This is a wonderful, timely source book about digital photography for art and architecture, museums and archives, preservation and research, scientific restoration, public distributions, and many other issues of instant significance. Before I move into an entirely positive review, I’ll mention a single, minor downside: that the perspective of this reference is predominantly centered on London and the UK, which brings a consistent, nevertheless legitimate, bias.

Now, returning to affirmative praises of this scholarly handbook, there is an honest balance here between sharing techniques embedded in case studies and frank discussions about the perils of digitizing into formats that may become indecipherable--as has been the case with so much electronic media. Nevertheless, incisive presentations of three-dimensional modeling techniques, multispectral analysis, laser scanning, and other diverse aspects bring the reader to the conclusion that this is the direction of the field. Because there are so many well-articulated reasons for this, one becomes a cooperating advocate with each new revelation of honest evaluation.

The topics of this book are: “Digitizing Documents,” “Digitizing Rare Books and Manuscripts,” “Digital Access to a Photographic Collection,” “Digitisation in the Commercial Art World,” “User Requirements for Metric Survey,” “Principles and Evolution of Digital Cameras,” “High Resolution Imaging in the Near Infra Red,” “Image Resizing,” “Image Databases and Access,” “Colour Management in Heritage Photography,” “Image Compression and JPEG2000,” “Assessing Image Quality,” “Imaging Historical Architecture Sites for Restoration,” “Imaging of Stained Glass Windows,” “Making Online Monuments More Accessible Through Interface Design,” ”Visualisation of Panoramic Images over the Internet,” “3D Virtual Restoration of Polychrome Sculpture,” “Digital Imaging For Easel Paintings,” “Research Policy and Directions,” and more.

This is a clearly written anthology that will provide a solid professional introduction to any curator wondering about options for the future. The book is underpriced when compared to the entry fee for most ordinary conferences suggesting the same overview of topics.