Im not sure this falls into typography specifically, anyways working on a site of new work, trying to figure how to place my work on a black drop, is it photographed, photoshoped?
Typophile
Finished work
A cropped photo, Photoshopped. You can still see the cropping line on the upper side of the book.
To me it looks like it was originally photographed against a black background, but the background came out as a very dark gray (rather than black) in the photo, so he darkened the background further in Photoshop. However he didn't take the time to create a path around the exact outline of the book, so there are places where the original, not-quite-black background still shows.
If you're trying to take similar photos you might want to take some test shots first using different exposures.
Captured from web.archive.org on 19 Oct 2013. view this capture