Editor Reviews:

Product Description:
Design is the single most important factor in creating a successful photograph. The ability to see the potential for a strong picture and then organize the graphic elements into an effective, compelling composition has always been one of the key skills in making photographs.
Digital photography has brought a new, exciting aspect to design - first because the instant feedback from a digital camera allows immediate appraisal and improvement; and second because image-editing tools make it possible to alter and enhance the design after the shutter has been pressed. This has had a profound effect on the way digital photographers take pictures.
The Photographer's Eye shows how anyone can develop the ability to see and shoot great digital photographs. The book explores all the traditional approaches to composition and design, but crucially, it also addresses the new digital technique of shooting in the knowledge that a picture will later be edited, manipulated, or montaged to result in a final image that may be very different from the one seen in the viewfinder.

Features
*Covers both traditional in-camera composition and the new opportunities for picture-making made possible by digital imaging editing
*Shows how to explore situations and locations in order to find the best possible photographic possibilities
*Uses clear examples from real photographic assignments, with schematic illustrations of how and why the pictures work

Rating : - superbly written and photos illustrate points made
At once, The Photographer's Eye, grips you, beckons one to get your camera, and use your eyes differently, to take in what's there and not, and know when to do what. Michael Freeman is a master tutor, communicator.

This large sized book from Focal Press, a company that truly values it's readers and authors with high quality binding, paper, and print, has another winner with this book, that truly led me to reevaluate my sense of design, ways of approaching a photograph, and ponder. The book starts out like it should from the beginning of what an image is, what your eye sees, and slowly educates, showing vivid images, with notes, so I grasped what was to do and to follow. It's 180 pages, 6 chapters cover it all, left me feeling much more confident about why, what, and when. Knowing most work in digital domain now, additional skill building is brought forth on how before and after the image is taken, and what can be created.

Chapter 1 begins with the frame and image, from how to start to a sense of just how one can see what's there, and how to get it.
Chapter 2 gets into Design Basics, a topic not covered by many, but so necessary to accomplish Gestalt perception with balance, dynamic tension, patterns, visual weight, and content.
Chapter 3 covers Graphic and Photographic Elements, illustrating the two dimensional forms that show up in the picture frame.
Chapter 4 really showed me a new way of composing with light and color, using tone and color.
Chapter 5 on Intent had me examine what I was attempting to show in my composition and why, yes, answer why. Freeman has a gift in talking to the reader.
Chapter 6 is Process, brings about how design, art, and other media work together, and I found that my eye, and intuition was sharpened, more aware of this process.

A great book, just long enough to cover design, a well organized book, images that work, support what the author posits, and again, a quality book,that Focal Press brings us, a welcome git.