The Adobe Photoshop CS3 Book for Digital Photographers, by Scott Kelby

ISBN-13: 978-321-50191-2
New Riders Publishers
Copyright 2008 by Scott Kelby


I love this book. Love, love, love it. Scott Kelby is famous for his photoshopping skills, but what's even better are his communication skills. No matter how complex a process or thought on CS3, Scott has a way of breaking it down and explaining it. Trust me on this, if I get what he's saying, you'll get it to. He's providing any number of useful tools that it would take a lifetime if not longer for you to figure out on your own or with minimal help. I'm finding his Portrait Touch-up tools to be very simple, practical and exciting. This is a book/manual that I keep on my desk and am sure that I will refer to time and time again. Below are a before and after of one of my shots touched-up using just some of the tools he provide in this book. Enjoy, this book is worth it's weight in pixels!

Master Lighting Guide for Portrait Photographers, by Christopher Grey

ISBN-13: 978-1-58428-125-2
Amherst Media
Copyright 2004, Christopher Grey

If you're a portrait photgrapher looking for the crucible of books on lighting, your search stops here. I'm sorry if I'm sounding particularily melodramatic here, but this is my absolute favorite book on portrait lighting to date. Not only does Mr. Grey show you how he lights each of his shots, he shows you the evolution of his thought process to get there. Invaluable! Not only that, but he gives you insight into the history of each lighting style and technique and challenges you to master the basics and then move beyond. If you only look for one book to master portrait lighting, find this one. You won't be disappointed. My only con for this tome was the author's prompts to try each shoot myself. I didn't want to put the book down long enough to try! ;)

The Best of Portrait Photography, Techniques and Images from the Pros. 2nd Ed. Bill Hurter

ISBN-13: 978-1-58428-223-5.
Amherst Media
Copyright 2008, Bill Hurter

I had high hopes for this book, it received good reviews online at amazon. What I thought this book would be was a consortium of tips and how-to's from professional photographers to help take my portraiture up to the next level. What it turned out to be was a beginner book on portraiture terms and editorials on various high-end portrait photographers. There wasn't any real depth to the chapters, no lighting scenarios or diagrams beyond one page of the basic set-ups. In the end, I took away a sense of respect for the high-end photographers presented in this book by the author. But was often left wondering if the photographers themselves would have broken their images down to the minutae of the author. A nice read for inspiration, but was left wanting more meat on the bone.