Graphics Books

So as you might expect this book includes extensive research as far as magi and cabala's are concerned. The artwork is amazing, the setting is perfect and the ascension war has begun. I you want my opinion, buy it, it is surely useful in completing your storyteller skills and knowledges and will prove your wisdom to your players. Really, this book is worth it.

Easily the Best historical Game and maybe the best game white-wolf ever came up with. The setting takes upa majority of the space but it also doesn't explain the Spheres like it does in Mage for example- Mage2nd:Life5:Transform complex lifeforms. Mage:TSC: Life5- Greater Godhand. Also the game greatly Stresses magic Faith and Science. The only flaws it has in it relates to them. Their is a form of Paradox regardless of what people would think but It can help or hinder you. It is also interesting to have the Technocracy (or Order of Reason) be the ones strugling. Any Player of white-wolf games should get this it is a must! and has a map of Europe in 1500.

The Sorcerers' Crusade is a good setting for Mage. A lot of the modern game focuses on how magic doesn't really work the way it's supposed to because people's belief in science is too firmly entrenched in the world's paradigm. In the SC setting, science is a bit less accepted, and magic works a little better. Paradox, which in the modern game is always bad, is called Scourge in this setting, and can occasionally help a Mage. The Technocracy is on more equal footing with the Tradition mages here, as both are struggling to put their paradigm forward as dominant.

There's quite a bit of history and world setting information in this book. Possibly too much, depending on your needs. Relatively little of the book is taken up with game system mechanics. What system rules there are cannot be found all in one place. The organization of the rules is somewhat loose. Like the modern game, the magic system is open-ended, with ability defined in areas of control rather than specific spells. But like most other Mage books, spells (rotes) can be found if one looks hard enough.

If you've played Mage: The Ascension, it will be easier to understand this book. If not, some of the game rules might be confusing. If you like the Mage magic system, but don't care for the dark-goth game world White Wolf sets the games in, this is probably the game for you.

The Sorcerers Crusade is a fine book, which contains everything you need to get a Renaissance game going. The Traditions and the Order of Reason are both given equal treatment. It is interesting to see the Order of Reason before they got reorganized into the Technocratic Union. This was a time when their paradigm was not as accepted as miracles and traditional D&D-style spell craft.

This book is more thorough than the second edition of Mage the Ascension. Not only does it provide a lot of examples and explanations for spells, and rituals, it also cleared up a lot of the limitations and potentials for the various spheres.

Even though there are already party lines, the rules make it possible to have both Traditional and Technocratic magi working together. It is a time of reorganization and both parties are trying to find their destinies. In fact, the reader will follow the experiences of a Celestial Chorus member and a member of the Hippocratic Circle throughout the book. The idea of same goals through different methods was stressed.

The time period seemed to be the ideal setting for Mage. Not only are their so many possibilities in terms of new ideas and beliefs, the age of exploration in the high seas, the skies, the unknown continents, as well as the Void are all available for curious magi and their associates.

This book is a must for anyone who is interested in Mage. It is a very complete work and has vital information for storytellers and players who want to use the Renaissance setting. Whether you have an interest in high artisans, explorers, knights, shamans, witches, alchemists, there is something here for you.

Mage: The Ascension is, without a doubt, my favorite RPG. It's concept about Awakened beings who *know* they can change reality because they are convinced in their paradigms is the best concept I've ever seen.

In the Mage timeline, though, there was a crucial event which splitted history in two: Renaissance. It was then that the whole world started believing in science and it's apparent limitless capacities. It was then when people started removing some attributes which made the world turn from God, and it was then when the church started the most brutal prosecution against "pagans": Inquisition.

This is a book about the clash between 3 forces: Faith, Science and Magick. And as the Mage storyline goes, it's the perfect moment to play a Mage.

I first bought this book a year ago, and have used what I learned to optimize computers that I would have normaly considered obsolete. It's allowed me to put off having to upgrade untill the new memory standard (DDR) comes out in march, saving me lots of $. I also bought copies for friends this year (2000) for X-mas. Some may say it needs updating, but the authors web site has all the info you would need updated. Many thanks for the Book Dave!

.............Curtis

I use computer frequently, but I am not that of an advanced user. This book really brings me into a higher level of understanding about how Windows works. The author goes into lots of detail about what happens while Windows is running (e.g. during boot up). Yet, the text is very easy to be understood. This book also gives me a new way to look at computing. A faster CPU doesn't always give you a faster computer. If you think your computer is too slow, THERE ARE things you can do to make it runs faster. When performance matters, you have to give up things that you are used to, but not usful. (I can't complain that my computer is too slow when I am using a fansy theme that costs too much memory.) Also, this book does not simply tell you what to do. The author's explaination enables me to make decisions on my own.

This is not a book that simply tell you how to improve your computer's performance. If you have some experiences in using Windows and want to know more about the operating system, this is a nice size book that can get you started. What's more? My machine is faster now. :)

This book has a huge collection of excellent tips for getting the most out of Windows. Every Windows owner owes it to themselves to go out and get this book!

I am an experienced windows user, and I bought this book because I figured it was cheaper than upgrading my PC. I run a K6 266 overclocked to 300, 160 megs of ram, 7200 RPM 27 Gig HD. Once I implemented ALL of the tricks in this book (This is no easy task... it takes a lot of time, and is very high maintenance), my system out performed my ex-girlfriend's Pentium III 850 with 128 megs of ram for applications (not for games, though it still does those well).

I don't mind making the effort, but some people might. If you have lots of time, and you love customizing your PC, you can't go wrong.

Litestep, registry hacks, DOS utils, 5 partitions on a HD... if you like this kind of stuff, get the book! If you don't know what any of these things are, you may be better off upgrading you PC.

This book is an attempt to collect (and organize) a series of tricks to speed up Win9x machines (it does work for Windows 95, 98 and ME, but most of the advices do not translate to WinNt and Win2000, as the author honestly points out).

The author's idea is that you can actually obtain a lot of performance even from older machines, if you are ready to do some work for it (tracking down utilities, testing different configurations, dropping some "cool effects" in the standard UI and so on).

I've recently applied the book ideas to "renew" a couple of very old machines (a 486-based, 24MB ram Compaq portable and a Pentium-75 with 64 MB Ram). I am not a Windows Guru by any stretch of the term, and I did learn a lot on how Windows is organized in the process. This fact alone is probably worth one extra star in my rating.

The book is clear, and is a good read (i.e. it is not a simple itemized lists of tricks, but tries to tie up things in a coherent thread).

Unfortunately, the end result of my attempts to optimize my two museum-quality machines were less stellar than what other reviewers submitted. I think that the main reason is due to the fact that most of the tips seem to be aimed at computers which have been subjected to a lot of "install-the-new-software-gizmo-I-just-found-in-this-magazine-CD".

If you start from a clean installation (or work on a machine on which little extra sw was installed) there seems to be very little gain from applying most of the techniques offered by the author.

Another problem is that both SW and HW are a moving target, so when you try to obtain some of the utilities which the author recommends, for example, you may find out that the current versions may have grown new requirements which makes installing them on an older machine a little troublesome.

This is even more obvious when we talk about RAM or other HW specific issues.

All in all, I'm pleased with the book, but mostly because helped me to better understand how Windows works. People who already have a lot of first-hand experience in installing and maintaining Windows machines would probably give this book three stars at most.

I'm a part time faculty member at a Boston art school. At the school I teach a class on Digital Illustration using Painter. I myself use the Painter WOW! Book as an instructional tool, and it is actually a required text for the class. If you're at all interested in Painter, reading this book is one of the best things you can do for yourself, it's a must have! Cher's book does not just tell you how you "could" use Painter; she provides real world applications of the tools within Painter to show what you "can" do. Due to the seemingly complex interface, without this book, a new user could potentially be scared away from the application. The Painter WOW! will help you work through the entire application, progressing at your own pace. As for seasoned users, such as myself, you are sure to come away with many new tips and tricks; you'll wonder how you ever worked without them. I started buying the Painter WOW! Books back when version 5 had just been released. WOW! 6 was great, and WOW! 7 is better yet! Not only is this book chalk full of useful information, it's a visual delight. Bravo!

I love Painter--been using it since it was a simple black and white sketch program sold in an imitation cigar box years ago. But this program, which imitates art media digitally, can be a bit complicated to use.

Once you do get acquainted with the basics from the tutorial included with Painter, you can improve your layer techniques, web techniques and practice the projects in this book.

I frankly got this for the CD with extra brushes, papers, textures and stock material. But the ability to go through the examples in the book has improved my technique with Painter. If you use Painter 7 AND Photoshop, there is a chapter on combining the two. That's VERY valuable.

Highly recommended for Painter 7 users.

When I saw a recent review that said the book has only one portrait technique, I just had to point out that it has lots more than that! A quick search turned up "Sketching with Pencils" (OK, the subject is feline rather than human, but still it's a portrait, p. 64), "Drawing with Colored Pencils" (starting from a sketch, p.65), "Gouache and Opaque Watermedia" (also starting from a sketch, p. 84), "Sculpting a Portrait" (using Chalk variants, p. 88), "Oil Painting on Layers" (as the reviewer noted, p. 180), and "Cloning a Portrait" (turning a photo into a painting, p. 215). Wouldn't it be great indeed to have more detailed explanations of the pieces in the "Gallery" sections? But I'm afraid that would make the book too heavy to lift! The step-by-step detail in the techniques is great, and the "Galleries" are there to inspire us.

This book is a great asset in helping one understand and navigate the complex palettes that come with Painter 7. It really helps the artist fine tune and accomplish the desired effects for specific examples. It also discusses the various ways in which to start a painting, either from a photo, a sketch or from scratch. My only disappointment would come from the lack of details on how to achieve the truly great effects seen in the gallery images. I think this book is a wonderful tool for graphic designers like myself. But it really skims the surface on creating great works of art. I think a lot of people who buy painter would love to be able to produce portraits and paintings of their favorite photographs. This book only has one tutorial on portraits and it is oil based. It also spent a lot of time on effects for type, animation and web based graphics. Doesn't Adobe and Macromedia already have these areas well covered. I bought Painter because I want to paint.

I won't add much more to the previous reviews except to say "me too". The manual that comes with the program is very terse and often doesn't go into much detail on how to achieve a particular effect. The Wow! Book, on the other hand, is carefully organized to explore the software section by section, with LOTS of illustrations to us instruction-challenged people. You can use this book instead of the manual, IMO. And Painter is a superb program, it's nice to see it has a superb 3rd party book to support it.

The story, set in 8th century Japan, follows two men: the one-armed, one-eyed, savage Gao and the handsome, considerate Akanemaru.

The story opens with Gao's birth and the accident that kills his father and costs Gao an arm and an eye. A remarkably strong adolescent, he wins a competition but when the jealous loser ruins Gao's prize, Gao kills him. Outcast, Gao kills and maims men and women and children remorselessly whenever they get in his way or when they have something he needs. Or just for the hell of it, as when he meets and maims his counterpart in the story, the gentle Akanemaru whose arm Gao maliciously slashes.

Taking different paths, Gao and Akanemaru each find a young woman and an old mentor. They meet once more by chance on a road. Akanemaru recognizes the man who had ruined his arm, but nevertheless wishes him well. They each become known as sculptors and artists to the powerful lords ruling Japan. They work tirelessly. Akanemaru is driven by vision and ambition while Gao is driven by rage and by his being baffled when faced with the unfairness of life, death, and suffering.

All this in a comic book... But if you've seen Princess Mononoke, you already know that Japanese manga and animé can offer surprisingly complex heroes and villains who are seldom completely good or completely evil.

Vincent Poirier, Tokyo

(SPOILERS means this review gives away the end of the story)

Akenemaru

Akanemaru, trained sculptor of wood,
You grew so full of your greatness
That your soul turned upon itself:
You had Gao's (only!) arm cut off
Because he was greater than you.
Why so surprised when the Phoenix told you,
As you lay dying,
That you would never again be born
A human?

Gao

Deprived of an arm, an eye, a father, almost at birth,
You grew up maddened,
Robbing, maiming, killing.
Then you discovered by accident your great gift
For carving.
Your (second!) arm taken from you,
You wandered away to the wilderness,
Lamenting. But there,
Your soul turned upon itself:
You grew to love the nature around you, and the men and beasts
That shared it with you,
Always carving,
A tiny chisel
Held between your teeth.

I've read some Astroboy, and Tezuka's Black Jack and both of these impressed me but it was only when I began reading his Phoenix series that I truly understood why he is known as "the god of manga" in Japan. I've read most volumes in this series (they are not all currently available) and each one is as wonderful as the last. Tezuka's beautiful artwork and his amazing and ground breaking use of frames and layout is worth buying any of the Phoenix series alone. But the stories will never let you down either - Philosophical, funny, fantastic, thoughtful, original, exciting. Karma is a particularly good volume in the series. For me my only regret in buying these books was that I couldn't put them down and got through them so quickly that before I knew it I'd bought and read everyone that was available. Now I have to be patient.

This is, basically, one of the best books I have ever read, and when a say books I mean every kind of books, including literature, history, religion, everything. I am still charmed somehow because of the incredible story of this Osamu Tezuka's book. I haven't read the other four Phoenix Saga books, but I am placing the order today: this book is eye opening, is one of the rare cultural products worth of ordering to Amazon, from my country. In my country you cannont buy it, so I have to pay the expensive shipping price, if you live in the States, don't hesitate once, but it at once! You will feel rewarded when you finish reading it.

Out of the three Phoenix volumes I've read I'd have to say that I think that this is the most effective. Karma follows the journey of two men, Gao and Akanemaru, on seperate but related journeys towards spiritual enlightenment and takes place during the early to mid 8th century, a period when Japanese society was apparently being reshaped to emulate China. Gao is born in a poor fishing village, and as a baby is dropped on his head from a great height when his father tries to take him to give thanks to the Mountain Spirit. The father dies and Gao is left missing an arm and an eye.

I'm realising that this kind of offhand brutality happens all the time in Tezuka's work. Babies getting dropped on their heads is just a start; Gao is ridiculed and maltreated as a child and eventually becomes a thief who kills his neighbours, accomplices in crime, lovers and strangers. He does it all without regret or compassion and with the complete confidence that is he is living in accordance with the nature: "Those that cannot survive are caught by the fisherman and eaten, leaving only a few. The people left alive are the winners." I didn't ever get the feeling that Tezuka was necessarily contradicting Gao's version of Social Darwinism. As those of you who have read The Future might agree, Tezuka's view of the Cosmos and man's role in it could be pretty bleak. Making sense of it may be outside of the scope of human imagination; although we grasp at the meaning, there's no reason that Gao's role in the cosmic scheme of things should easily fit into our system of morality.

"Society made me who I am!" declares Gao, but somehow I got the feeling from the sequence that even Gao didn't believe his own rationalisation. Aside from that, there's really not much hand wringing about his victim hood. Tezuka didn't strain to make the character sympathetic and in a lot of ways it's his very `badness' that gives him the opportunity to evolve spirituality. One of Tezuka's greatest skills was to make the reader identify and feel pathos for his complex characters, no matter how silly, weird, evil, or devious they may seem.

Akanemaru is the opposite of Gao in almost every way; from birth he is naturally gifted and spiritual, kind, loving and determined. But in Tezuka's view of existence, there is no guarantee that he will remain that way. His privileged incarnation seems to be one of the main obstacles on his journey enlightenment. That said, even Akanemaru has trials that he must surmount and at one point, after Gao slashes his arm, making it useless for sculpting, Akanemaru seems to have actually achieved the next level towards true enlightenment. The Cosmos has other plans.

This is the first volume that I've read that really deals with the role of the artist in the world. Akemaru is forced to sculpt the Phoenix within three years on on pain of death. He succeeds, and is used as a pawn in political and religious maneuvering. This is story with a very Buddhist outlook, but Tezuka seemed to realize that religion is a creation of man and as such, destined to be flawed and corrupt as well as beautiful and true. Gao's mentor, the Abbot Roben observes: "Buddhism is only a vehicle for the authorities to deceive people and make them obedient and willing to pay taxes." As a result of efforts to save his own life (a rationlisation not far removed from Gao's) Akanemaru becomes the puppet of the corrupt government. He is commissioned to create a huge Buddha statue, the greatest in the land, and sees in his task the promise of immortality through its renown.

Meanwhile, Gao has also become a sculptor motivated to create haunting figures from whatever materials he finds in his journeys with his Master, the Abbot Roben. He sculpts hundreds of tortured faces from clay and dead trees in attempt to exercise his personal demons. While Akemaru wishes to give to the world through his art, Gao's motivation is purely personal, but in spite of this his fame begins to outstrip Akenamaru, leading to their final confrontation as artistic rivals. Again, Tezuka was not making a simple one-sided argument that one motivation is superior to the other, that would be too simple.

In the Pheonix stories Tezuka was dealing with one of the central paradoxes of human existence; it is natural for beings to strive to survive, but when the self-awareness of man takes this drive to its logical conclusion it becomes the desire to achieve immortality. However, it's a shallow concept of immortality that man often pursues, and seems to represent a resistance to change, and a fear of death more than anything else. The Phoenix, endlessly pursued by man, symbolises an endless cycle of death and then rebirth. Death is still an essential part of the equation and denial of this is the flaw that unites the ancient citizens of Dawn to their counterparts in Karma and, unfortunately, The Future.

This is one of those books that falls right in between, good for a screenprinter using photoshop, an good for someone who wants to learn Photoshop basics. The first few chapters is set more for a novice. Giving an introduction to settings an key tools. Once you started half way through the book, your learning good fundementals that you can apply to your screenprinting while using Photoshop. Don't just skip to the chapter about color seperations, stay on track an start from the beginning. By doing so, you'll either be brushing up on old tips, or learning a few new tricks to help become a better screen printer.

After searching far and wide, I cam upon this book and it is a great tool!

After getting frustrated with "Tutorial" disks from internet vendors, too messy, not organized.
This book by far gives you all the know how and insight how to use your photoshop 7 program for screen printing.
tips and tricks and all!
I highly recommend it

If you purchase this book just to learn about Photoshop 7.0, you may not get what you expect. However the way this book deals with the screen printing attributes of Photoshop, it has been an invaluable source for setting up jobs for the screen printing business. As an advanced edition of the already powerful application, it has proved extremely useful. I would highly recommend it to anyone with the special needs of the screen printing business.

***WARNING I AM NOT A SCREEN PRINTER NOR DO I PLAY ONE ON TV***

First off Photoshop 7.0 for Screen Printers is written for Microsoft Windows so you Mac users will have to translate, second it expects you to already have a RIP and a printer that prints on film to do the final output. Although it does go into output media such as Vellums (A semi-transparent media that is easy to print on like paper but shrinks like the dickens.) and Specialty Films or transparencies (A true transparent media that has been reformulated for inkjet printers and such.) the book does not really give a great deal of information about their use. That is the problem here, there really is so many brands and so many ways to tackle the job that you can easily get lost in the product information available and allot of the knowledge comes from knowing your printer and your capabilities and your press.

PHOTOSHOP FOR BEGINNERS
The book is laid out more along the lines of a typical Photoshop teaching manual, which is both good and bad. You begin with your basics in the Part 1: The Photoshop Interface, T is for type, B is for brush, blah blah blah. Then we have a whole chapter in corporate artwork Part 2: Creating Artwork and Logos and then on to Part 3: Working With Clients Files which from experience I can tell you boils down to telling them for the millionth time "No! I want you to save it as a J-Peg, No not GIF, NO NO NO this is not for your website its for a t-shirt!" and playing with computer color correction voodoo like Scanner Curves and Monitor Curves and the all knowing, all encompassing, Pantone Colors. "Well that red was not sooo red on my computer screen. What? You printed 500 shirts already?!"

COLOR SEPARATIONS AND THE DAMAGE DONE
Stuffed in the back of the book after page 389 we get to the big money shot of Photoshop 7.0 for Screen Printers, Part 4: Color Separations, here is where the price of the job and the amount of effort in printing come into play. The decisions you make in how many screens will be used and how many screens you can afford to make for the job effect the price you quote and the quality of the work you do. Will the image be photo realistic? Will the t-shirt be white or a dark color? How many Channels or colors will you use? How many stations are on your press? Is it automatic or manual? Do you really love your job that much?

So here the book separates the various tasks into four main parts...

SPOT COLOR SEPARATIONS
Spot Colors are for the simplest tasks in Screen Printing, used for images with very few colors involved and uncomplicated designs. This takes very little effort to setup and print and it is how most Screen Printers start off and make their money.

PROCESS COLOR SEPARATIONS
Here is where the going gets tough and the tough go mental. Process Color is used for all those photo realistic t-shirts you see at rock concerts, they are difficult to create, setup and print. This is also where you will find various companies such as $Fast Films$ and $Serichrome Seps$ selling you their software or their services. They are in essence selling you Photoshop plugins or Macros that do this task repeatedly, based on formula, for you. Just stick in the number of screens you want and the color of shirt you are using and there you go. Now it is great to have push button capabilities to do this work, but here you learn what they are doing and how they are doing it, so even if you buy a software package to do this task it is good to know what is going on and how to tweak those settings and Channels, that this software spews out at you, to your needs.

INDEXED COLOR SEPARATIONS
Index Color to me is an art form; it takes a more complex picture and limits the amount of colors to be used to only the main ones found in the image itself thus making it less complicated to print. You constantly run the risk of course or grainy looking prints and posterizing the image, it can be done though and I have seen some truly stunning shirts made using this process. Here is where the Screen Printer is balancing the limitations of his press against the gamut of colors needed to create the image, and the color of the shirt itself, benefiting the customer in price with the quality of work on the actual t-shirt, it takes skillz dude!

SIMULATED PROCESS COLOR SEPARATIONS
Not much to tell on this one, basically this is simply a hybrid between Spot Color and Index Color that is all.

PRINT DAMN YOU! PRINT! NO! GET ME THE AXE!
Now comes the weird part of Photoshop 7.0 for Screen Printers where I find the most problems. Why did they separate out the Part 5: Printing and not do anything with it really? This part of the book does not flow for me or provide the type of support someone using this book really needs. Most people going about doing Color Separations make a decision based on the image provided and then follow through from the choice to the actual printing of the film which is different for each type of separation process. In other words the separation process dictates the printing process.

Here in Photoshop 7.0 for Screen Printers they decided to make a whole chapter on printing again defining the four main ways to separate an image and then showing you the steps to print it out. In printing out the image there are some complex decisions to make concerning Screen Angles, Moiré, LPI, and DPI and there is allot of ground to be covered in making these choices. Unfortunately these choices are done again in the step-by-step manner (slide tab a into tab b) that is used in showing you the basics of Photoshop.

I do not find this layout helpful or very well titled or sufficiently indexed in the back of the book. Joli Ballew does discuss some of the more advanced, confusing, and critical choices of printing Halftones along the way in various side boxes and in-depth explanations but these are not readily found in the index. You are making the person find this information after you have taken them through the process of Color Separation and you have not provided a way to identify the different choices made in the process of printing. BAD MOVE! I would have plainly labeled and titled and indexed the steps for CMYK Screen Angles for Process Color Separations and indexed the hell out of it mind you, even if this meant redundancy, before providing the excellent step-by-step commentary and those great tips.

A LITTLE SOMETHING MISSING
What I see as my main complaint though... If your book depends on Photoshop 7 (Which is already outdated, such is the shelf life of Adobe software.) Why not splurge and give the nitty gritty about what brands of printers, Such as the Epson 3000 most people are tending to use due to the acidic nature of the particular Epson QuickDry™ ink used in this one *low cost model* (acidic ink and film: true solid black on film guys) and other various whys and hows of products they are using currently? Why not show how to use free Post Script emulation software such as GhostScript so as to save yourself or your company money? Maybe a whole chapter devoted to various cheap or free RIP software and how some RIPs do Halftones while others do not.

This is exactly where Color Separation can become an expensive experiment for the person just starting and where there is not a whole lot of unbiased information out there and it would have provided the ability to use Photoshop 7.0 for Screen Printers much more easily to begin with.

Sure, there is incredible information in this book if you already have access to a Post Script printer or RIP software and a professional inkjet or laser printer but making it cheaper or easier to get these items would have meant more people benefiting from the various instructions provided here. That would have been technically challenging but also a major selling point. Because lets face it, most people buying this book are not likely going to be able to personally afford the hundreds of dollars associated with some of this software I am talking about.

So if anyone is interested and ready for the adventure and the incredible headache in attempting try this free or 'on the cheap' get your Google going and type in the following...
GhostScript, Gimp-Print, CUPS
PRINTFAB


A SUMMARY OR SOMETHING LIKE IT
I hate being negative about Photoshop 7.0 for Screen Printers since it is pretty much a one of a kind book and in the end a very necessary resource for Screen Printers. I just have had to beat my head again and again and again over various topics provided in this book and in doing so have a different perspective about the subject matter. Hopefully there will be an update and maybe a rethinking of certain parts of the book so that it can only be even more useful. All in all it is impressive in the amount of information it does try to cover and it does so providing at least a solid foundation to start learning and researching the more specialized aspects of the processes and materials covered. Excellent Job!
I fully recommend Photoshop 7.0 for Screen Printers to even the most advanced users out there.

This book is essential for beginners and advances photoshoppers alike. Many of the basic elements presented are overlooked in other photoshop manuals. Easy to understand and loaded with valuable information.

This is one of the best "how-to" books on computer imaging that I ever read. Each example is complete in itself -- they can really hold my interet throughout. The steps cross-reference accompanying pictures precisely. Everything is Thoroughly and methodically laid out -- no missing pieces or glibbed over details to stump readers.

This book really allowed me to learn masking in Photoshop. The step-by-step instructions allow you to follow the descriptions on your computer and see the results. It is rare to find a great book in Photoshop that teaches you so much. I would recommend this book to anyone who seeks to understand how to do collages using the mask technology in Photoshop. You won't regret buying this book at all. I can only wish there is the same kind of book in Illustrator and Painter and all the other graphics programs I use so that I can have a better understanding of the full special functions that are embedded in each of those applications.

Greg Haun is a master of Photoshop special effects techniques.
I was fortunate enough to take several of his classes at the Pacific Northwest College of Art here in Portland
back in '94 and '95 when 3.0 Photoshop was just out!
Greg always showed personal interest in what you were doing.
Greg is a professional among professionals, yet you would never know his level of expertise unless you asked him point blank! He was a very humble guy and believed you could learn techniques from even a novice.

Because of those early years of study, I recently achieved my expert certification in Photoshop. I doubt that I could have done it had I not had the advantage of Greg's tutelage.
He made a difference in my life. I can't thank him enough...

This book is a must for the professional Photoshop user.

I was fortunate to take several classes from Greg during the early 90s when he still taught at the Pacific NW College of Art. He was very patient, very knowledgeable and a great guy. He always made time for you and always had an answer. This book is invaluable for Photoshop students of all levels! Buy it!

Mark Simon, Graphic Artist - Dex Media Yellow Pages - Portland, Or

As a certificate program graphic design student, I found this to be one of the best books on Photoshop, even though it was written prior to the new software versions. It is well-edited, and explains masking, layering, and blending images clearly and concisely with very helpful screenshots of what you need to do.

As all the collection of this books it is good to have this in your personal library to check out how filters work with different kind of pictures, of coarse these books are directed to professional photos, but you can maybe experiment with your personal as well, I just wanted to point that out because in the book the examples given are for applying filters to pictures you maybe wanna show or give to a client.

But as a reference book is just great, I mean someone took the time to write and visually show you all the filters in photoshop and as its name it is a real encyclopedia, where you can look every filter how is going to look like and then decide.

Buy this it will always be useful

Of all the things that Photoshop can do, the Filters option certainly is one of the coolest options available to users. Taking a digital picture or just a standard graphics file, you can use the power of Photoshop Filters to create unique art for whatever purpose you want. From a colored pencil effect to blurring images to one of the newest filters "Vanishing Point", this book is an absolute gem.

If you use Filters on a daily basis and want to see what can be done to take a normal image and make it stand out from the "blah" that is out there in the world, this book is for you. If you are a heavy Photoshop user but want to go beyond the basics of just resizing images and cropping pictures, you will also heavily enjoy this book. Of the 4 books in this Photoshop line I love each one of them and feel that all readers should rush out and pick them all up for their reference.

The only downside of this book really isn't a fair one at all, and that's that I wish there were more pages and examples dedicated to all of the filters covered here. Obviously this isn't a realistic gripe so it's barely even worth mentioning.

***** HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

For anyone who uses Photoshop in graphic design and or to correct or edit their precious photos, this book is a must have in your library of reference materials. It takes the mystery out of all those scary, misused, underused and never used filters in Photoshop by clearly showing and explaining how to use them and when to use them. This is one fantastic book.

The O'Reilly Studio put their thinking caps on for all ages and levels of expertise at Photoshop. The step by step instructions with options made this, as well as all their other Cookbooks, a delight to learn from and practice with, in an easy-to-understand format. I would love to see them come out with CD's for their books included.

To be frank, I bought this book because to get free shipping, I had to add one more book to my order of "Photoshop Cosmetic Surgery, by Barry Huggins. It was one of many that I could have chosen for this purpose, but I chose it because it appeared that it could illuminate in detail an area of Photoshop that I was interested in exploring in greater depth than I had previously been able to do. In general, I am satisfied with my choice, although there were some areas where I would have liked greater detail and explanation. This book is not for a newbie to Photoshop. It assumes a reasonable degree of familiarity with the program, and simply proceeds, without fanfare, to describe how to use the many filters and their settings. I recommend this book for a reasonably competent Photoshop user who wants to continue to increase his/her mastery over this wonderful and hugely flexible program.

Excellent, well-organized manual for users -- takes the guesswork out of learning how to use this program.

Having the program for awhile there were certain parts I found a bit hard to use.This book has overcome these problems.Diane Koers explains it all in a easy to follow manner. This a wonderful text book to have for users of the Corel program.

Found this book to be extremely helpful to this novice.
It is well written and doesn't make any assumptions that you have any previous experience with this type of software.

It's hard for me to review this book without also discussing the book's topic, which is Corel's Paint Shop Pro Photo X2. Fortunately, I like them both. PSP Photo X2 is an admirable substitute for Adobe's Photoshop (at a fraction of the price). As such, the array of options and terms and icons and toolbars and palettes is potentially overwhelming, even for someone who may otherwise be technically astute. Diane Koers's book has just enough theory and background thrown in with the practical "how to" aspects to strike a perfect balance, and to help make sense of PSP Photo X2.

The book is well organized, and it has a fair index and a very good table of contents, so it can either be read from cover to cover, or used effectively as a reference. As is fitting for a book about graphic images, the book itself is of the highest quality, attractively laid out, with pages of coated paper that faithfully reproduce the many illustrations. It is well edited and essentially free of typos and grammatical errors (which is to be expected from a book published by Course Technology). In short, I highly recommend both the software and the book about the software. My only suggestion would be that Ms. Koers write a separate companion volume consisting of a series of tutorials. I find that nothing completes a learning experience better than a set of case studies and some directed hands-on practice.

I should probably add, just in case the point isn't obvious from the comparison to Photoshop, that in addition to photo editing, PSP Photo X2 has also has a robust set of web-centric features. Support for layers, which are essential for creating and maintaining computer graphics, and for GIF, PNG, and BMP formats is part of the core functionality of the software. Both the RGB (for computer graphics) and CMYK (for printing) color models are supported (the index of the book refers to CMYK as "CMTK", which is the only typo I've found in the book thus far). Ms. Koers's book gives this web-centric functionality a fair amount of coverage. I would recommend this book (and PSP Photo X2) to web developers and designers as well as to photography buffs. Paint Shop Pro Photo X2

If your looking for something that rivals Elements at a great price you just found it. And it works with Vista. Great editing tools. Easy to work with. You will love this product.

I was thrilled to see the new 17th edition of the Pocket Pal published by International Paper. This book is written in easy to understand English (easy if you speak English I guess) and covers all aspects of the graphics arts business, including printing and now electronic pre-press. It should be on the bookshelf of every designer and art director. I was in advertising and graphic arts for over 25 years and I still look to this handy book for answers to questions related to printing, color separations, and more.

I have been a publisher for over 30 years and I can testify, Pocket Pal is one of the best selling books in the industry. Condensed and concise, it gets right to the point on type, prepress, printing, postpress, paper and so on. There is even a history of type and printing. Glossary.

This 4.25 x 7.25, 234-page goldmine will be a constant reference for typesetters, publishers and printers. DanPoynter@ParaPublishing.com.

Ok... so this is a pretty intimidating and formidable little book. But it is the seventeenth edition! Obviously, this book is doing something right to stay in print. That something is providing a fundamental trade resource on the subject of layout, prepress, and printing. This is all the stuff you didn't want to know. Topics covered in minute detail are: history; copyfitting and type; halftones, screens, and dot matrices, imagesetters and platemaking, press types and their operation. It is packed with high quality illustrations, diagrams, and 4-color photos. This is definately a blue collar book in a black turtleneck world and a must for every designer. Consult this book before you design something wacky -- you don't want to get that "ya should'a read yer Pocket Pal" wink from the pressman.

The world's greatest little book, this gem contains the collective widom of the printing industry in an easy to carry-around format. It explains all of the mechanical, digital, and photographic aspects of the printing process, including typesetting, digital imaging and imagesetting, platemaking, and printing. The latest edition (1997) is up to date in describing CTP (computer to plate) development as well as details on the oldest printing methods still in use. Get two copies: someone will always "borrow" one of them.

If you work in publishing, prepress, graphic design, or any print-related field, you NEED this book. What else needs to be said? Anything you need to know--from process or spot colours, to print processes, to historical information--is in this book. Surprisingly enough, it is as interesting as it is informative--this is the first "techie manual" that I've read for fun. (Either this book is really good, or I *really* don't have a life.) Regardless, GET THIS BOOK. NOW!

Why only two books so far? As of this date, I'm still eagerly awaiting a third & fourth collection of Gilligan's daily strip: Pooch Cafe.
I'm pretty sure he's been cranking them out for two years since "No Collar, No Service" but where's the book?
Pooch Cafe is fresh, witty and well-drawn with just the right amount of detail. It's a strip you can fall in love with, much like Calvin & Hobbes. The way the various dogs think and act like dogs while still being cynical, English-speaking characters is hilarious.
Bring us more books!

pooch cafe is by far the funniest comic i have even read. its better than garfield and calvin&hobbes

I was glued to the book, reading it from beginning to end in one hilarious sitting. Poncho and friends diabolical plans to rid his house of the evil cat invaders were hysterical! Paul Gilligan needs to write another Pooch Cafe book!! We need more...MORE!

Poncho is a dog's dog. He daydreams of meat, stuffs himself with kibble, and hangs out at the Pooch Cafe where dogs can be dogs and "cat" is a four-letter word. (Plus, he loves Jackie Chan and hates mushrooms -- a dog after my own heart!) I had never read the Pooch Cafe comics before purchasing this book, but was attracted by the subject matter and the artwork, which is both cool and quirky. The humor is subtle and smart. Whatever you're a dog person, a fan of comics, or both, Paul Gilligan has produced a very stylish work that is worth adding to your collection.

Actually, I'm not sure what kind of pooch Poncho is but he is without a doubt the greatest cartoon character since Calvin.

This book is loaded with great writing, unique art and the funniest punchlines since Larson.

Grab this collection -- it's a winner!