George DeWolfe's Digital Photography Fine Print Workshop

Average customer rating: 4.0

Don't Waste Your Money
Comprehensive coverage of digital photography
Is this Ansels Adam's 'The Print' for the modern era.
Digital Workflow made easy
George DeWolfe's Digital Photography Fine Print Workshop

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George DeWolfe's Digital Photography Fine Print Workshop
George DeWolfe
Manufacturer: McGraw-Hill Osborne Media
Product Group: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: 0072260874

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Book Description

<b>Learn the secrets of fine art digital photography</b></p>

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. </p>

Customer Reviews:

Don't Waste Your Money.......2007-04-16

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.

Comprehensive coverage of digital photography.......2007-03-09

Reviewed by Bruce Herman
Member of the Alaskan Apple User's Group
Anchorage, Alaska

George DeWolfe's Digital Photography Fine Print Workshop is a significant departure from any of the other digital darkroom books that I've read. It was easily the most challenging because it presented so many new ideas in such a short book (255 pp.). Most other books rely heavily on global corrections that emphasize curves whereas DeWolfe relies more on levels, even for color corrections. Other authors apply local corrections with masks, but DeWolfe prefers to brush on corrections using the History Brush. Digital Fine Print Workshop was one of the most rewarding books about print making because it made me think about my photographs in new ways. This book grew out of the workshop that DeWolfe teaches

DeWolfe begins with an overview of what constitutes a digital fine print. He defines the terms brightness, color, contrast and so on, and then introduces the workflow that will be the central focus of the book. He gives a series of examples that provide the reader with a basis of distinguishing the good from the not so good for each of the qualities just defined. DeWolfe says that he has had a lifetime of developing his own appreciation of these characteristics. So it's a bit of a leap for a reader to expect to come up to speed by viewing a handful of photographs reproduced in a book. Here DeWolfe might have referenced some photographs on the Internet to give the student a bit more background.

Two aspects of DeWolfe's overall approach that set his book apart from most other digital print making books are his emphasis on separating the mid-tones and his concern for the quality of light in the print. I think that understanding these factors alone are likely to lead to vastly improved prints.

The second part of the book, titled "The Workshop," constitutes the core of the book. It is in this section that DeWolfe explains and illustrates in detail his personal vision of achieving the fine art print from a digital photograph. The workshop focuses on digital photography beginning with bringing the digital files from the camera into the computer and ends with making the print. DeWolfe covers techniques for dealing with both RAW and jpeg image files as they come off the camera. He does not mention scanning, although one could reasonably follow the workflow for jpeg images. In any case, he works with 16 bit files, which he claims allows him to use levels in Photoshop without encountering the gaps that arise when working with 8 bit files. My personal experience was that 16 bit files did not entirely preclude gapping, but it was not as bad as it would be with 8 bit files.

DeWolfe performs his artistry in two phases. He begins with global changes and then fine tunes the resulting photograph with local changes. One of the tools that DeWolfe uses is a plugin called Optipix. Although he discusses some techniques that substitute for Optipix, I found that using Optipix often made a step more likely to work as described. I would recommend purchase of this plugin ($139) if you wish to carefully follow DeWolfe's workflow.

It was in the application of the local corrections that I found the most difficulty in DeWolfe's approach. DeWolfe uses the history brush to make local corrections to almost all parameters of the photograph. He eschews masks as tools for graphic artists, preferring the history brush because it forces an artist to commit in order to move forward. Each reader of this book will have to make his or her own assessment of this view.

The Fine Print Workshop concludes with a brief description of what is required for a digital darkroom, including setting the preferences in Photoshop. This part of the book seems to be an attempt to broaden the appeal of the book to beginning digital photographers. Considering the level of complexity in executing the steps in the workshop, this almost seems out of place. That portion that deals with the software and hardware will be out of date long before the techniques described in the workshop pass into irrelevance.

DeWolfe's book grew out of the week long workshop by the same name that he teaches. Reading the book is not likely to be as good as taking the workshop, but it's far, far better than just reading the generic Photoshop how-to book. Despite the fact that I don't necessarily agree with all aspects of DeWolfe's workflow, I highly recommend this book. Just be sure to leave a reasonable amount of time to absorb the material and give it a fair appraisal.

Is this Ansels Adam's 'The Print' for the modern era........2007-02-10

Before you waste one more sheet of printing paper, before you waste another minute with scanning and color management, before you waste another second with a bad workflow ... get this book. You will save the price of it in one week just in paper and ink alone. And maybe you will keep your sanity. This is bedtime reading, coffee shop reading, and "lightroom" reading. It is well written, well printed, and straightforward. I have followed George DeWolfe's suggested workflow to the letter, and it works! Don't buy another book until you have this one, and have read it two or three times.

Digital Workflow made easy.......2007-01-21

I have found this book to be really excellent in showing how to set up a workflow in PS. From input, maximising your Raw file before putting into PS, to non destructive methods of manipulation. Simple use of layers, all easily explained, Levels, Curves, Brushes, Sharpening, and much more. All this is done in a non complicated way and is easily understood.
A Master who knows his trade and can also teach simply. (not many of those around)

George DeWolfe's Digital Photography Fine Print Workshop.......2006-08-09

Excellent book. I have many books on digital photography and this book ranks very high. Excellent work flow recommendations and clearly written. This book will also be used as a reference text in a photography course I will be taking. I have almost completed reading the entire book and making notes.

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