Adobe Books

This book is truly an eye opener. As a graphic arts manager in an industry that lives and dies by correct color, I am blown away by what Dan shows in this book. This is not a book for photoshop beginnners, but it will make you reevauluate the way you look at any color correction in the future. This is also not necessarily a book you will read (1) time and then put away. There is so much to digest you will need to read it at least twice, and keep it at arms length any time you are working with color correction work. It is not your typical "formula" photoshop book, you will learn more than you can even thought possible. The world needs more teachers like Dan Margulis, since getting this book three weeks ago I have read nothing else, and am amazed everytime I pick it up....wow

Several members of the Brentwood (TN) Camera Club have formed an 0n-line group where we report on how we are understanding the ideas being presented.

Dan Margulis is a key "guru" in color correction and the use of curves in PhotoShop and our group just wants to understand his concepts so we can individually improve our work.

Serious stuff and requires concentration and thought. This is not a recipe book as are so many books on PhotoShop. This goes way beyond and we feel it is essential.

This book will give you almost everything you need to know about Color Management. Margulis is a leading expert in the field of Color Management and he is thorough in his presentation. You may find that he is a bit difficult to understand, but if you read the book twice it gets better and easier to understand.

In the first 20 Pages I learned new things about color and image control. This book is jammed full of information and examples. While it is not an easy read it is a must read for anyone interested in getting better results from their images. Each chapter has something new to teach you. I know I will be re-reading this book a few times to try to absorb all the information in it.

I bought this book on Amazon sight unseen, after reading the glowing reviews. I wish I could return it. I consider myself above beginner level at Photoshop but found this book too difficult to follow. I found Dan Margulis' style of writing utterly frustrating and a bore to read. I may have gotten more out of this book if it was written in an easier to follow style like Katrin Eismann or Lee Varis' books. I also disliked the use of CMYK throughout the book. I have read others reviews and agree with one that this book is not 'user friendly'. Another reviewer says you will need to reread this book and I agree that is probably the case, however if you are like me you will struggle to read it through once. I'm desperate for a good book on colour correction but my search continues ...

Takes you step by step, just like a classroom. Covers items you can't figure out on your own!

Bought this ages ago, when I was considering Adobe Photoshop Qualification. Now, Photoshop integrates tutorial videos into its newer Photoshop models, but the Classroom in a Book was an excellent way to learn. It provides images on a disk to work with while you follow along in the guide book.

For the most part it covers the basics of photoshop, nothing to complicated. It explains the ground-level functions in a way that anyone can understand. If you want to become a image master then this is a great starting place for the Photoshop beginner.

I was expecting a guided class ,instead I found no instructions at all, no exercises to practice on the CD.
I was sitting in front of the photoshop screen with a picture and that's it.
I guess it would be better that the publishers explain somehow that you need a previous knowledge of the program.
It must be good for people who just need to upgrade previous knowledge, but I won reccomend it if you don't have it.

One thing I have learned after using Photoshop for over 15 years is, there is always something else to learn. The Photoshop 7.0 Classroom Book is a great tool for this purpose.

This is a great book for anyone new to PSE. It was very easy to read and understand. It was nothing like all other boring manuals out there. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in learning Photoshop from scratch!

This book is wonderful and fills in all the missing pieces. I know you can get all the information on the web - but it's great to have it all in one place and easy reference when working on a photo. I was new to photoshop and this book helped tremendously.

If you want to get right to the heart of the matter, this is the book to buy. You don't have to start with page one either. You can go to any section and pick up the right way to perform the many tasks available in Photoshop Elements 6. I highly recommend it.

This book gives a balanced look at all the features of Photoshop Elements, without going into a lot of depth on any one topic. It is aimed at beginners. It has a reasonable amount of detail on the most common activities of enhancing photos and retouching photos, but these make up only a small part of the book. It tells you about many less obvious problems you may not have realized you had, such as color cast and perspective distortion.

This book is specifically for Windows, and there is a Macintosh version available: Photoshop Elements 6 for Mac: The Missing Manual I worked through the present book with the Macintosh program, and there's very little difference. Windows has an Organizer to manage your photos while the Macintosh program ships with Adobe Bridge, just like the full Photoshop CS3, but except for that you won't have any trouble using the same book on either platform.

The book is organized by task rather than by feature or tool. (An exception is a whole chapter on Layers.) The book is extensively cross-referenced; maybe TOO extensively. In the first half of the book I sometimes lost my place in the blizzard of cross-references and forgot what we were reading about. The chapter on selecting, although clear, was not well-integrated with the rest of the book. After reading it you know everything about selections except what they are good for.

There's a very thorough index, as we expect from the Missing Manual series. There were some puzzling gaps in the index. I suspected at times that it is an index of keywords; so if the book discusses a subject but doesn't call it by name then it might not show up in the index. For example, Perspective distortion is indexed, but only on p. 75 where the term is introduced and not p. 299 where the problem and its fix are discussed in detail. EXIF is not indexed even though it is discussed several places in the book.

The book goes beyond manipulating photos and tells you a good bit about what to do with your photos after your are happy with them. It goes into how to get high-quality printing, personalized merchandise, and web photo-sharing (although mysteriously Flickr is never mentioned).

Some Very Good Features in this book: (1) Calibrating your monitor: its importance and the news that colorimeter prices have come down sharply. (2) Using layers to fix major exposure problems (very short section but very useful; I get much better results with this than with Brightness and Contrast adjustments). (3) Throughout the author gives you her take on the various tools, even going so far as to tell you never to use tool X because tool Y always does a better job.

Bottom line: I learned a lot from this book, even though I've been using Elements for years. It's a good book!

This book is another excellent publication for the Missing Manual series. It is more comprehensive than The Photoshop Elements 6 Book for Digital Photographers (Voices That Matter), but doesn't feature step-by-step illustrations like that one. However, the comprehensive index, menu reference guide, and plenty of full color screenshots will answer any question about PSE in minutes. This volume is for PC only but there is also a volume for the Mac Photoshop Elements 6 for Mac: The Missing Manual

This book was recommended by several people before I purchased it. I thought I had a good grip on my archiving and management system...I was wrong.


This book is a tad dated now but its principles are still standing strong.

I would recommend this to anyone who is making images.





Fashion Photographer David Paul Larson
[...]

This is a must-have book for photographers who are amassing a large collection of photos.

I needed to read it 2 times before getting a feel for how to impliment it.

Great strategies and it has now changed my workflow completely and for the better

Money very well spent (although it cost me many thousands more since I also updated my computer, server, and softward to impliment this)

Regards, Dean

This is a good book. It is very helpful in determining how to organize photographs. It also is a give a good review of Bridge. It would be nice for the book to be up dated to cover CS3.

If you're an amateur or a professional getting into digital photography you need to sit down and read a book like this. Managing your photographs (your "assets") is necessary and it will help you find, print and publish your work.

This book isn't 100% up to date but the book's web site is a nice supplement with active discussions.

Overall, this is a good book that thoroughly covers all the essentials of putting together a system and practices to organize and preserve your photo collection.

On the hardware side, he shows excessively expensive harddrive setups, when 2TB Western Digital MyBooks are dropping under $500. (Such statements are always relative to the date they're made -- 18 months from now that might be 4TB for $400.) I do agree with some comments he makes about RAID not being such a hot idea. The increasing size of individual drives is making the time it takes to reconstruct a failed drive in a RAID configuration reach absurd levels. When it took five or more drives to assemble 1TB, RAID seemed pretty clever. It's time has passed.

On the software side, he pushes Bridge plus iView MediaPro. That may have been the hot setup when the book was published, but Lightroom is gaining converts at a high rate. A 2nd edition revised to center on Lightroom would be good. At the very least, he'd need to explain exactly what Bridge + iView MediaPro can do that Lightroom can't and why it matters. I believe Lightroom alone offers a much less convoluted system then that combination.

Finally, for a book whose entire point is organizing and preserving photos, it has a curious hole. If your photo archive is all of your family's pictures, as opposed to a wedding photography business, how do you ensure it will outlive you? He makes a few remarks about how having things well organized will make it easier for your family, but that's it. Thinking about such things proves I'm getting to be an old fart, but it strikes me as a major omission in a book on this subject.

My criticisms shouldn't detract from my original statement -- it's overall a good book. Even if I don't follow his exact hardware and software recommendations, he made me think through whether my combination was completely sound. I've changed how I was doing some things, and changed some of my ideas about what I plan to do in the future, as a result. It's the best and most thorough book on the subject available to date.

This is the second Scott Kelby photography book I have purchased from Amazon. As a beginning photographer who is also learning Photoshop CS3 I have found Scott's step-by-step instructions very easy to follow and extremely helpful in improving my images. I have been using the chapters "Channels & Better Colour" and "Sharpening with Channels". Save yourself time and agro - purchase this book. Too many books I have purchased over the years, assume a certain level of knowledge and leave blanks in the middle of instructions. This is not the case with the two Scott Kelby books I have purchased to date.
The first Scott Kelby book I purchased was "The Adobe Photoshop CS3 book for Digital Photographers" and it too provides step-by-step instructions.

Whether you are a beginner or professional you will find tips and shortcuts from Scott Kelby books that you did not know before.
Pauline D, Queensland Australia

I like the way Scott designs his information, it makes it easier to absorb, and skim through if I already am familiar with it. Full of to-the-point tutorials, I learned a lot from this book. Also, he freely plugs other authors who give more in-depth teaching, which I appreciate since his books are not ultimate "Bible" type works. His goofy humor is featured in the intro to each chapter, barely worth a chuckle most of the time, but at least he's not an unbearable ego maniac schooling the unwashed masses like Dan Margulis. Recommended.

Like most of Kelby books very usefull guide and very easy to understand. Even if you only know a little of english like me. Recomended

Excellent: Easy to understand, detailed, great for beginner's to the advanced. I learn something new every time I open this book.

Scott's style of writing in this book becomes a little overbearing at times, as he tries to be amusing at every turn of the page. That makes it rather hard to read the book a second time to review things one may have forgotten.

Having said that, Scott doesn't write as if the reader is an imbecile, and the pace of the book is good. Scott clearly explains each step required to use channels and if you follow along you are amazed at the end of an exercise how much you have accomplished in a short space of time.

Because of the large number of screen shots, the book can be easily read without sitting in front of the computer, which is handy if you want to read it on the plane or over a beer at the pub.

I therefore recommend the book for people with a variety of skills in the use of Photoshop. That ranges from anyone who knows what a layer is through to an advanced user.

I bought this book about 6 months ago and it has become a "bible" of sharpening for me. I shot with 6mp and 8mp (now 10mp) dSLRS and had previously used a single pass of UnSharp Mask or Smart Sharpen for sharpening. (all digital photos need sharpening -- *all* of them -- and in-camera sharpening is not desirable for many reasons)

My photos never came out as sharp as others I had seen published and I kept asking myself, "what am I doing wrong?! Is it my equipment, my photo technique, ...?". Now I know that at least part of it was my *sharpening* technique. Also, I needed to learn that photos properly sharpened for output (printing) will likely *not* look good on the screen (esp at 100%), and how to better judge output sharpness when viewing on the screen. Hints: (1) don't get freaked by apparent sharpening ugliness when viewing at 100% or greater; (2) only view at even zoom factors like 25% and 50%; and (3) 50% is often a fair zoom to use when judging sharpening for output.

The results I've seen from the sharpening techniques in this book range from "great" to "oh-my-god-this-is-*fabulous*". I'm finally producing photos that are as sharp as I had always hoped for, comparable to anything I've seen published.

Bruce Fraser starts at the beginning, explaining the need for sharpening, and proceeds to build a case for why a three-level sharpening process is so effective (Source Sharpening, Content/Creative Sharpening, and Output Sharpening). After you're convinced by his sound reasoning that this is a good idea, he details *how* to implement this 3-pass sharpening process. I codified the three passes into Photoshop Actions, which now take no more time for me to run than the single-pass sharpening I had previously done.

I keep this book in my car or on my shelf, with dozens of post-it tags sticking out where I added my own indexing to all the good parts. I'm sure that this book will become ragged with use, over the years. It is without a doubt the most useful photography book I've bought in the last 10 years.

This book is an excellent primer on the fundamentals of Camera Raw, covering a wide array of topics in an effective manner, while also offering many places for you to explore further on your own. Although this book is now out-of-date, with Photoshop CS3 on the market as I write this, this book would still be of value to those who could not afford the current version for some reason.

This book was a great help getting me started on processing my RAW images. It not only explaines the differences with Camera Raw and JPEG formats,, but also goes into depth on how to edit. It has many nice illustrations, and step by step instructions. Also talks about the different saving formats,,, I would highly recommend this book if you are new to RAW.

The text in the book is very good, I really like it. Unfortunately, pictures are not that great, you cannot see those small differences author tries to show you. I think print quality suffers. But I still strongly advise to get this book if you are in RAW and PhotoShop.

Personally, I felt this book to be redundant and a wordy tale of how to organize files. I tried to read it but kept dozing off. For me, I just want the writer to get to the point. Anyone well versed in Adobe products will already know most of this information. And let's face it, we all just want to be creative and take pictures. Do we really need to know every--little--minute--detail on how a RAW file is constructed?

For me, I could stand to hear the short version of RAW Files 101. I agree, a little knowledge is great. Also, would like to know how Bridge can be used to process them. But honestly, I was really hoping it would detail the differences of Canon's "Digital Photo Professional" to Adobe's conversion plug in. Nothing.

I'm disappointed...

Stunning photography and continuing inspiration from a master of photography. I highly recommend Vincent's book.

this purchase was done on behalf of a friend of mine and from what i was told, he is totally satisfied with the book. recommended.

This book is not your everyday Photoshop book and not a book for casual reading. It is a journey that provokes thought and requires the reader to often take his steps over again to fully appreciate what is being taught. As Vincent Versace has said many times, his purpose in writing this book was not to do a step by step answer book, it was to write a book which would inspire the reader to ask questions and look at things in a different way.

As an example, after reading about image harvesting I created an image composited from 20+ separate photographs to achieve enough depth of field using a 180 macro lens. By working through the lesson, I finally understood how to do the compositing it would require and I was surprised how well it worked. That the warp tool was required to get the leaf the way he wanted it only serves to reinforce the concept of interpretation.

For those who may be disappointed to find out Kismet is a composite, I have to wonder why. Are Jerry Uelsmann's images less photographic because he composites them in the darkroom? Are landscape images by Ansel Adams less iconic because they were manipulated in the darkroom? Photography has always been created from what the photographer saw and felt and how he wants to interpret that onto the print.

I recommend this book to anyone who has the patience to take the time required to understand what Vincent is sharing and I am hoping he will add more books to my library in the future.

I call this a Method actor's how to book because invariably Versace starts with the artistic motivations and aims before getting into the techniques to satisfy them. This approach really works for me.

I have spent most of my time with his B&W conversion techniques, trying out some alternatives not included in the book, but that derive from its motivations. I've found the techniques are extremely adaptable and customizable to one's own vision. This I think is rare for a book such as this, and therefore it receives my highest esteem.

The book is useful for those who want to move up from basic use of Photoshops image enhancment tools to a more advanced level. The use of various layer masks and how to develop an efficient workflow is described. The book is laid out as a course and the reader should do the exercises using the images from the included CD. The style of the results is of course a reflection of Versaces own style, however by learning the described teqnique the reader can gain a platform to develop his own style. The example images are portraits and close-up nature. There is also a small collection of the Versaces images nicely presented which shows that the author has achieved his goals.
This is not a general encyclopedia on Photoshop rather it is an introduction on how to use the toools in Photoshop to achieve a specific photografic result and to get inspiration from a master.

This is an excellent book. If you have PS 6, get the updated version of the book (I have a much more comprehensive review of that book). In short, this book is well written, easy to read, and yet thoroughly covers the subject. There are two camps of PS users: artists and photographers. This book is for the photographers. Half the book is background and theory and here's how to do the things you do with photos. The other half is very comprehensive walkthroughs of how to do real work to photos. All of the examples are supplied on the CD, so you can start with the originals, and compare your result with his. This is my bible for PS. It's not a step by step book, though, so is better for Intermediate to Advanced users.

There are plenty of books that 'teach' Photoshop but this one successfully teaches from the point of view of the photographer wishing to manipulate images digitally. Covers retouching, color correction and more. Doesn't just teach the tools, but also how to apply them effectively.

The book is somewhat advanced, providing depth beyond what you might expect from a general Photoshop text.

This book includes information the other greats forget...like how to create actions. The beauty and eye appeal this book has is not just skin deep, but the wealth of information you are given is well worth the price of the book. In fact, for all the time spent using this book as a personal teaching tool for Photoshop 5.5, money is saved in production time from the lessons learned and time and dollars spent going away to seminars or classes is eliminated.

Do yourself a favor and buy this book. You'll be grateful you did, and so will your boss and your customers!

As digital photography becomes more widespread photoshop and similar programs will be used by new users, not only those working with design/layout/publishing but also photographers and artists. Photoshop is not one of the simplest programs to cope with, it has become large and complex, "Photoshop 5 & 5.5 Artistry" manages to go through many different techniques used in Photoshop work. As a former researcher in image processing I am not the usual reader, but I do find it very valuable and comprehensive. It may not be a book you read from cover to cover, you will probably return to it as a handbook searching for information about something you want to do with an image.

The book is thorough and deep, it contains a lot of information, and don't skip this book just because it concerns version 5.5 while photoshop v7 is out, the book is still valid in everything except the graphics of photoshops various dialogs and interfaces. The theory and methods of working are valid for any program.

Highly recommended.

I will keep to this review short and to the point. This book contains a staggering amount of information. An unbelieveable wealth of information on Photoshop. I became 100 times better, and 100 times faster at using photoshop after having read this book.

The amount of time one must spend working their way through this book is also quite staggering. It's quite a commitment of time. But worth it.

This is my second purchase of this series. I work with quite a few photos and found Richard Harrington's suggestions to be extremely helpful. The book provides insights that I haven't found elsewhere. This book is for those new to working with Photoshop for video as well as more seasoned users.

I bought this book since I'm studying motion graphics and compositing/visual effects at college and my Photoshop knowledge isn't quite at the level I'd like it to be. The nice thing about this book is the techniques are all geared towards those using PS for video related work - an excellent resource and a good companion book to "Creating Motion Graphics with After Effects" by Chris and Trish Meyer...

As an "old school" Avid editor from big post houses, Photoshop was used for simple titles and the rest went to the graphics department or our hands were slapped.

The book only goes through the usefulness and purpose of nearly all Photoshop tools and their relevancy to video. It has tutorials showing all common video uses from cutting out photos, lower thirds, backgrounds, creating elements for motion graphics programs like After Effects, uses of masks and alpha channels and the many ways you can create them depending on circumstance and content. In addition, the book points out some of the differences with different versions of Photoshop so you can work through aspects even if you haven't updated to CS3 yet.

The accompanying DVD not only includes all the elements needed to complete each task, there's also supplemental "Podcasts" in which Richard Harrington actually SHOWS you how to do many of the key aspects of each tutorial.

This is a must have book for video editors who must now do it all since Photoshop is the Swiss Army Knife of video graphics.

I have been in multimedia for 5 years and is always learning. I like the fact that i don't know everything!
This book is a must for anyone in multimedia and graphic design.

I found this book to be very informative with plenty of step by step tutorials. I think beginners as well as experienced photoshop uers will find this book very handy. I keep it on my bookshelf as a handy reference.

This book is quite helpful. It covers the basics in manipulating images in After Effects and serves as a great teacher of the software.

I highly recommend it.

I had to cancel my order of this book three weeks into waiting, because for some unknown reason after the estimated 3-5 week shipping time, there was yet another delay. So I had to buy this book at twice the cost at my corrupt/evil University store.

The book itself is pretty good. I have only examined it a few times. However, some of the explanations can be confusing, it seems you have to read the entire thing to be sure to understand it, you cant pick and choose which things you want to learn from it.

Though this book series was written for After effects 6.5, I used it as a supplement to CS3. I am very glad that I did, the authors answered the question - Why do you use an effect or tool? The other "teach" books demonstrated what After Effects can do, but not how other than enter the number required in the exercise. A must read for anyone new to After Effects. I hope I can find such in depth books on the other Adobe Suite software. Kudos to the authors - thanks, thanks, thanks.

This book was very helpful in teaching me how to use and understand After Effects. I'd recommend this book to any beginner wanting to learn AE. It is easy to follow and comes with a great CD (very beneficial).

If you are new to After Effects and Motion Graphics, or want to learn from Chris and Trish about the new features in Adobe's CS3 release, I recommend the Brand New:

After Effects Apprentice (DV Expert Series) (DV Expert Series) (Paperback)
by Chris & Trish Meyer

which is the only one of their books to cover After Effects 7, I'm pretty sure. Their next books will cover the new CS3 release.

Normally they write the new version's manual (yes, you can consider their books to be the missing user manual for Adobe After Effects) when the 'X.5' version comes out. There was no 7,5 version of after effects, so except for After Effects Apprentice, there is no manual for AAE 7.

Plus the book covers the new release of After Effects, the CS3 release.

AND this is a GREAT introduction to motion graphics in general, and to working with files in After Effects:

[...]
and when you finish that, you will certainly want:

Creating Motion Graphics with After Effects, Vol. 1: Advanced Techniques (4th edition, not yet published) by Trish and Chris Meyer

and

Creating Motion Graphics with After Effects, Vol. 2: The Essentials (4th edition, not yet published) by Trish and Chris Meyer

which should both be available very soon. I don't actually recommend getting the 6.5 version unless you are not going to upgrade to AAE 7 or AAE CS3. With the ton of new features (like Photoshop can handle video now!) in Adobe CS3, I DO recommend getting the CS3 version of every Adobe product that you use, and if you use more than just a few, you should get the whole suite, it will be cheaper.