The Best Books On Color Theory

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What is color theory? It’s a language and set of concepts that’s useful for describing and creating color relationships.

Color management helps you get consistent colors. Color adjustment helps you change colors. Color theory helps you choose colors.

I’ve studied color all of my life – and it’s always rewarding.

Here’s a roundup of the best books I’ve found on color theory.

Reid

Lori Reid’s The Color Box is a great place to start with color theory. It’s neither definitive nor deep but it does a great job of surveying many approaches to understanding color.

Albers

Josef Albers’s Theory and Interaction of Color is the definitive work for creating a hands-on understanding of essential optical effects.

Itten

Johannes Itten’s Art Of Color (an expansion of his The Elements Of Color) is clearer and wider-ranging than Albers’ similar book.

Birren

Faber Birren’s Creative Color discusses ways of creating effects (like iridescence and pearlescence) that few other resources touch on.

Wong

Wucius Wong’s Principles Of Color Design shows the links between color and other compositional devices.

Livingstone

Margaret Livingstone’s Vision And Art details the biology behind the effects artists create.

Find more recommended Color Reading here.

Learn more with these Color Theory here.

Learn more in my digital printing and digital photography workshops.

9 Great Books On Haiku Poetry

Haiku_Recommended
Looking for books on great haiku poetry?
Here’s a list of books on haiku that I recommend.

Six on writing and enjoying haiku.

1   Writing and Enjoying Haiku: A Hands-on Guide by Jane Reichhold
2   Haiku: A Poet’s Guide by Lee Gurga
3   The Haiku Handbook: How to Write, Share, and Teach Haiku by William J. Higginson
4   The Haiku Seasons by William J. Higginson
5   How to Haiku: A Writer’s Guide to Haiku and Related Forms by Bruce Ross
6   The Heart of Haiku by Jane Hirshfield

Three outstanding collections of haiku; two historic and one contemporary.

7   The Sound of Water: Haiku by Basho, Buson, Issa, and Other Poets translated by Sam Hamill
8   The Classic Tradition of Haiku: An Anthology by Faubion Bowers
9   The Haiku Anthology edited by Cor van den Heuvel

 

Listen to my conversation with Natalie Goldberg here.

Find my haiku here.

New Blog Roll Added


Looking for good blogs? I’ve added a Blog Roll to my blog. It contains all the blogs I track on a regular basis. Here a few of the blogs in my Blogroll.
Jeff Schewe’s PhotoshopNews always contains first rate insider information on what’s happening in the industry. Scott Kelby’s Photoshop Insider does too – and every Wednesday he invites a guest blogger to appear there. Want more insider information? Check out the Lightroom Journal from the Lightroom development team and senior Photoshop Product Manager John Nack’s blog. Martin Evening’s LightroomNews has shares excellent news and technique. Strobist is a fantastic blog on guerilla lighting techniques. Inside Digital Photo offers excellent audio and video coverage of industry news. Many photographers keep you up to date on their progress with blogs, like Joe McNally, Moose Peterson, Andy Biggs, Sean Kernan and many more.
I’ll be adding more names to the list as I find blogs I really like.
Syl Arena (PixSylated) posted a great blog entry on blogs. First he gives excellent advice on how to find great blogs, track them with RSS feeds, and more. Then, he lists his favorite blogs with quick commentaries on what they’re like, post frequency, and links. We agree about many blogs. Many are also on my list but there are a few other great blogs he’s turned me onto with this post. You’ll find his blog is on my list of favorites and mine’s on his. Check it out this great post on PixSylated here.
What are your favorite blogs? Tells us here. Comment!