In the last few years major advances have occurred in digital photography, especially the ability to shoot in Raw mode and Adobe’s digital negative (.dng) file format. With this format there are two linked files associated with each image, one containing the raw data that came directly from a camera’s sensor, the other a rendering file that tells software programs how to display (or print) the image data. The raw image data is never altered. During “processing” you instead set parameters in the rendering file (white balance, exposure levels and much more) that tell computers, monitors and printers how to display the raw image data.

Because of ever changing digital photography technologies and software, learning how to shoot pictures digitally is very challenging. It is easy to get caught up in technical issues and lose sight of the art. Three books helped me learn how to harness digital photographic technologies so I could concentrate on what I love to do most – take pictures.

The DAM Book: Digital Asset Management for Photographers by Peter Krog: This is a must have book. With digital cameras you can have thousands if not hundreds of thousands of images sitting on your hard drive. Without a cataloging system you will be lucky to find images. This book helped me develop digital darkroom workflow, annotation, cataloging, and archiving systems.

A Few Scanning Tips by Wayne Fulton: This is the first book I read. It is really not about photography but about scanning. Considered the bible of scanning, the book opened my eyes to understanding digital image creation and resolution issues.

Mastering Digital Printing, second edition by Harald Johnson: This book showed me how important it is to understand how you will print images when it comes to taking and processing them. The book has a wealth of information on virtually every aspect of digital image processing and printing, with especially helpful sections on resolutions and color management.