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George DeWolfe's Digital Photography Fine Print Workshop | 
 enlarge | Author: George Dewolfe
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Osborne Media
Category: Book
List Price: $39.99
Buy New: $26.39
You Save: $13.60 (34%)
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Rating:  13 reviews
Sales Rank: 49467
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1
Pages: 272
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.7
Dimensions (in): 9.8 x 8 x 0.6
ISBN: 0072260874
Dewey Decimal Number: 006
EAN: 9780072260878
ASIN: 0072260874
Publication Date: April 25, 2006
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Product Description
Learn the secrets of fine art digital photography Produce captivating and high-quality photographs easily and consistently with help from this invaluable guide, based on renowned photographer George DeWolfe’s most popular workshop. Inside, you will learn his “16-bit workflow” technique for mastering the craft of printing fine art photographs. You will also discover how to set up a successful “closed loop” environment--one in which you handle the entire photographic process yourself, sending nothing out for processing, manipulating, or development. Learning the qualities and techniques essential to creating a digital fine print with light, substance, and presence requires skill, experience, time, and vision. George DeWolfe’s Digital Photography Fine Print Workshop puts all of this expertise at your fingertips.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 8 more reviews...
For Advanced Photoshop Users May 26, 2006
Conrad J. Obregon (New York, NY USA)
86 out of 90 found this review helpful
My grandmother was a great baker. But everything she did in creating a pie or cake came from memory or intuition. When my mother tried to create written recipes of my grandmother's procedures, she was frustrated by quantities like a handful of something or enough of something. My mother really lost it when my grandmother told her to roll out some dough until it looked right. If you can't deal with this kind of instruction, George DeWolfe may not be for you.
The book covers De Wolfe's recommendations for making a great digital print. I'd be overstating things if I said he never gives firm instructions but de Wolfe is more concerned with the feeling of a print than with specific rules. He says that there are six elements to control in making a print: cropping, contrast, brightness, color, defects and sharpness. He then proceeds to explain his workflow to deal with each of these issues, both globally and at a detail level.
This book is aimed at advanced users of Photoshop. Quite often the instructions that he gives to create a desired effect contain only the most significant steps in the process, leaving it for the reader to fill in the gaps. Occasionally he says that he is telling you all you need to know to use a particular Photoshop tool. For example he says that all you need to know to use the curves tool is that moving the curve upwards increases brightness and moving it downwards decreases brightness. That's hyperbole because there are other important functions of the curve tool that make it easier or more effective to apply.
DeWolfe sometimes favors some rather idiosyncratic tools to process images. Photoshop usually offers several approaches to accomplishing a task, but DeWolfe often selects the more unusual. For example DeWolfe prefers the use of the history brush to masks to effect adjustments to the image. He also suggests several procedures that other experts find problematic. For example, he says that, as a result of the nature of digital photography, detail sharpening is important early in the process as opposed to edge sharpening at the end of the process. Some other experts are less accepting of this approach.
I expected that a book called a workshop would require some participation by the reader beyond just reading. This might be tutorials or at least sample images to follow along with the text. Particularly when the author suggested some procedure that was counter-intuitive for me, it would have been nice if there had been an image to work from, either from a CD or downloaded from the internet.
DeWolfe regularly suggests that a Photoshop plug-in that he authored is the solution to a problem. I always wonder how impartial an author is when he suggests that you buy a product that he sells.
If you are just getting comfortable with Photoshop but want to move into more advanced techniques, I suggest starting with Rob Sheppard's "Outdoor Photographer Landscape and Nature Photography with Photoshop CS2". Its lessons are applicable to as many genres as DeWolfe's. On the other hand, if you are an experienced user and able to fill in the blanks when DeWolfe is skipping along, and if you are comfortable enough with Photoshop to decide whether you want to accept DeWolfe's techniques, this book will help you to examine your notions, get a better handle on a logical workflow and perhaps even learn procedures that are more useful to you then those you presently know.
 Photographer as Artist June 1, 2006
Lydia Goetze
16 out of 16 found this review helpful
George DeWolfe sees the photographer as an artist, not a technician, yet his book provides the technical knowledge and shows how to use Photoshop to create consistently high quality fine art prints. Writing for the experienced photographer with a basic knowledge of Photoshop, DeWolfe begins by showing the photographer, with many examples, how to evaluate an image and decide what adjustments will bring out its special qualities. The experienced photographer has always used his or her understanding of how light, luminosity and color give life to an image, and has traditionally used various techniques in the darkroom to enhance them. DeWolfe begins by training the eye of the artist to see these elements and understand how they work. After showing the reader how to truly see the image and decide how to fine-tune it, DeWolfe then gives us a very detailed digital workflow which, once mastered, allows the photographer to produce excellent prints on a consistent basis. The workflow is clarified by many screen shots showing Photoshop techniques and before/after image adjustments. Those who think visually will find these particularly helpful.
DeWolfe's approach is to use the simplest techniques that can produce consistently fine results. (Some Photoshop users will be surprised by his use of the history brush instead of masking; as a photographer who uses this tool, I appreciate its simplicity and controlled results.) His focus is not on "tips-and-tricks in Photoshop", but on how to get the best possible prints in the simplest, most straightforward way. While a first reading gives valuable insights, the book's true value becomes evident when the photographer uses the workflow on his or her own images, and practices to become proficient. The proof, as they say, is in the print.
 Don't Waste Your Money April 16, 2007
Photo Monkey (Vermont)
14 out of 15 found this review helpful
Firstly, I never write reviews, but I felt I had to for this one. Before I start I feel I should give my credentials. I have spent the last three years working as an assistant to a fine art printer working on traditional print projects for numerous big name photographers.
I bought this book after seeing that Mr Dewolfe teaches up at the Cone Workshops and after reading the good reviews on Amazon. That was a big mistake!! This is the reason why it is good to check books out in a store before you purchase.
The book is very weak. I had read "Real World Photoshop CS2" prior to this, so I had a very good benchmark. RWP CS2 is a truly excellent book on using photoshop. Dewolfe's book is poorly laid out, repetitious (very), contradictory and gives limited examples of valuable technique. I gained nothing from reading the book and bored quickly of his preachy style. Here is an example:
"The print has another dimension that I call presence. It has almost nothing to do with the technical side, but it is a matter of craft, that careful blend of aesthetic judgment and technical skill."
Now tell me if that is not a contradiction. Who edited this?
Another thing that bugged me is that the book feels like an advert for the line of Optipix plug-ins that he is associated with. He mentions them almost constantly (there is an advert on the last page if you missed the hundreds of references throughout the book).
Please, please, check this out in a bookstore before you make up your mind.
Digital Photography as an Art Form May 24, 2006
Richard D. Zakia (North Carolina)
11 out of 16 found this review helpful
Everyone is a photographer but there are few whose work stands out above the rest. If you are working in digital and want to take your work to the next level, this book is for you. It is authored by a master teacher and photographer, one who has a living connection to Ansel Adams and Minor White--two earlier photographers who helped photography become an art form. George DeWolfe carries on their tradition.
His book is not just about digital photography and the fine print. It is about seeing and feeling, about light and color, about artistry and craftsmanship; it is about intimately connecting with what you are photographing, about pride in the image you create and reverence for the fine print.
The book is nicely designed with hundreds of color photographic examples supporting and enriching the text. Photographs are shown in pairs, side-by-side, to allow the reader to make direct comparisons of a good print and a really fine print, to see the subtle differences that elevate a print to near perfection.
This book is a must for every serious photographer who wants to practice digital photography as an art form. I enthusiasticlly recommend it.
Richard D. Zakia
Having taken the workshop... July 6, 2006
J. Brewton (Folly Beach, SC)
11 out of 11 found this review helpful
...I can recommend this book to anyone wishing to simplify CS2 and achieve great results. Yes, the book does have a few problems as outlined by another reviewer and I will leave it at that. There are many, many tools available to the photographer in PS - too many in my opinion. George will guide the reader through adjustments in RAW, the usual histogram changes, etc. and then will detail the history brush. If you have never used this tool then the book is worth the money. In many cases when trying to dodge and burn you can damage the original image if not careful. Using the history brush changes all that with more precise corrections and more control over the results. If you are not shooting RAW, you will be and you'll know why after reading this book.
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