The Creative Digital Darkroom

By Katrin Eismann and Sean Duggan: A Review

Nov 4, 2008 Paul Lightfoot

In a crowded field of Adobe Photoshop books, this one is aimed at intermediate-level photographers who want to hone their digital skills.

Does the world need another book on Photoshop, Adobe’s flagship image processing program? With so many titles available, each of them needs to offer something special to stand a chance of succeeding in the market place. Is there any hope for The Creative Digital Darkroom?

Digital Processing for Traditional Photographers

The marketeers main claim is that this is a book aimed squarely at photographers, translating traditional photographic and darkroom concepts and skills into the language and functionality of Photoshop. So it is not really a Photoshop book at all, but a photography book that happens to use many of the tools that Photoshop offers.

This is a theme that the authors set out in the first chapter and return to throughout the book’s 400 pages. The first requirement for good photography is a photographer’s eye, which requires training and practice, they say in the first chapter. And as they proceed through each step in the digital work flow they draw on parallels from traditional photography, starting with selecting the images that are worth working on.

Film Photography Concepts

Ansel Adams’ Zones System as a way of controlling tonality, dodging and burning to bring up detail in highlight and shadow areas, even finishing techniques like reticulation and texture, all have their digital equivalents. The authors do a good job of explaining concepts like these, and of working step by step through detailed examples. Readers can download the original images that the examples are based on, most of which are landscapes and other outdoor subjects rather than studio shots.

The authors offer not only technical explanations on how to get the best from an image, but also how to recognize what the best interpretation and enhancement is. Beyond traditional photography, some purely digital processes are explained, notably techniques for High Dynamic Range compositions.

Setting up the Digital Darkroom

The early chapters on setting up the digital darkroom and the overview of the digital work flow explain why it is best to start with raw image files, usually from digital SLR cameras, and taking the initial steps either with Photoshop’s Bridge and Camera Raw modules or using the separate but closely related Adobe Lightroom.

A strange feature of the book is the way it handles the final printing of images, often one of the trickiest steps. “It’s all about the print,” says the first chapter, and “When the ink hits the paper is when the entire digital darkroom process comes to fruition,” says the chapter on printing. Few would argue. But instead of including that chapter in the book, the authors have made it available as a download almost as if it was an afterthought.

Printing Digital Images

If they had included it, it would have been the book’s shortest chapter except for the introduction. While it covers key issues like sharpening for the printer and the use of profiles, this “bonus” chapter lacks the depth that distinguishes the printed version.

The book assumes readers are using version CS 3 of Photoshop, but its details will inevitably be overtaken by changes in software and hardware. New capabilities in Lightroom 2 for example mean it could handle one or two additional steps in the work flow before images are transferred to Photoshop. But even as the available software changes, much of The Creative Digital Darkroom will remain useful for the foreseeable future.

Advanced Digital Image Processing

Advanced users might find something new here, such as the benefits of converting images to LAB color mode for color corrections, the use of the High Pass filter to boost contrast selectively, using edge masks to preserve detail while reducing noise and the application of some of the “smart” features that were new in Photoshop CS3.

The book is best suited to serious photographers wanting to build on some existing experience with digital processing, or film photographers switching to the digital world. It helpfully refers to other books for complex topics, like Dan Margulis’ Photoshop Lab Color, and to other software for specialized functions, like DxO Optics Pro for lens correction and distortion effects. It is a book that needs time to work at rather than to browse, and it would be a steep learning curve for complete beginners.

The Creative Digital Darkroom by Katrin Eismann and Sean Duggan

Publisher: O'Reilly Media, Inc.; 1st edition (21 Dec 2007), ISBN-10: 0596100477 and ISBN-13: 978-0596100476

The copyright of the article The Creative Digital Darkroom in Photography is owned by Paul Lightfoot. Permission to republish The Creative Digital Darkroom in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

The digital darkroom at work