Book excerpt: Brian & Janet Stoppee have incorporated their decades of daily, hands-on expertise at image-making plus their leading seminars and one-on-one training into the most comprehensive guide to photographic lighting available! It's impossible to be successful in photography without a mastery of light. It's the basis of all things photographic. The Stoppees welcome the reader into their professional world with a conversational tone that makes you feel as if you are a member of their team in pre-production planning, out on a shoot, or back at their studio, in post-production. They've packed the book with full color, vibrant images and lighting diagrams that make the technology easy to quickly understand. This compendium of professional know-how shows you how to both manipulate nature's light and create natural-looking illumination with artificial light sources. Whether you're a professional photographer, you use photography in your profession, or you just want your images to look more professional, this book is your resource to creating far superior digital images. You'll gain a greater understanding of: .Light's Properties .Digital Exposure .Optics .Metering .Color .Pre-Production .Adobe Camera Raw .Scanning .Light Modifying Tools .Support Systems .Daylight Fluorescent .HMI .Wireless Battery Flash .Digital Studio Flash .Digital Tablets .Painter .Professional Printing ...and much more, just like the world's top image-makers. The Stoppees' darkroom is all digital, so without this guide to photography and light, you'll be left in the dark ages!