doubt looking at this one, too, since her books are so good. And what you've come to expect from her is indeed here - clear, concise information and step by step tutorials with plenty of diagrams showing what's being done. In its layout it's very similar to her Restoration and Retouching books, but denser, with a smaller font and more information, while remaining clear and balanced with a solid presentation. There's very few pages of wasted space.

As the title implies, the theme of the book is using traditional darkroom techniques in the digital world. In fact, part of the audience it's aimed at are experienced photographers who'd like to move to digital and carry over the skills they've learned. Focusing on this theme, the authors give us tools in global and local enhancements of tone and color, as well as sharpening/blurring and removing distractions, to bring out a photo's full potential.

It's all good and thorough, but be aware that in choosing to focus on that, the authors don't touch on many of the tools that are essential parts of Photoshop, including Photomerge, Liquify, Text, and Actions. It also doesn't cover Bridge or printing in depth, but there's actually a chapter on printing available as a PDF at the book's website: creativedigitaldarkroom.com.

It does cover Levels and Curves in more depth than any other book I've seen. It also covers Layer Masks, Shadow/Highlight, Perspective, Blending Modes, Lens Correction, Camera RAW (including the new Clarity tool), Split Toning, Sepia Toning (including Greg Gorman's technique), HDR, LAB, edge effects (using the Filter Gallery), Cross-Processing, and Sharpening, as well as including sections on creating a faded b/w photo and the like.

That said, I do have a few issues with the book. While the landscapes are like those you'd take yourself, many of the photos are a bit too abstract and arty for my tastes. Duggan uses Holgas, pinhole cameras, and a Lensbaby that blurs all the edges, and if you're not into such creative uses of cameras, these can get old once you've seen a few. Also, many are of moody old storefronts and gravestones, which adds a somber tone to the book.

Also, for those interested in working on portraits, there's very few of them here, and nothing about creating dynamic b/w portraits. The five or so portraits are used simply to demonstrate vignetting, sharpening, and the use of a warming filter.

Those points aside, this book delivers. Even when introducing the fundamentals of such tools as Levels and Curves, it goes right into detailed examples of how to use each. Some books merely list what each tool does, simply from lack of room, but by focusing on the essential tools, here you get exactly what you need - a brief overview containing all the important points followed by how you can best use them in your work.

Is a lot of it review? The majority of the tools outlined - the ones you use every day - are indeed covered much as they are in Eismann's Restoration and Retouching. The main difference is that Restoration covers mostly portraits, while this one focuses on landscapes and still lifes. Also, Restoration only covers up to CS2, while this one outlines all the latest tools in CS3, including a good deal on the very useful Black and White filter, as well as the new RAW 4.1 converter. It also gives a good overview of Lightroom, which I wasn't familiar with, but now has me looking that way.

If you already have Real World CS3 or a similar book, you already know more than most about Photoshop's technical aspects, and so you surely don't need a review. Still, this book's two chapters on setting up your Preferences, the different color spaces, and batch renaming are only fifty pages, so there's really not much to skip. And if you don't have Real World CS3, this book actually does cover all the basics you need in setting up your computer and workspace.

By the way, if you don't have CS3, most of the techniques here can be used with CS2 and CS. You won't have the use of the Highlight, Recovery, Clarity, B/W, and Curves tools in Camera RAW, and you won't have the B/W Filter with built-in settings like Infrared, but the authors do tell you how you can use the Channel Mixer, and Levels and Curves work much the same.

To sum up, you'll be pleased with this book if you don't go into it with any expectations that it be anything else. When I first saw it listed, I thought it'd build on where Restoration left off, going deep into creative interpretative techniques now that you have your photos optimized. Such techniques are indeed in the later part of the book, such as in using scanned paper for adding texture, but on the whole this book shows how to use the tools you're used to to get the most out of each photo's tone, color, and dramatic impact. In short, it's for experienced darkroom photographers as well as beginner and intermediate Photoshop users, instead of those who are already advanced in using Photoshop.

If you're a total beginner taking snapshots and are looking for a good overall coverage of all Photoshop has to offer, you might try Deke McClelland's Photoshop CS3 One-On-One or Martin Evening's Photoshop CS3 for Photographers. They're not as thorough as this book in each tool, but they cover more ground, give you a good tour, and set you up fine. From there, if you find your work focusing on family snapshots, portraits, and restoring old photos, go with Eismann's Restoration and Retouching, which covers a great deal more on repairing photos, such as using the floating Healing Patch and Pattern Maker. (You can download a full chapter from her digitalretouch.org site.) And if your interests lead you to fine art or landscape photography, this would be the book to learn from next.

Finally, if you already are a fine art or landscape photographer either new to Photoshop or without a solid grounding in the best use of all the fundamentals, or simply wish to brush up on your skills, this one is made for you.

If you've bought a Katrin Eismann book before, you're no doubt looking at this one, too, since her books are so good. And what you've come to expect from her is indeed here - clear, concise information and step by step tutorials with plenty of diagrams showing what's being done. In its layout it's very similar to her Restoration and Retouching books, but denser, with a smaller font and more information, while remaining clear and balanced, with a solid presentation. There's very few pages of wasted space.

As the title implies, the theme of the book is using traditional darkroom techniques in the digital world. In fact, part of the audience it's aimed at are experienced photographers who'd like to move to digital and carry over the skills they've learned. Focusing on this theme, the authors give us tools in global and local enhancements of tone and color, as well as sharpening/blurring and removing distractions, to bring out a photo's full potential.

It's all good and thorough, but be aware that in choosing to focus on that, the authors don't touch on many of the tools that are indispensable parts of Photoshop, including Photomerge, Liquify, Text, and Actions. It also doesn't cover Bridge or printing in depth, but there's actually a chapter on printing available as a PDF at the book's website: creativedigitaldarkroom.com.

It does cover Shadow/Highlight, Perspective, Blending Modes, Split Toning, sepia toning (including Greg Gorman's technique), HDR, edge effects (using the Filter Gallery), and Cross-Processing, as well as including creative sections, such as creating a faded b/w photo.

That said, I do have a few issues with the book. While the landscapes are like those you'd take yourself, many of the photos are a bit too abstract and arty. Duggan uses Holgas, pinhole cameras, and a Lensbaby that blurs all the edges, and if you're not into such creative uses of cameras, these can get old once you've seen a few. Also, many are of moody old storefronts and gravestones, which adds a somber tone to the book.

Also, for those interested in working on portraits, there's very few of them here, and nothing about creating dynamic b/w portraits. The five or so portraits are used simply to demonstrate vignetting, sharpening, and the use of a warming filter.

Those points aside, this book delivers. Even when introducing the fundamentals of such tools as Levels and Curves, it goes right into detailed examples of how to use each. Some books merely list what each tool does, simply from lack of room, but by focusing on the essential tools, here you get exactly what you need - a brief overview containing all the important points followed by how you can best use them in your work.

Is a lot of it review? The majority of the tools that are outlined - the ones you use every day - are indeed covered much as they are in Eismann's Restoration and Retouching. The main difference is that Restoration covers mostly portraits, while this one focuses on landscapes and still lifes. Also, Restoration only covers up to CS2, while this one outlines all the latest tools in CS3, including a good deal on the very useful Black and White filter, as well as the new RAW 4.1 converter. It also gives a good overview of Lightroom, which I wasn't familiar with, but now has me looking that way.

If you have Real World CS3, you already know more than most about Photoshop's technical aspects, and so you surely don't need a review. Still, this book's two chapters on setting up your Preferences, the different color spaces, and batch renaming are only fifty pages, so there's really not much to skip.

To sum up, you'll be pleased with this book if you don't go into it with any expectations that it be anything else. When I first saw it listed, I thought it'd build on where Restoration left off, going deep into creative interpretative techniques now that you have your photo optimized. Such techniques are indeed in the later part of the book, such as in using scanned paper for adding texture, but on the whole this book shows how to use the tools you're used to to get the most out of each photo's tone, color, and dramatic impact. In short, it's for experienced photographers as well as beginner and intermediate Photoshop users, instead of those who are already advanced in using Photoshop.

If you're a total beginner and are looking for an overall coverage of all Photoshop has to offer, I'd suggest trying Deke McClelland's Photoshop CS3 One-On-One or Martin Evening's Photoshop CS3 for Photographers. They're not nearly as thorough as this book in each tool, but they give you a good tour and set you up fine.

From there, if you find your work focusing on family snapshots, portraits, and restoring old family photos, go with Eismann's Restoration and Retouching. (You can download a full chapter from her digitalretouch.org site.) And if your interests lead you to fine art or landscape photography, this would be the book to learn from next.

Finally, if you already are a fine art or landscape photographer either new to Photoshop or without a solid grounding in the best use of all the fundamentals, or simply wish to brush up on your skills, this one is made for you.

Why another book on digital photography? Another book on CSx? Another book on RAW image processing? Another book on workflow? Another book on photo composition? Why?
Because it's ONE book! A cohesive litany of eye-to-print, not only "hows", but the "whys"..
This book is about photography. Well written, illustrated and laid out. The organization is like workflow should be, natural, easy to follow. It has gems for the beginner and pro alike. But let's be clear on what the beginner is.
- The book is digital SLR focused.
- The book is ADOBE CS(3) focused.
- The book is RAW image capture focused.
- The book presumes you have workflow needs.
- The book assumes you didn't take the picture you thought you did.
- The book assumes you care enough to fix it.
The beginner here is not someone who got a Canon Pro-Shot for Christmas.
Many photographers have moved from film to digital in the last couple of years, only to be smacked in the face by the EXTREME DIFFERENCE in the workflow of the two media.
Ms. Eismann and Mr. Duggan have done a wonderful job covering so much so well without turning it into a MAC vs PC or CS3 primer. Throughout the ENTIRE book I felt I was working with images and concepts, never sitting in a classroom learning the Adobe interface. Thank you, Katrin and Seán, for that and this book!
If you are a photographer that is buried by all the images, by all the post shutter-click "stuff" and are looking for a life-line of sanity to make sense of it all, this is THE book. The Creative Digital Darkroom is simply the best comprehensive book you can buy, especially for thirty bucks.
Other reviewers have dinged this as a beginner's book. Sure, it appeals to that market, because it is full of step by steps and screen shots and explanations of how and why in CS3, Bridge, Lightroom and third party plug ins that don't exist in such detail in ANY SINGLE SOURCE. This book also gives the reader something that so many others lack - THE PICTURES IMAGES TO WORK ON! Ms. Eismann has, like in her other books, given the reader the links to the photos she uses to demonstrate her experience.
Every concept, tool and technique can be explored implicitly and rotely as shown in the book, but also can be exploded into a vast field of self-exploration. Fun stuff. Cool.
Every section is chock full of ideas and tips that easily could rescue, restore or release that one image that makes the book worthwhile.
There are hundreds of topics explained and visually manipulated on the pages of this book. For example, chapter two, Digital Nuts and Bolts has a section on color space.
Color space. What is it? What is meant by CMYK and RGB and sRGB (not the words cyan, magenta, yellow and black or red, blue, green, but what is Adobe RGB (1998) or Apple RGB or the camera manufactures' sRGB). Color space clipping from different cameras. Color and luminance. For beginners? Perhaps, but I know many a wedding photographer that now straps a Canon or Nikon pro body around the neck and hasn't a clue about what color space, resolution, bit depth, ISO-noise relationships and how to handle them with all those sliders in the software: let the lab handle it...
Five Star Plus

The Creative Digital Darkroom is a must read for all photographers wanting to do serious work using contemporary photographic tools and techniques. As Stephen Johnson, a renowned photographer in his own right, puts it in his forward to the book, "Digital photography has now become simply photography." That is an extremely deep and significant remark and that's what this book is all about. But, once you begin to fully grasp the meaning of Johnson's remark you begin to appreciate the revolutionary transition that is upon us and, as with most revolutions, the potential complexity, chaos and confusion that it implies.

Eismann and Duggan take it as their mission to smooth this transition. Chemical-based photography, as it was practiced in the 19th and 20th centuries, also possessed its share of complexity and confusion. It was a revolution in its own right. It took masters like Anselm Adams to help the rest of us cut through the confusion by explaining the basics. He did this in his five book Basic Photo series. Adams' series dealt with the basics of chemical photography in a direct, unpretentious and straightforward way appropriate for novices (e.g., laying out the position of safelights in a darkroom's ceiling, for example, or setting up of an enlarger) and experts (such as print densities that are obtained by timing various developers). No one thought his books overly simplistic though they dealt with basic issues, and no one will consider this book overly simplistic, it, too, deals with basic issues, complex issues that need to be addressed in sophisticated ways but explained in the book so the rest of us don't have to work through all the options.

The Creative Digital Darkroom covers contemporary basics such as digital darkroom layout and room lighting (what color shirts not to wear when sitting in front of a monitor) while also delving into deeper issues like color spaces (check out "why bit depth matters") and HDR. This book is about photography as we currently practice it and will be practicing it for the foreseeable future and that means how we exploit the digital reality (read: "data reality") these new digital capture devices hand to us. Although it uses metaphors (like darkroom, when do we exit that space?) that draw upon the chemical roots of 19th and 20th photography, it's all about where we are now and what digital (read numerical) image capture opens up for us (which is now beginning to approach "magic").

Eismann and Duggan, two of the most experienced and articulate authors in this space, have, in this book, done a masterful job of bringing together a broad array of information, insight, personal experience and theory in a remarkably well organized framework (as an educator, I love the way chapters are structured with advance information on what the key issues each chapter will address) that makes all of our tasks as (digital) photographers easier, less laden with uncertainty, more efficient and more likely to yield successful and satisfying outcomes, which is what it's all about after all.

Is there a problem with this book? I have two: One is that it should have been named "The Creative Digital Lightroom" because that's really what it's about, sorry, a minor complaint, but I'm all about nomenclature. And the other is: How do you keep up? In a digital world, which I believe Anselm would actually have loved, everything changes all the time. Eismann and Duggan deal with that with a very active website associated with the book. Any reader should buy the book and take advantage of the dynamic changes that the associated website provides. I'm sure it will be a worthwhile ride.

There are a large number of books that provide an overview of Photoshop; most are for beginners and emphasize the tools and how to use them. If you are lucky and happened to buy one written by a working photographer, you likely also had a number of the author's really good photographs to work with. If you were unlucky, you had a book written by someone who was an expert, professional Photoshop user, but whose sample photographs were more snapshots than art. Perhaps you learned how to use the tools but not necessarily why. The good photos didn't need a lot of adjustmant, and the poor ones might not seem worth the effort.

If you were really unlucky, you might not have gotten any sample images, or 'color' was a small selection of small images bound together in the middle of the volume with the rest of the book in B&W... even the 'color' illustrations!

This books is well done... full color throughout. As far as I can tell, all the images used as examples in the book are available as downloads from the book's web site. This is important! Many of the examples are necessarily printed at a small size. You cannot esily see the outcome of the various editing steps. But with Bridge open to each chapter's image set, you can open and follow along with exactly what you are reading. (It's amazing how many authors do not do this!)

This book is written by a photgraphic artist who uses Photoshop as a tool to create works of art. So the emphasis here is to present Photoshop as a tool to achieve rsults that were either similar to existing film effects (cross procesing, grain, dodge, burn etc) and also things that are just so much easier and new in Photoshop.

This is no a beginner's guide to photography (digital or film), or a beginners guide to Photoshop. You should have experience in both. No explanation of f/stops and shutter speeds, and no elementary hand holding in Photoshop. You will learn how to color correct, balance tone & contrast, create film and digital effects, B&W conversion and much more.

If you have experience with earlier versions of Photoshop, and are moving to CS3, I would also recommend Fraser & Schewe's excellent book, "Real World Camera Raw", coverage of which would have made this book another 300+ pages longer.

So yes, this book does have, in part, some resemblance to other Photoshop 'recipe' books, but is written at a much higher level. Even more impressive in this book is the close attention to non-destructive image editing techniques. That is, techniques that do not commit changes that can't be later adjusted, removed or changed. The smart object abilities of CS3 are emhasized.

So if you want to move you digital darkroom techniqies to a higher level of artistry, this is great book to learn from!

I would have to admit that this is rather a lightweight effort on digital photography and Photoshop aimed at the beginner. The author starts out with very basic ideas on digital photography that probably anyone with experience should know and then goes through the basics of manipulating your images in Photoshop. The instructions are detailed and clear, but if you have done any work with Photoshop and digital cameras before, there is probably not that much here you are unfamiliar with. The best three chapters are the last three on creative color, creative enhancement, and enhancing focus. The book is well-illustrated and the instructions are clear. The book includes directions in numbered steps and screen-shots of the application as the author discusses various aspects of Photoshop and the effect or enhancement being attempted. However, if you have any experience you can probably skip this one. The table of contents is as follows:

Chapter 1. Silver to Silicon
Section 1.1. Seeing Images
Section 1.2. In the Digital Darkroom
Section 1.3. Learning and Forgetting the Rules

Chapter 2. Digital Nuts and Bolts
Section 2.1. Building a Digital Darkroom
Section 2.2. Under the Hood: Essential Photoshop Preferences and Color Settings
Section 2.3. Photoshop Color Settings
Section 2.4. The Color Settings Dialog
Section 2.5. RGB Working Spaces
Section 2.6. Color Management Policies
Section 2.7. Conversion Options and Advanced Controls
Section 2.8. Saving Your Color Settings
Section 2.9. File Navigation and Inspection
Section 2.10. Your Bags Are Packed

Chapter 3. Scan, Develop, and Organize
Section 3.1. From Analog to Digital
Section 3.2. Starting with Film
Section 3.3. Starting with a Digital Camera
Section 3.4. Working with Adobe Camera Raw and Photoshop Lightroom

Chapter 4. File Preparation
Section 4.1. Essential Image Quality
Section 4.2. Noise Reduction
Section 4.3. Sharpening Process
Section 4.4. Correcting Optical Distortion and Perspective
Section 4.5. Spotting and Cleanup

Chapter 5. Tone and Contrast
Section 5.1. Understanding Tone and Contrast
Section 5.2. Listen to the Image
Section 5.3. Non-Destructive Editing
Section 5.4. Global Image Improvements
Section 5.5. Converting Color to Black-and-White
Section 5.6. Toning and Split Toning Effects
Section 5.7. Building a Solid Foundation

Chapter 6. Dodging, Burning, and Exposure Control
Section 6.1. Interpreting the Image with Tone
Section 6.2. Non-Destructive Dodging and Burning
Section 6.3. Contrast and Exposure Control
Section 6.4. Seeing the Light

Chapter 7. Color Correction
Section 7.1. The Landscape of Color
Section 7.2. Global Color Correction
Section 7.3. The Power of Curves
Section 7.4. Color Enhancements
Section 7.5. Local Color Correction
Section 7.6. The Power of Lab
Section 7.7. A Journey Through the Landscape of Color

Chapter 8. Creative Color
Section 8.1. The Structure of Color
Section 8.2. Working with Hue
Section 8.3. Creative Color Temperature
Section 8.4. Exploring Image Mode Blending
Section 8.5. Create Cross-processing Effects
Section 8.6. It's a Colorful World

Chapter 9. Creative Enhancements
Section 9.1. Optical and Film Effects
Section 9.2. Darkroom Special Effects
Section 9.3. Adding Texture
Section 9.4. Fading Away: The Distressed Image
Section 9.5. Blending Textures into Skies
Section 9.6. Creative Edge Effects
Section 9.7. Enhancing the Visual Story

Chapter 10. Enhancing Focus
Section 10.1. Remove Distractions
Section 10.2. Sharpen with Finesse
Section 10.3. Valuable Noise
Section 10.4. Your Vision Comes First

Katrin Eismann is a phenomenal author and has compiled two excellent books, photoshop masking and compositing as well as photoshop restoration and retouching...with those books in mind, one may have thought that this book would be special, it's not...the book appears to be aimed at those people interested in a broad understanding of photoshop including workspaces, color management, color settings, types of printers, types of cameras, curves, levels etc...the basics...the authors eventually get into some reasonably "creative" work but not before most of the book deals with general information. There are too many books like this on the market. There are books that specialize in color (any of Dan Margulis's books) and sharpening and layers, masks, skin, etc...To try to pack that all into one book is simply giving one a taste, a general taste of the subject. This may be a good book for the beginner that wants to understand more about photoshop or an educator teaching a basic course, but this is not a book for a moderately skilled photoshop user. Unfortunately, this book was listed without a table of contents or an accurate description of its purpose. I would expect more from a Katrin Eismann book at this point in her career. p.s., thanks for the editorial review...i wish it or something similair would have been available prior to the date this book was first shipped to customers...If you're looking for a good book that focuses on the creative side of photoshop, consider Vincent Versace's, Welcome to Oz.

Katrin Eismann is a phenomenal author and has compiled two excellent books, photoshop masking and compositing as well as photoshop restoration and retouching...with those books in mind, one may have thought that this book would be special, it's not...the book appears to be aimed at those people interested in a broad understanding of photoshop including workspaces, color management, color settings, types of printers, types of camera, curves, levels etc...the basics...the authors eventually get into some reasonably "creative" work but not before most of the book deals with general information. There are too many books like this on the market. There are books that specialize in color (any of Dan Margulis's books) and sharpening and layers, masks, skin, etc...To try to pack that all into one book is simply giving one a taste, a general taste of the subject. This may be a good book for the beginner that wants to understand more about photoshop or an educator teaching a basic course, but this is not a book for a moderately skilled photoshop user. Unfortunately, this book was listed without a table of content or an accurate description of its purpose. I would expect more from a Katrin Eismann book at this point in her career.