The book is printed in black & white and has a well-liked spiral binding that lets the book lie flat or be folded back. The accompanying eBook on a CD disc is a printable and searchable full-color version of the same book in Adobe's popular PDF format. It can be read on a PC or Mac using the free Acrobat Reader or any current Web browser. This eBook also includes clickable links to 50 or so interactive animations that illustrate the core concepts of digital photography. These animations allow you to interact with such concepts as exposure compensation, lens focal lengths, histograms, and much, much more. (To use these animations you do need an Internet connection.)

Just some of the things you'll learn are how to take pictures in fully automatic point and shoot mode and how your camera captures digital images; how to play back and manage your images; how to use buttons, dials, and menus; control image size and quality; shoot continuously, use all of the camera's exposure modes and exposure controls to get photos that show the scene exactly as it is, or as you want to interpret it; use histograms for the best possible exposures; see how to control sharpness in your photographs; and how to use focus, depth-of-field, sharpness, softness, and blur creatively. Learn all about light and color and how to use them creatively. Understand how they change throughout the day and seasons, how they re affected by the weather, and how light s direction and quality affects highlights and shadows. See how to set white balance to capture colors the way you see them. Learn how to use lenses creatively when photographing scenery, interiors, people, and very small subjects. See how zoom and macro mode affects your images. See how to creatively use an external flash both indoors and out and in good light and bad and how to use studio lighting for product shots and portraits. Explore special techniques such as RAW image formats, fill and slow sync flash. See how to use live view, continuous photography, picture styles that control tone, sharpness and hue, shoot in black & white, enter a print order, and care for your camera, including cleaning the image sensor.