Adobe Books

Nice tips and tricks for someone that dosen't want to go that deep into Photoshop but still be able to produce decent textures for 3D. Being the only book on the subject I have to say it's the best =), but if you are seriuos about Photoshop as a 3D artist (which you should) you'll be better off getting one of those "in depth" Photoshop books. Like that you should be able to figure out what this book has to say by yourself.

I found this book quite educative, and it is a great introduction for newcomers. These are the pros and cons as I see it:

pros: Easy to follow step by step tutorials. Lots of hints and tips. Each chapter has a background and theory section. Great intro on the different mapping techniques, especially why you always should use diffusion. cons: Some of the photoshop files were missing on the CD. The whole book should be in colour. Having the "colour studio" in the middle of the book results in turning pages back and forth. Some of the actions in the 3D application isn't explained. For example how to save a selection in the 3D app, and how to texturize the selection only.

I don't go anywhere without my Photoshop 5 3D Textures F/X and Design Book. Great Techniques, Well written, and well planned out.

I am a Photoshop user who thought this book would be good for use solely within Photoshop, the truth is that this book is for use in conjunction with a 3D program - if you don't own such a program, then think twice before ordering this title. I am in the process of learning Strata Studio Pro, so eventually I will be able to put this book to some good use. The reason I gave 4 stars instead of 5 is that the ad./title for this book can be a little misleading, it should read: Photoshop 5 3D Textures f/x and design FOR USE WITH A 3D PROGRAM. Having said that, the book is well written, and I learned much from it. The tutorials are easy to follow, the results of which I will only be able to fully appreciate when I have finished learning my 3D program. The book covers creating the different texture maps within Photoshop to be used on your 3D models. Do not hesitate to purchase this book if you own both Photoshop and a 3D program.

First of all, I baught the book because it says "Photoshop 5 3D" I forgot to look at the "texture" part. Whatever.

1. This book is not Fully Colored Like the punk said. There are 15 pages (color - including both sides) that is 15 out of 274)

2. This books doesn't give much. It talks about what you should do and where to get it. It doesn't actually go into how it is actually done on Adobe 5.0 (which I hoped this will do/show)

3. It talks/there is a design about a space-ship. I don't care about the damn history! I don't care who invented and what year that space ship is in, and what it carried. Stop talking about craX and start showing how to do it.

4. I also noticed something/read something. I was very disapointed and pissed... So it says the book. Once you are done with this layer dump it in a 3D program. I am on the toilet and I am like what! Wait a second! This book I baught it to learn how to use Adobe and do everything in it! Don't tell me I've got to get me an additional 3D program! i.e. 3D Max, SoftImage, LightWave, Bryce stuff.. That was a big piXs off!

5. Lots about Wire-Frame/Layers... I didn't know Adobe Did that.. I thought 3d Progs did that...

6. Last but not least.. I'm pretty new to Adobe but I did most/all the stuff "trial and error" I learned a bit I think. I use Fireworks (by Macromedia) to do most of the stuff and what Fireworks can't do I do it in Adobe.

-=] I baught another book called Official Adobe Photoshop 5.0 Studio Techniques; Ben Willmore, so as soon as it arrives (3-7 days) this other book is going back... ]=-

I REALLY REALLY! would like to get the Adobe 5.0 WOW! Book! But from what I've herd is that they are over 5 months delayed in releasing it. That suc@k@s

So I am dissapointed buying it and man.. I hate going through the process of returning it.

This book will simply get you started in Photoshop Elements. In fact, although I've been using the program for a while, I learned usable stuff immediately. It solved some mysteries for me quickly. I recommend it most highly.

This is a wonderful book for explaining the workings of all the amazing tools available with Photoshop Elements -- and a steal at the bargain Amazon price. (How well you get on with Dummies cutesyness is your business).
However, in general it does not give one an overall sense of what makes for good photography with good image-editing. (Exception: with the blur tool it does explain that this can be used to help increase attention to the foreground). You may not be able to see the wood for the trees if you start here.
As a starting point the best book I have found is Bill Corbett, A Simple Guide to Digital Photography, which covers both taking photos and some important uses of Photoshop (notably the key Levels stuff).
I am taking the liberty of posting this against both versions of the Photoshop Elements Dummies book.

Deke and Galen have done a good job with this book but, egged on I'm sure by the "dummies" editors, they've made it almost nauseatingly cutsie-pie. A few important things are left out of the index: how to add a border or a caption to your print, for instance. If your stomach can stand the syrupy cuteness though it's a good tutorial and a pretty good reference work.

Overall a really good book for learning Photoshop Elements. I was ready to switch to a more user friendly program but this book helped me get started. I would've liked to have had more color examples but it still gave good information on many topics. I will read it again now that I have some basic knowledge to really get into the more complex options available with this program.

This book is amazingly comprehensive-not really for Dummies at all. It starts out very simple, but quickly picks up to explain the program from every angle. But it's always really easy to understand, and fun to read. A great program, and a great book!

As a student with no experience using CS3, I found this book is terrible. In his examples, the author regularly refers to tool without telling you where to find them. As stated in another review, he does not teach readers how to use the tools, he guides them through a very specific example without suggesting other uses of the practiced techniques.

The writing is poor at best. It contains grammatical errors, forced analogies, and false information. (The author refers to daVinci's "Last Supper", noting the emphasis of important persons: Judas and PONTIUS PILATE.)

As a result of the poor writing, I have stopped doing the assigned readings and relied on lectures to fill the gaps.

Scott's handling of design and the Adobe Creative Suite is demonstrated page after page throughout this book. It is a welcome pleasure to read a computer book that was designed as well as it was written.

Pah!...Encouraging people to learn but the concept of helping reader to truly understand the method on 'how those truly happens' is a 0. Scott has been living in his own world long enough for not to understand how to help readers truly understand what his instruction are. People buy professional book to get professional result with professional guidance. But this, is filled with POOR method of explanation on how to achieve those result. Professional advice: If you're a beginner, you will never understand the book. If you're a pro, you will get MAD / ANGRY because the book really blow your heads off, as if you're a total beginner and do not know how to do things in those programs. Congratulations Adobe!..for bringing in this Mr.Scott to produce a book on your behalf and waste a lot of innocent people money! Don't get me wrong; Scott design is indeed POWERFUL but if you're hoping to get the best, professional result just like what the book front cover promises, then it fails to deliver. Professionals always want to move fast (because there's already a LOT of job to be done) and don't ever suggest me buying the visual Quick Pro. Although Visual Quick Pro is good but I'm searching for great design to get the job done, not the how to's. Excitement comes when reading Scott story but it is the end when it comes to the instruction...Sorry Scott, it is the truth. I'm not happy, and so are you. Make the instruction easy to follow and cut off unneeded story. Focus on the instruction part very, very seriously (because that what the reader want) and this book will be one of the best in Adobe collection. But for now, I will stay with my 1 star.

Scott Citron's book offers in a nutshell a lot of information on very different graphic projects. It offers most of the basic information you need to make graphic projects work.

From Adobe Press, this soft cover format book defines it's self in one of those areas between a great design magazine and a handy educational tool. The book itself breaks chapters out by project work rather than product. This is more inline with what I require as a digital based graphics designer. I am not about to use an illustrator project book, but rather one that targets a project like what I am involved with to use as a resource.
The chapters are the ubiquitous "Getting Started" (great info on what and how Bridge should be used, as well as info on preferences and organization.

This is actually more important a chapter than at first glance. I am supprised by the amount of designers now in CS3 who still hang on to old habits (die hard) with bad or non existing preferences and layouts tailored to themselves. Bridge too is so important to great workflow, yet not enough designers out there are taking advantage of it.

THe remaining chapters in the book are broken out by projects on typography, corp identity, newsletters and forms, magazines, books, annual reports and interactive PDF. The book closes off with a chapter on workflow that covers a CD label. This I would say is a miss. CD - um yeah that format that no one buys. Why is it not something more interesting such as a DVD jacket and label for a movie or better yet, an actual game on the market. THough it shows good workflow, the example is dated and not relevant and makes the chapter a bit of let down.

Another point missed out in this book is the inclusion of digital media. Is it an aim for the book to be knowingly exclusive of any form of non print media other than an interactive pdf? The book does feel, though using the latest CS3 project, that it is from a pre web period when there was the promise of interactive CD's and an interactive PDF world. This is a shame as a professional designer who thinks that all outside of print is irrelevant is, in theselves in danger of being irrelevant.

Overall the book reads well, has great examples and excellent tips scattered throughout. The examples are for the most part relevant only to print based designers, so one can look at this as more of an upgrade read through to garner more from CS3 than from any hands on learning in a start to finish setting.

ActionScript 3.0 has more in common with Java than any previous ECMAScript, so it lends itself to a reimplementation of the classic Design Patterns originally espoused by the "Gang of Four" in "Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software". "ActionScript 3.0 Design Patterns" essentially does just this.

Unfortunately, ActionScript 3.0 does have some differences (no abstract classes, no private constructors) that make it impossible to implement the patterns in exactly the same way as the canonical Java solutions. Even with the workarounds Sanders and Cumaranatunge explain to get back on track, I can't help but think that there might be better solutions using the full range of ActionScript's capabilities, instead of sticking obstinately to the new Java-like syntax.

The concepts in this book are great for any Actionscript developer and they thoroughly explain solutions via design patterns. I'd recommend this book to any aspiring AS3 developer.

HOWEVER, there is so many horrible mistakes in this book. While the content is awesome, it seems like the editor was plastered when he put this little job together. In Chapter 7, it is almost unbearable. Words are omitted, code is omitted, sections are re-pasted into the book often... it's utterly horrible. I keep finding myself getting upset trying to read this book because so much is left out and so much is repeated identically on the next page!!!

All in all, if you're interested in learning Design Patterns (and they are very useful) buy this book. The content is great, the editor should be fired from the universe.

I bought this book when I wanted to pick up on Design Patterns in AS3 (I had little to no experience with DP in AS2), and after I read "Essential ActionScript 3.0". I bought it without reading any reviews because I like O'reilly books, but after I placed the order, I looked at the reviews, and noticed that people were favoring "Advanced ActionScript 3 with Design Patterns" (by Joey Lott and Danny Patterson) -- so I went to the closest B&N and picked it up a day before the O'reilly one arrived, so I was able to compare. I must say that I liked the O'reilly book by FAR over the other one, mostly because of the detailed and extensive examples, descriptive copy and easy-to-follow real-life samples (even though the author referred to Gnarls Barkley as a person at one point.. haha).

So - for someone like me, who knew AS3 (the books assumes you do), but wanted to get into OOP with Design Patters, this was an excellent choice. I would highly recommend it.

I've been reading through O'Reilly's "ActionScript 3.0 Design Patterns: Object Oriented Programming Techniques" by William Sanders and Chandima Cumaranatunge for the last few weeks and have to say its an incredibly useful resource.

The interesting thing is that this book approaches design patterns in the more traditional sense, not dumbing down on the object-oriented terminology. In that sense it is very approachable to those coming from a Java or C background and are looking for ActionScript 3.0 implementations of specific patterns.

Full review at: [...]

College-level and specialty computer libraries covering web development will find William Sanders & Chandima Cumaranatunge's ActionScript 3.0 Design Patterns an excellent acquisition, covering common problems in Flash and Flex applications and providing developers with the tools necessary to adopt superior design patterns. From key components of ActionScript 3.0 and its characteristics to the benefits of developing both structural and behavioral patterns, ACTIONSCRIPT 3.0 is a pick for any advanced programmer's library.

Even though I have used Illustrator for several years, I found the steps and tips a little confusing. I bought this book to increase my knowledge.
It wasn't too helpful, especially when steps are skipped, and the tips don't correspond with the instructions. In one area the instructions read, "expand and ungroup, (about a million times) to delete the wireframe." Didn't work for me.

Not for beginners. Tips and adjoining windows don't seem to match. Projects were helpful in teaching you to be able to use the techniques for your own projects or creativity. But on the whole I don't feel the book was worth the price.

I love it, it is an advance book. not too good for beginners.

There are three things that I really like about this book:
1. There are good illustrations that showcase step-by-step transformations of how each technique and tool was used to get to the "end goal"
2. There is a companion website that is fun to browse and helpful if you want some guidance with Adobe Illustrator but don't have the time or money to take a class
3. The tips on the Blend tool were especially helpful for me; they gave me new ideas for what I could be using this tool for when constructing illustrations

My personal preference for the style, layout and 'final' projects the book takes you through were not especially inspiring or attractive to me. For me, the layout of the book made reading it hard to follow and difficult to get engaged.

A well written book, but I would reccommend that you peek through it at a local bookstore so you can see if it fits your style or not before you go out and purchase it.

[...]


Many people first take look at cover and then decide if they want to buy book or not. When i first took a look at cover of this book i wasn't really impressed by it. But later when i already had it in my hands i understood why. Because cover is glossy and if you want to scan a cover - it's become almost impossible. It's the same that scanning silver or gold cover. But if you buy this book in usual store I am sure that it will attract your attention.

From other hand cover of this book - it don't try to impress you with pretty pictures on cover or big words to make you but it. It gives you exactly that why you buy this book - practical knowledges that you can use when you need it.

This is a great book for beginners and intermediate users of Adobe Illustrator. You can study or improve your knowledges on practice. The book is full of different kind of tasks (54 in total if to be precise). Every of them presents unique value and exotic experience. Every tutorial is explored to the maximum, all the possible options are explained clearly.

During this tasks you will work with many interesting Illustrator tools as mesh, path tools, blends, 3D spirals, Live Paint (which allows you to paint those vector graphics as if you are painting them by hand) and many other.

If you create digital animation, you will appreciate chapter number 11 where you create layers to manipulate individual parts for character animation. When everything is ready, you can preview the animation frames and then export them as a draft in the Flash format.

Book includes many highlighted "notes," "tips," and "warnings", "cautions", "alternatives" interspersed throughout the book. Notes will give you addition information or alternative actions, warning will notify you in advance about tricky moments and tips will will make your work a bit more easy.

My favorite effects in this book are graffiti and Dracula effects. Last effect you can overview on companion website. I'm sure you will find where to use it in your projects.

In my opinion, David Karlins and Bruce Hopkins made a great work. Book is good written, very friendly, easy to follow, the page layout is very clean, and the readability of this book is very high.
This book is an excellent guide to performing wild effects. For more information visit companion website and find more information about this great book.

This 3 CD-Rom set is great. It goes step by step, inch by inch teaching different uses of Photoshop 7. I took extensive notes and practiced what I was being taught. My only gripe is that while I can now "transform a selected pixel," I don't know why the heck I would want to! There is no answers to any WHYs for anything. It's a little maddening.

I can resize an image or resize a canvas. But what situations call for which option?

Basically, I need to find a resource for my WHY questions, but this is an excellent tool for then achieving an end product after I figure out what I want to do!

Easy to use,but I found the lag between the instructions and the effect was a little confusing at first. After mastering this the lessons were relevant, instructive and made Adobe 7 easier to use. I would recoment this a an excellent starter programe for beginners and intermediate users. The last lessons were a valuable introduction to more advanced aspects of this Photo suite,and were an encouragement to go further.

This is the best personal traning I ever had, to learn everthing there is to learn about photos it has help me a whole lot, best of all I can learn in the comfort of my own home. It's easy and great.

The Adobe Photoshop 7 Training discs from Keyko are the best! They are very easy to use & have all the knowledge on the software you are using. Very good step by step details which makes learning enjoyable & simple to follow.

I would highly recommend using any of the Keyko products.

I just love your Photoshop 7 tutorial. It is truly so easy to follow. I placed the disc in my cd rom then the rest was so easy. Anyone could use this product. I strongly recommend anyone who has adobie photoshop 7 buy this product. Why the very first day I was experimenting with layers. I'm very satisfied

The jury is still out on this one. No decision made on whether it has help me or not. Not sure if I am impressed with it. I have never used Lightroom before so this is a first time 'HOW TO' book for me. I am still reading it and so I haven't given up on it, yet.

I am literate with Photoshop and Illustrator but found a steep learning curve learning Lightroom. I read and studied Kelby's book "the Adobe Photoshop Lightroom book for digital photographers" and found it lacked essential basic information (like what is a catalog and how that differs from files)though it did cover many subjects. This book "Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 How-Tos: 100 Essential Techniques" by Chris Orwig answered 99% of my questions succinctly. It gave me a working, bread and butter, knowledge of how the program works, what it does that other programs don't, and why and how I should use it.
Now the negatives, only one. Lousy print quality. The examples are to small to see without a magnifying glass and everything is in black and white.
Would I recommend? Unequivocal Yes. Read it first and if you still have questions then buy Kelby's book. At least you'll have a foundation to use to start learning from Kelby....

Build Lightroom expertise the easy way, with a step-by-step coverage of Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2. Everything is covered, from the basics of understanding file formats and applying images to other settings to changing appearances, applying saved settings to other images, and covering to grayscale or reducing redeye. Chris Orwig is a professional photographer and teacher, so his tips come from an expert and make this invaluable for computer and photography libraries for all levels of user.

I know this book bears the Adobe logo on the cover, but the reproduction is lousy and the pictures of menus, etc. are very small.
Pretty dumb for a photography book.
Disappointing for an Adobe sanctioned product.

First the good, this book is very concise and to the point. I use the index to locate what I'm looking for and viola', a nice description that's to the point without a load of fill and fluff. I like this very much.

The bad: Ahhh... Black and white photos, are you kidding? When I buy a book with the Adobe trade mark on it I expect high quality "color" screen shots and photos, not Black and White. I didn't research this enough to know it was B&W, that's my fault.

I would have given this 2.5 stars if it were possible, the writing/instruction is good, the image design really needs to be reworked with sharper color images.

I picked up the Lightroom Workflow book as a companion to my copy of Scott Kelby's "Adobe Lightroom for Digital Photographers" book and I found it to be very comprehensive and easy to follow.

I would recommend this book to anyone who is looking to create a workflow in Lightroom, as it brings out many of the features that are useful but not obvious to the casual user.

Most folks who've been around digital imaging for any length of time know Tim Grey. An engaging, energy-filled, computer whiz who used to teach for George Lepp at the Lepp Institute of Digital Imaging and then got hired by Microsoft to head their professional photo expansion effort, Tim has a rare talent for clear, insightful writing about complex subjects. He's parlayed that skill into a whole series of books, of which this is one of his latest, and it carries on the tradition of being very thorough and easy to read and understand.

The topic of this book is one of a new breed of image editing tools that takes a fundamentally different approach to working with digital photo files from the King Kong of the industry, Adobe Photoshop. While Photoshop still is the industry leader by far, it has several serious drawbacks, including expense, complexity, and a very steep learning curve.

Enter Adobe Photoshop Lightroom. The concept for this new tool is to provide a more user friendly, efficient end-to-end workflow within one program that includes editing, optimizing, cataloguing, and output, allowing the photographer to spend less time in front of the computer and more time actually taking pictures. There are competing programs from other companies with a similar goal - Apple's Aperture (strictly for Macs), and LightZone from Light Crafts (for both platforms), but only Lightroom has near-seamless cross compatibility with Adobe's other creative products.

Lightroom has strong promise. One of its leading attributes is that it works nondestructively. When you make editing changes to images you are not altering actual pixel values within the image file but only adding a set of instructions for changes you wish to make and shows those effects on the fly. This makes files much smaller than when you create multiple variations in Photoshop, many times with many layers resulting in huge files. Many of its tools are both clever and intuitive as well, speeding the way to a polished product in less time.

There are some limitations however. While image adjustments are well mechanized, there is no provision in this version of the program to apply them selectively to parts of the image. For this type of work the file must be exported to another editing program. Also, there is no means for working on more than one monitor. A favorite approach for many who use Photoshop is to use two displays with the image on one and the palettes for various adjustments on the other; can't do that at this point with Lightroom.

Will Lightroom catch on? Very likely, especially for those photographers who yearn for a tool that gives good, quick results that increase their productivity. And when the global adjustments available within Lightroom aren't enough, it's easy to export to another tool for that kind of work. In addition, the simple digital asset management capabilities may be enough for someone whose file storage and cataloguing needs aren't too great. Furthermore, this is version 1.0, and there is every expectation that the program will grow and improve as the new conceptual paradigm gains acceptance, particularly with serious competition from at least two other quadrants.

So, how valuable is Tim Grey's take on the subject? About as good as it gets, I'd say. Tim has a rare talent for clarity of expression that leaves little doubt about what's being described. Throughout his books he makes suggestions about settings and states his personal preferences so someone new to the program has a place to start, which is far preferable, in my view, to just describing all the choices and leaving one hanging without a clue where to begin. If you purchase Lightroom, or are even just considering doing so, you should also acquire this book. It will save hours and hours of figuring it all out on your own and give you a running start toward becoming an expert with one of the best new editing programs.

This is a well written book, however talks less about workflow and more about Lightroom. if you are new to light room I highly recommend this book as it is a great introduction to the product and a walkthrough on all of it's features 1.0 (does not cover 1.1).

If you are looking for workflow and already know lightroom.... this book will teach you a few things you didn't know. I suggest taking a look at your local book store first to see if it is right for you.

There are so many Lightroom books available but I waited for Tim's because of his writing style. He's a technical guy who can also make us "visual" people understand.

Tim's effort is a noteworthy in clarity of writing style. Realistic workflow approach and sequencing in this book makes Lightroom's use far more understandable. Tech-writing of technical subject-matter always is a difficult job. Tim does it exceptionally well. Oddly, Tim's book... is the very material that - should - be included within Adobe's $300 product under the "Help" menu. User tips picked up from the book make it a worthwhile purchase. LR itself... the jury is still out on that issue. Noteworthy features, but quirky Raw conversions and exposure values and color balance readings. A product that attempts to be the proverbial "Swiss Army Knife" with the inclusion of many many functions... the number count tends to overload the user, even get in the way.

There are many books about HTML and Web Design. But not many of those books give you an overview of the different design approaches that you can take to create a web site.
This book is the perfect guide for your web design. It contains even some parts on the different image formats and why to use them. It explains in detail the JPEG, TIFF and GIFF image formats.
The basics of Photoshop and GoLive are explained. With this knowledge you can greatly improve your productivity.
Further more it contains a impressive collection of screenshots which will give you the inspiration you need to create attractive web sites.
This book is a must have for every web designer, hobbyist or pro!

There are many books about HTML and Web Design. But not many of those books give you an overview of the different design approaches that you can take to create a web site.
This book is the perfect guide for your web design. It contains even some parts on the different image formats and why to use them. It explains in detail the JPEG, TIFF and GIFF image formats.
The basics of Photoshop and GoLive are explained. With this knowledge you can greatly improve your productivity.
Further more it contains a impressive collection of screenshots which will give you the inspiration you need to create attractive web sites.
This book is a must have for every web designer, hobbyist or pro!

I got a fair bit from this book even after 7 years of web design and Photoshop experience. It does tend to lean rather heavily on graphic-intensive designs (as you would expect given that Photoshop is one of the 2 tools in the title) and gives less focus to designing tight HTML and small sites than I would have liked. That said, the sections on graphic optimisation are pretty useful and the overall book is a good read.

Photoshop features heavily but the GoLive information is fairly short and I get the impression this was probably hastily bolted on to an existing Photoshop-only text.

My only real complaint (which is a nit-pick) would be that this must be the worst proof-read book I have ever come across. Not only are there typos and spelling errors on pretty much every page but I actually found at least one editor's comment in the text too!

The graphics are inspiring and it is a pleasure to leaf through; the information on web graphic formats and the LZW compression algorithm, as well as web-safe colour and other graphical considerations when designing for the web, are very useful. You must actually want to know this stuff, though, or it'll seem extremely dry.

However, it is obvious why this book is printed by Adobe Press: although Photoshop is the Holy Grail of the digital graphics world, GoLive is not so great, and one should take Baumgardt's raving enthusiasm for designing entire layouts of sites in Photoshop, ImageReady and GoLive with several grains of salt.

This is a fantastic book. Probably the best book in my collection. This isn't just a book full of tutorials for people to rip off. It provides a great deal of insight on web design. After reading this book you will always be able to come up with just the right look for your site. This book not only provides insight on how to come up with just the right look for your site but an in-depth look at file types, file sizes, vector graphics, web safe colors, and modem transfer speeds. This is a must have book for any serious web designer. Nice job Michael Baumgardt.

A book filled with dull, boring and unimaginative portraits of pretty women and rehashed Photoshop techniques that have been commonplace for nearly a decade. Also, the thin content is presented in a typographic format that is nearly unreadable.

You'll get a much better insight into "The Art of Photographing Women" by reading the latest edition of Maxim magazine.

This book is great. At times a little hard to follow from one task to the next but I find it to be very in-depth and useful. The book covers so many tricks I would never have thought of. Ordering books to be shipped to Australia can be very much hit and miss, but this book is a A+++ buy.

I really wanted a good book for people in general. This book had some positive reviews elsewhere so I gave it a shot. I was not disappointed. Most of the rules and examples provided could be used on anything: humans or animals. Its about using photoshop to make images look beautiful. The book's layout, format and illustrations are also top notch and help with the teaching.

A practical guide to understanding and using lighting to capture the image as well as many useful techniques for improving images of people, especially women.

This books is based on the old saying, "Give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day, teach him to fish and he'll eat for a lifetime." It teaches you how you can make changes to your 'raw' pictures into works of art. It emphasized the concept that can actually be applied to any type of photography. Personally, I like to take Portrait, Street Life, and Candid. This book really hope me to think more of how and what I want to have as my final result from the pictures I take. I used to think that postproduction of a picture is pointless but the more I learned from this book. It became more evident that that is not the case. It is an essential part of digital photography. Now, I can make the pictures I take to come out exactly the way I intended it to be.