ShaolinTiger
07-12-2007, 02:46 PM
The Photoshop CS2 Book for Digital Photographers
Author(s): Scott Kelby
Publisher: New Riders (http://www.peachpit.com/series/publisher.asp?st=45308&rl=1)
Book Specifications: Paperback with 457 pages
Category: Photoshop
User Level: Intermediate to Advanced
Suggested Publisher Price: $39.99 USA / RM122 at MPH
ISBN: 0-321-33062-5
3887
Amazon.com: The Photoshop CS2 Book at Amazon.com (http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FPhotoshop-Digital-Photographers-Voices-Matter%2Fdp%2F0321330625&tag=quitsmokstopn-20&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325)
"Scott Kelby, the best-selling Photoshop author in the world today, once again takes this book to a whole new level as he uncovers the latest, most important and most exciting new Adobe Photoshop CS2 techniques for digital photographers.
This major update to this award-winning, record-breaking book does something for digital photographers that's never been done before--it cuts through the bull and shows you exactly "how to do it." It's not a bunch of theory; it doesn't challenge you to come up with your own settings or figure it out on your own. Instead, Scott shows you step-by-step the exact techniques used by today's cutting-edge digital photographers and, best of all, he shows you, flat-out, exactly which settings to use, when to use them, and why. That's why the previous version of this book took the digital photography world by storm."
Introduction
I had actually heard quite a lot about this book and always heard books by Scott Kelby being mentioned, after a little research it shows that this guy really is a true Photoshop expert and his books are well regarded all over the Internet.
I had the luck to stumble upon the book in MPH so I could actually flick through the pages and I see what I thought before buying. After a couple of seconds and reading a few of the tips I knew this was a good book, definitely worth the RM122 price tag - so I snapped it up, took it home and started devouring it.
I was really lost with Photoshop having just starting getting the hang of my camera, I really wanted to move to the next step, to learn how to get the most out of my RAW images and how to use Photoshop to give my pictures the punch that I see from professionals.
I was also pretty lost when it came to things like layers, masking, sharpening and so on.
I some ideas that I'd picked up from the Internet, but honestly after buying this book...stop learning things online and get some quality books, it makes things so much faster and easier.
Contents
There is a pretty broad set of contents in this book, of course centered around Photoshop. But it touches on everything, starting out with tweaking some important settings in Photoshop and pictures management, RAW and colour management.
Plus tons of other useful stuff like preperation for printing, interpolating, down-sizing, making contact sheets, colour correction and dealing with all of the common problems we encouter as digital photographers (noise, too much flash, underexposed, red eye removal, blurry pictures, keystone distortion etc).
I found the parts on human touch-ups particularly useful as I was just starting out on taking portraits and this book really opened my eyes to the quick and simple things you can do to a portrait to make it stand out.
As mentioned above I had read a few tutorials and had some basic ideas, but this book enables me to look at the contents page, find how to correct yellow teeth or eye bags or acne, turn to the page and quickly run through the steps provided to get the results I want.
Table of Contents
Ch. 1 Love can build a bridge : bridge essentials
Ch. 2 Give me the bridge : advanced bridge techniques
Ch. 3 Raw hide : mastering camera raw
Ch. 4 Super size me : resizing and cropping
Ch. 5 Anger management : color management step-by-step
Ch. 6 The color of money : color correction secrets
Ch. 7 Black & white : Photoshop in black and white
Ch. 8 Modern problems : dealing with image problems
Ch. 9 Take me away : removing unwanted objects
Ch. 10 Photograph : retouching portraits
Ch. 11 38 special : photographic special effects
Ch. 12 Wide receiver : creating panoramas
Ch. 13 Look sharp : sharpening techniques
Ch. 14 Men at work : how to show your work
Ch. 15 Showtime : showing your client
Style and Detail
The style is the only thing in this book that people seem to disagree on as it's written in a somewhat humourous and light manner. For me, I personally love it - it makes the book very easy to read as things like this can be quite dry at times.
The screenshots are great and the step-by step explanations of techniques are really spot on, if you follow what is in the book you will get the results, it's as simple as that.
Scott guides you with every setting and variations for different settings, for example there is a whole chapter dedicated to sharpening and he gives you actual numbers for Unsharp Mask for different types of sharpening. I find gems like these invaluable as most books skirt around the details just telling you what you should be doing in vague terms...which honestly really doesn't help very much.
The details are all there, and as we knows the devils are in the details.
The print quality is reasonably good and the pictures clear enough to get the point across, all screen shots are legible and you can read the figures and settings. Scott also tends to repeat certain things through-out the book, these are important so do take note!
He also labels some techniques as "Advanced" or for pros only, these are things that may well confuse beginners and take a lot of steps to complete, although the results are usually worth it try and stick to the basic techniques first. When you understand all the more basic techniques you can try some of the ones labeled as advanced.
Conclusion
I have to say this book is just great, it's a must have!
As for CS2 vs CS3, a lot of people still prefer CS2 and most of the things in the book are the same in CS3 anyway. I'll personally be sticking to CS2 for sometime anyway as it's all I need and I don't really require any of the new stuff in CS3.
Scott doesn't waste your time talking down to you, telling you how to make 'art' or messing around with useless techniques that take forever. He gets straight to the point, he tells you what you need to know and how to do it. If you are into digital photography and starting out with Photoshop trust me when I say you should get this book, it will launch you to the next level.
It's definitely not the most complete or deep Photoshop book, but it's not meant for professionals. It's meant for hobbyist and advanced amateurs who are moving past the first level of handling their camera and want to get more out of their pictures.
As this book is so full of useful stuff I suggest getting some sticky notes and sticking them into the parts you use most frequently, put a keyword on the top so you can locate them fast, I often use the sharpening settings for various things as I can't remember them.
I give this book a SUPERB 9/10, a must have for everyone starting out.
http://www.shutterasia.com/forum/../review_ranks/9.gif
keywords: photography, books, book review, photography books, photoshop cs2, cs2, scott kelby, post processing, PS
This review is copyright 2007 by the author, ShaolinTiger, and Shutter Asia (http://www.shutterasia.com/forum/../), and may not be reproduced in any form in any media without the express permission of the author or Shutter Asia (http://www.shutterasia.com/forum/../).
Author(s): Scott Kelby
Publisher: New Riders (http://www.peachpit.com/series/publisher.asp?st=45308&rl=1)
Book Specifications: Paperback with 457 pages
Category: Photoshop
User Level: Intermediate to Advanced
Suggested Publisher Price: $39.99 USA / RM122 at MPH
ISBN: 0-321-33062-5
3887
Amazon.com: The Photoshop CS2 Book at Amazon.com (http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FPhotoshop-Digital-Photographers-Voices-Matter%2Fdp%2F0321330625&tag=quitsmokstopn-20&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325)
"Scott Kelby, the best-selling Photoshop author in the world today, once again takes this book to a whole new level as he uncovers the latest, most important and most exciting new Adobe Photoshop CS2 techniques for digital photographers.
This major update to this award-winning, record-breaking book does something for digital photographers that's never been done before--it cuts through the bull and shows you exactly "how to do it." It's not a bunch of theory; it doesn't challenge you to come up with your own settings or figure it out on your own. Instead, Scott shows you step-by-step the exact techniques used by today's cutting-edge digital photographers and, best of all, he shows you, flat-out, exactly which settings to use, when to use them, and why. That's why the previous version of this book took the digital photography world by storm."
Introduction
I had actually heard quite a lot about this book and always heard books by Scott Kelby being mentioned, after a little research it shows that this guy really is a true Photoshop expert and his books are well regarded all over the Internet.
I had the luck to stumble upon the book in MPH so I could actually flick through the pages and I see what I thought before buying. After a couple of seconds and reading a few of the tips I knew this was a good book, definitely worth the RM122 price tag - so I snapped it up, took it home and started devouring it.
I was really lost with Photoshop having just starting getting the hang of my camera, I really wanted to move to the next step, to learn how to get the most out of my RAW images and how to use Photoshop to give my pictures the punch that I see from professionals.
I was also pretty lost when it came to things like layers, masking, sharpening and so on.
I some ideas that I'd picked up from the Internet, but honestly after buying this book...stop learning things online and get some quality books, it makes things so much faster and easier.
Contents
There is a pretty broad set of contents in this book, of course centered around Photoshop. But it touches on everything, starting out with tweaking some important settings in Photoshop and pictures management, RAW and colour management.
Plus tons of other useful stuff like preperation for printing, interpolating, down-sizing, making contact sheets, colour correction and dealing with all of the common problems we encouter as digital photographers (noise, too much flash, underexposed, red eye removal, blurry pictures, keystone distortion etc).
I found the parts on human touch-ups particularly useful as I was just starting out on taking portraits and this book really opened my eyes to the quick and simple things you can do to a portrait to make it stand out.
As mentioned above I had read a few tutorials and had some basic ideas, but this book enables me to look at the contents page, find how to correct yellow teeth or eye bags or acne, turn to the page and quickly run through the steps provided to get the results I want.
Table of Contents
Ch. 1 Love can build a bridge : bridge essentials
Ch. 2 Give me the bridge : advanced bridge techniques
Ch. 3 Raw hide : mastering camera raw
Ch. 4 Super size me : resizing and cropping
Ch. 5 Anger management : color management step-by-step
Ch. 6 The color of money : color correction secrets
Ch. 7 Black & white : Photoshop in black and white
Ch. 8 Modern problems : dealing with image problems
Ch. 9 Take me away : removing unwanted objects
Ch. 10 Photograph : retouching portraits
Ch. 11 38 special : photographic special effects
Ch. 12 Wide receiver : creating panoramas
Ch. 13 Look sharp : sharpening techniques
Ch. 14 Men at work : how to show your work
Ch. 15 Showtime : showing your client
Style and Detail
The style is the only thing in this book that people seem to disagree on as it's written in a somewhat humourous and light manner. For me, I personally love it - it makes the book very easy to read as things like this can be quite dry at times.
The screenshots are great and the step-by step explanations of techniques are really spot on, if you follow what is in the book you will get the results, it's as simple as that.
Scott guides you with every setting and variations for different settings, for example there is a whole chapter dedicated to sharpening and he gives you actual numbers for Unsharp Mask for different types of sharpening. I find gems like these invaluable as most books skirt around the details just telling you what you should be doing in vague terms...which honestly really doesn't help very much.
The details are all there, and as we knows the devils are in the details.
The print quality is reasonably good and the pictures clear enough to get the point across, all screen shots are legible and you can read the figures and settings. Scott also tends to repeat certain things through-out the book, these are important so do take note!
He also labels some techniques as "Advanced" or for pros only, these are things that may well confuse beginners and take a lot of steps to complete, although the results are usually worth it try and stick to the basic techniques first. When you understand all the more basic techniques you can try some of the ones labeled as advanced.
Conclusion
I have to say this book is just great, it's a must have!
As for CS2 vs CS3, a lot of people still prefer CS2 and most of the things in the book are the same in CS3 anyway. I'll personally be sticking to CS2 for sometime anyway as it's all I need and I don't really require any of the new stuff in CS3.
Scott doesn't waste your time talking down to you, telling you how to make 'art' or messing around with useless techniques that take forever. He gets straight to the point, he tells you what you need to know and how to do it. If you are into digital photography and starting out with Photoshop trust me when I say you should get this book, it will launch you to the next level.
It's definitely not the most complete or deep Photoshop book, but it's not meant for professionals. It's meant for hobbyist and advanced amateurs who are moving past the first level of handling their camera and want to get more out of their pictures.
As this book is so full of useful stuff I suggest getting some sticky notes and sticking them into the parts you use most frequently, put a keyword on the top so you can locate them fast, I often use the sharpening settings for various things as I can't remember them.
I give this book a SUPERB 9/10, a must have for everyone starting out.
http://www.shutterasia.com/forum/../review_ranks/9.gif
keywords: photography, books, book review, photography books, photoshop cs2, cs2, scott kelby, post processing, PS
This review is copyright 2007 by the author, ShaolinTiger, and Shutter Asia (http://www.shutterasia.com/forum/../), and may not be reproduced in any form in any media without the express permission of the author or Shutter Asia (http://www.shutterasia.com/forum/../).