Posted by Scott Buckel on June 29, 2006 at 10:00 PM
All,
I am on the MacDonald's emailing list and this is a recent message Igot from them. I have not seen this book, butI have talked to Joe extensively in February while we were on the same trip and he has some very good ideas on workflow. I have always enjoyed reading his books in the past. Hopefully, posting this is not offensive to anyone as that is not the intention.
Scott
Hi Everyone,
I don’t know if you’ve visited our website www.hoothollow.com recently, so you may not know that our new book, released as a PDF file on CD, is finished.
We’ve been getting tremendous reviews – people love the no-nonsense, what-you-need information that is edited down to the essential stuff you need to know. If you’ve looked at most (maybe all?) digital photography books, you’ll note that most (all?) are either a rehash, or almost a reprint of a traditional how-to photography book, or are filled with so much unnecessary information that the message – what do you need?—is diluted or lost.
Our digital photography book, ‘DIGITAL NATURE PHOTOGRAPHY, >From Capture to Output’ cowritten by Joe McDonald, Rick Holt, and Mary Ann McDonald, does not do that. Instead, the book discusses digital photography as it applies to nature photography and discusses digital workflow, Photoshop, and hardware or software issues not only as it applies to nature photography but also, and this is the important point, HOW WE DO IT.
The book shows our digital workflow, how we keep track of our digital files, how we edit, how we sort files, in short, how we make sense out of what can be an over-whelming and confusing issue. Although we did not write a Photoshop book, we included sections on Photoshop as it applies to the nature photographer, and we show you the entire step-by-step method to accomplish the tasks necessary to maximize the digital potential.
That includes a thorough treatment of the RAW converter, using Bridge for editing and sorting images, and making Exposure Composites, Focus Composites, Panoramas, and more. Our techniques work, and I can state that with confidence because these are the techniques I teach in our Digital Nature Photo Courses and I see that our students understand what they are doing.
The book also discusses some applicable ‘traditional photography’ chapters, including chapters on Composition, Lenses, and Exposure, and these chapters are tied into their relevance to digital photography. Do you understand histograms? You will with the book.
Although the book is a PDF file, it can be printed – either off your home printer or from Staples or Office Depot, etc. We did a PDF file for several reasons –
1. It allows us to create up-dates as required without ‘out dating’ the book as a printed version would be.
2. You can print ONLY the chapters you may need to reference frequently – like the Photoshop workflow chapters.
3. You can load the PDF on your laptop to have the entire book at your fingertips wherever you travel. If you’re shooting digital, you’re probably carrying your laptop too, so you’ll have our ‘Laptop Field Guide’ with you when you need it.
4. If you have a two monitor system, you can follow along in the book on one monitor screen and do the workflow on the other – all with the same reading glasses, light, and sitting position. You can’t do that with a book.
5. PDF files can be sized for your optimum view. You can change text size for easier reading – large print if necessary, or you can zoom in for a more detailed look at a screen shot or an image. You can’t do that with a book
6. Although a PDF allows the book to be ‘timeless’ in the sense of easy updates, a PDF book also is really, really Green – environmentally friendly. I need only look at the stack of magazines piled up in my office, unread, or the two shelves of Photoshop books (some never read) to see the tremendous amount of waste, energy, and trees that all that paper represents. I do agree that it’s often, but not always, more convenient to read a real book, but there’s nothing to stop anyone from printing those sections that require it.
7. Although the book could have been composed on our home computers using an amateurish page layout program or design, we used a professional book designer and the work shows. The layout of the book is beautiful, and I’d put it against any book on the market.
Last, you might wonder why I co-wrote the book. For the most part, I think the text reads with my style of writing. My co-author, Rick Holt, wrote many of the Photoshop sections, and Rick is a Photoshop Certified Expert, so he knows what he’s writing about when he does so. Mary, as she’d readily admit, is a digital novice, but her role wasn’t to write the book but to edit it – making sure that what we wrote, as experienced Photoshop users, made sense to her. If she couldn’t understand it, chances are others would not be able to either, and in those cases she rewrote those passages so that they made sense to everyone – which might include YOU a new digital user.
You can order the book directly from our office for $29.95, which includes the postage/handling. I hope you do, and I also would really appreciate it if you would pass this email on to your friends that are not on our ‘First Alert’ contact list and please let them know about this book as well.
Thanks, and hopefully we’ll see you on a trip soon!
Discussion
0 repliesI am on the MacDonald's emailing list and this is a recent message Igot from them. I have not seen this book, butI have talked to Joe extensively in February while we were on the same trip and he has some very good ideas on workflow. I have always enjoyed reading his books in the past. Hopefully, posting this is not offensive to anyone as that is not the intention.
Scott
Hi Everyone,
I don’t know if you’ve visited our website www.hoothollow.com recently, so you may not know that our new book, released as a PDF file on CD, is finished.
We’ve been getting tremendous reviews – people love the no-nonsense, what-you-need information that is edited down to the essential stuff you need to know. If you’ve looked at most (maybe all?) digital photography books, you’ll note that most (all?) are either a rehash, or almost a reprint of a traditional how-to photography book, or are filled with so much unnecessary information that the message – what do you need?—is diluted or lost.
Our digital photography book, ‘DIGITAL NATURE PHOTOGRAPHY, >From Capture to Output’ cowritten by Joe McDonald, Rick Holt, and Mary Ann McDonald, does not do that. Instead, the book discusses digital photography as it applies to nature photography and discusses digital workflow, Photoshop, and hardware or software issues not only as it applies to nature photography but also, and this is the important point, HOW WE DO IT.
The book shows our digital workflow, how we keep track of our digital files, how we edit, how we sort files, in short, how we make sense out of what can be an over-whelming and confusing issue. Although we did not write a Photoshop book, we included sections on Photoshop as it applies to the nature photographer, and we show you the entire step-by-step method to accomplish the tasks necessary to maximize the digital potential.
That includes a thorough treatment of the RAW converter, using Bridge for editing and sorting images, and making Exposure Composites, Focus Composites, Panoramas, and more. Our techniques work, and I can state that with confidence because these are the techniques I teach in our Digital Nature Photo Courses and I see that our students understand what they are doing.
The book also discusses some applicable ‘traditional photography’ chapters, including chapters on Composition, Lenses, and Exposure, and these chapters are tied into their relevance to digital photography. Do you understand histograms? You will with the book.
Although the book is a PDF file, it can be printed – either off your home printer or from Staples or Office Depot, etc. We did a PDF file for several reasons –
1. It allows us to create up-dates as required without ‘out dating’ the book as a printed version would be.
2. You can print ONLY the chapters you may need to reference frequently – like the Photoshop workflow chapters.
3. You can load the PDF on your laptop to have the entire book at your fingertips wherever you travel. If you’re shooting digital, you’re probably carrying your laptop too, so you’ll have our ‘Laptop Field Guide’ with you when you need it.
4. If you have a two monitor system, you can follow along in the book on one monitor screen and do the workflow on the other – all with the same reading glasses, light, and sitting position. You can’t do that with a book.
5. PDF files can be sized for your optimum view. You can change text size for easier reading – large print if necessary, or you can zoom in for a more detailed look at a screen shot or an image. You can’t do that with a book
6. Although a PDF allows the book to be ‘timeless’ in the sense of easy updates, a PDF book also is really, really Green – environmentally friendly. I need only look at the stack of magazines piled up in my office, unread, or the two shelves of Photoshop books (some never read) to see the tremendous amount of waste, energy, and trees that all that paper represents. I do agree that it’s often, but not always, more convenient to read a real book, but there’s nothing to stop anyone from printing those sections that require it.
7. Although the book could have been composed on our home computers using an amateurish page layout program or design, we used a professional book designer and the work shows. The layout of the book is beautiful, and I’d put it against any book on the market.
Last, you might wonder why I co-wrote the book. For the most part, I think the text reads with my style of writing. My co-author, Rick Holt, wrote many of the Photoshop sections, and Rick is a Photoshop Certified Expert, so he knows what he’s writing about when he does so. Mary, as she’d readily admit, is a digital novice, but her role wasn’t to write the book but to edit it – making sure that what we wrote, as experienced Photoshop users, made sense to her. If she couldn’t understand it, chances are others would not be able to either, and in those cases she rewrote those passages so that they made sense to everyone – which might include YOU a new digital user.
You can order the book directly from our office for $29.95, which includes the postage/handling. I hope you do, and I also would really appreciate it if you would pass this email on to your friends that are not on our ‘First Alert’ contact list and please let them know about this book as well.
Thanks, and hopefully we’ll see you on a trip soon!
Joe McDonald
McDonald Wildlife Photography
73 Loht Road
McClure PA 17841
Tel/fax: 717.543.6423
Email: hoothollow@acsworld.com