Beginning of a list of valuable educational aids for learning photography. Among the literally hundreds of books, videos, and bookmarks & have, these always come to mind when recommending to a new shooter:

- Understanding Exposure - Bryan Peterson

- Learning to See Creatively - Bryan Peterson

- The Digital Photography Book - Scott Kelby

- Photography and the Art of Seeing: A Visual Perception Workshop for Film and Digital Photography - Freeman Patterson

- Radiantvista.com - video tutorial - excellent step-by-step. The 5-step primer is a must-watch for beginners learning Photoshop (2/20/06) - http://www.radiantvista.com/video_tutorials/

- dpreview.com - discussion of photo gear

- photosig.com - photo critique site. Excellent work and constructive critiques.

- Photoshop and Lightroom books by Scott Kelby

- A great windows-based DOF calculator - http://www.bobatkins.com/photography/technical/depth_of_field_calc.html

- Tutorials on Composition, Noise, Waterfalls, Sharpening, Curves/Layers, etc. - http://www.ronbigelow.com/articles/articles.htm


Add your own...

Great links CPRich.. thanks for sharing.

Here's one I'd like to add:

Jodie Coston's online photography course - http://www.morguefile.com/archive/classroom.php

To get the most out of Photoshop, I'd recommend the following books/sites:

"Photoshop [CS/CS2/CS3] for Photographers" by Martin Evening - Evening is a working fashion photographer, and he covers workflow, post-processing techniques, the basics of Photoshop, etc. very well. Most used PS book I have. I can also recommend "Photoshop CS2 for Digital Photographers Only".

I'll echo CPRich's favorable feedback on Kelby's books - they're maybe a little more user-friendly than Evening's book if you're new to PS, although maybe less comprehensive.

I do not recommend Deke McClelland's "Photoshop CS2 One-on-One" - his style is annoying, and too much of his book focuses on graphics design work, not getting the most out of photos.

If you shoot RAW, then "Real World Camera Raw" by Bruce Fraser is a must-have.

Another couple of websites I recommend:

luminous-landscape.com - focused on landscape photography. The site caters more towards high end gear (digital medium format), but a lot of the discussions of techniques is applicable to any shooter who wants to get better landscapes. Lots of tutorial material on the site, although some of it is getting a bit dated. Still, I swing by there a couple times a month to see what's new. They've got discussion forums there, but they don't see a lot of traffic.

fredmiranda.com - the site's business purpose is to sell Photoshop plugins (and they've got a couple of pretty good ones). However, the discussion forums there are great. Lots of quality posts, and lots of people showing off their work in various areas to give you ideas/inspiration. There are separate forums for landscapes, people photography, macro, sports, weddings, etc, all getting a fair amount of traffic.

strobist.com - this site's more devoted to lighting, but it does it really well. The central idea behind this site is to get your flash off of your camera, opening up more creative possibilities. It's also about doing lighting economically. The site author is a staff photographer for the Baltimore paper. Great articles, and a lively discussion group over at Flickr (and about 15,000 contributed photos).

I'll also vote for CPRich's link to Ron Bigelow's websites.

If you use GIMP: http://tutorialblog.org/gimp-tutorials/

As a side-note, I really recommend GIMP. It's free, and has a lot of the same functionality as Photoshop. Plus, if you don't like it, you're not out anything but a little time.

123di (http://www.123di.com/default.htm) was immensely helpful to me in solving specific problems using photoshop (CS and Elements... and Nikon Capture now too). And I believe they have a free trial of the e-book version.

Outdoor Photographer Landscape and Nature Photography with Photoshop CS2 (Outdoor Photographers) by Rob Sheppard is very good.

I second luminous-landscape.com. Great site. The tutorials are definitely worth reading.

http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials.htm

I found the following ebooks very helpful when I started out with Nikon DSLR. Answers every basic question you might have about optimum camera operation and technique.

--The ebooks by Thom Hogan on DSLR and Flash: http://www.bythom.com/ (great site if you shoot Nikon in general)

--The ebook by Peter Inova and Uwe Stenmueller, "DSLR: Nikon D70" (Inova does versions for other cameras as well)

These ebooks come with photoshop actions and other goodies, some of which I've used a lot.

I'm also a fairly frequent visitor to nikonians.org for tips, reviews, and news about the Nikon world.

--The ebooks by Thom Hogan on DSLR and Flash: http://www.bythom.com/ (great site if you shoot Nikon in general)

I'm also a fairly frequent visitor to nikonians.org for tips, reviews, and news about the Nikon world.

Nikon should just get rid of whoever writes their manuals and let Thom Hogan write them. He's that good.

Nikonians is a decent site, but there's a strong bias towards products sold through the Nikonians store (Markins ballheads) or companies that advertise there (ThinkTank Photo). Plus, every time you post, they have a nag screen asking you to donate money and become a member. Given that I already have a webhost, I don't need their photo galleries, etc.

That said, I do have some Think Tank gear (a belt system) and it's great. Not cheap, but I have a feeling it will last darn near forever.

Someone who teaches some of our local digital photography classes recently recommended to me http://www.photo.net/ as a good place to get tips, camera reviews, and also critiques of photos you upload.

He also recommended GIMP, as did dizzy.

Nikon should just get rid of whoever writes their manuals and let Thom Hogan write them. He's that good.


Absolutely agree. The D200 Nikon manual is virtually unusable, especially for aging eyes. Thom Hogan's eBook is fantastic and very readable.

Is it too early to recommend this thread to be a sticky at this "young" forum? :)

I'd be in favor of that - maybe CPRich or one of our trusty mods could tie all the links we've suggested into one post. The one think I don't like about stickied resource threads is that the little nuggets of useful info after page 1 sometimes get lost.

I have on my to-do list to comb through my Bookmarks/hard-drive and look for some other good data. I can pull the other suggestions to the top thread. Mod's can decide whether to sticky or not.

Can anyone recommend some good books or web resources on color management and printing?

Also, what magazines do you all subscribe to?

I completely agree with your first pick: Understanding Exposure by Bryan Peterson. Simple to understand and extremely well done.

I completely agree with your first pick: Understanding Exposure by Bryan Peterson. Simple to understand and extremely well done.

Agreed.

Yes, we all know the basics -aperture, shutter speed, and ISO- and yes, they are simple concepts. You may also wonder why you should read a whole book on the sole topic of exposure.

All I can say is, get this book. You NEED it. If you read this book cover-to-cover, you will look at photography in a whole new way. And the pictures he has are inspiring.

Bump... Please combine with Gargoyle's post (http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=687964&referrerid=3941) and make a sticky

Just picked up the Adobe Photoshop Lightroom book by Scott Kelby. Just flipped through it and yup - it's well worth the money.

I do consider myself being a fairly advanced computer user. I have been running Lightroom since the first beta came out. Still there is a ton of stuff in there for me to learn and already picked up a few things.

Now I'm going to have less sleep than I already do.

/E

Digital Photography Photojournal (http://www.dphotojournal.com) - basically a compilation of reviews, plus a few other random nuggets. They do have nice side-by-side reviews of new cameras compiled from some of the major sites listed elsewhere in these two threads.

Just picked up the Adobe Photoshop Lightroom book by Scott Kelby. Just flipped through it and yup - it's well worth the money.

I do consider myself being a fairly advanced computer user. I have been running Lightroom since the first beta came out. Still there is a ton of stuff in there for me to learn and already picked up a few things.

Now I'm going to have less sleep than I already do.


I took a skim through this one and Martin Evening's Lightroom book at Borders recently, and for once, I can recommend Kelby's book over Evening's (where the opposite holds for Photoshop). I don't know if I'd call either of them "worth it" at US$40, but with one of those frequent 30% off coupons at Borders I keep getting in email, it might be a better deal.

For those of you who are now digital photography oriented:

I'd suggest subscribing to PCPhoto magazine. I like it's balance between photography, articles on techniques, listings for hands-on photography seminars and photography sessions, and a very nifty section on how to better use Photoshop. I know that there's lots of photography magazines and journals out there, but this one is fresh and emphasizes the digital world.

Because photography and Photoshop now go hand in hand , I'd also suggest going to Adobe.com and signing up for e-mail updates on the various Photoshop and related products as Adobe sponsers all sorts of seminars around the country ( many are free or nominal charge ). Some of these seminars have extensive emphasis upon photography as it relates to Photoshop. I've attended a few of these and I learn new things both about Photoshop and photography.

If you're a Photoshop photographer enthusiast, I also suggest joining NAPP -- the national association of photoshop professionals (http://www.photoshopuser.com/). The organization encompasses and serves graphic designers, web authors, content desingers, and photographers. It's magazine, Photoshop User is the Gold Standard for Photoshop. Mr. Kelby and others write monthly in this magazine, offering useful practical tips both for photographers and for Photoshop users. Also another good source for finding out about photo seminars and lectures around the country.

I have benefited greatly as a photo enthusiast from all three of the above sources.

Barry

This thread and this thread (http://flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=687964) say "Merge us and sticky, please!"

Just picked up the Adobe Photoshop Lightroom book by Scott Kelby. Just flipped through it and yup - it's well worth the money.

I do consider myself being a fairly advanced computer user. I have been running Lightroom since the first beta came out. Still there is a ton of stuff in there for me to learn and already picked up a few things.

Now I'm going to have less sleep than I already do.

/E

Im fairly new to the computer side of photography and have been struggling with it. Based on the recommendations for Lightroom discussed on the other thread I ordered Kelbys book on Lightroom from Amazon Wednesday night and got it Friday. In just the time since then I have learned a huge amount, and I can see lots more. Im really delighted with this book and would highly recommend it to anyone doing digital photography and using Lightroom, and maybe even people not using Lightroom (although why would anyone not use Lightroom? ;) ).

All lightroom users who have bought the Kelby book should go to www.scottkelby.com and follow instructions on how to get the 28 page pdf which includes the new uses of lightroom 1.1

I bought "Mastering Digital SLR Photography" by David Busch over a year and a half ago and now just finished it (yeah, I'm one of those people with a huge stack of books at the bedside that takes years to finish)

I'd have to say I was pleasantly surprised by this one. I wouldn't say this book is a "must have" or for everyone, but a very interesting read and reference if you are interested in a deeper discussion of the technical aspects of digital photography (Like the differences between CCD, CMOS, and why Fovean is theoretically better than the Bayer pattern, etc.) - a nice background into the whys and hows of digital as it relates to photography. In the end, it *is* a photography book, so it's interesting for the geeky (such as myself) as well as for the photographer who wants to gain a deeper understanding on how to manipulate those pixels for better pictures.

Nothing in this book provides really new information about digital technology, photography, or post-processing. What made this book useful to me was that it combined all 3 into one book and one comprensive discussion. This is why I'd say it's a non-essential book, but made interesting because of the context. If you're someone who always asks "why" then this is a good book to have.

Lot's of good suggestions already but I'd like to add:

www.danheller.com -- very successful travel photographer. He has a detailed section on his site of tutorials for photographers. The link is at the top of the home page (tutorials). He also has books which he sells on his web site but there is a wealth of information on his site.