Creative Close-Ups: Digital Photography Tips and Techniques

Description

After reading Bryan Peterson's Understanding Close-Up Photography I found this book at my local bookstore. Thumbing through it I saw that there were macro techniques explained for Photoshop and quickly decided to purchase the book. Well, there are two techniques that are quite well explained, but other than that I can honestly say that I found nothing else useful through the whole thing. Most of the book seems to be the author telling you what he likes to shoot (flowers on black background, flowers on white background, still life, etc.) in a short paragraph, then a few example shots with a brief synopsis of what you're looking at and what the author "feels" about the shot. He mentions a handful of items that are useful for shooting close-ups or macros, but never goes into any detail about their application. Much more disappointing than that, everything that he describes that would be new and exciting (i.e. digital painting) is left completely unexplained and the reader is given a reference to another book, of course written by this same author. I strongly recommend that you purchase Peterson's book and leave this one on the shelf. The only reason I'm giving it two stars is because I did learn a new technique in Photoshop (focus-stacking). Now, I think I'll find someone or somewhere to donate this book.