There’s been something of a resurgence in Black and White photography in recent years, due largely to the digital revolution. B&W film photographers had to rely on colored filters applied when making the exposure to bring out or suppress the particular tones that they wished to appear in the final print; this was, and is, something of a black art.Digital photographers can simply shoot the scene in color–and then mix the red, green, and blue channels as desired. The results are considerably more flexible, and the process is much more forgiving. It’s this new process that is the subject of this book.

I’ve come to realize that many photographs of the kind I like to take simply look better in black and white, and so I brought this book home. My feelings about it are mixed. On the one hand, I learned a few things from it, and have made a number of (I think) decent B&W prints as a result. On the other hand, the book has a number of flaws. It is extremely Photoshop-centric, and many of the techniques described simply can’t be done in Adobe’s entry-level package, Photoshop Elements. I don’t have the full version of Photoshop, and I really can’t justify spending the money on it at present. (It’s surprisingly expensive.) Further, although the book is full of before-and-after pictures they are poorly laid out, too small, and printed so badly that often enough I really can’t see much difference between them. I don’t know if these presentation problems are the fault of the author or of someone further down the chain; but they are a real shame, as the book would be 100% better if they were taken care of.

Pity.