Paint Books

I am an occasional user. I could muddle my way through PSP6 but have been frustrated by the changes in PSP7. This book has step by step screens to put on your PC and get you started quickly if you're a beginner.

The occasional user with some experience can just read and apply the examples. The examples are easy to follow and cleared up the problems I was having, that I could not find in PSP7 help. PSPF&E also contains a 10 page Tabel of contents and a 13 page index making topics easy to find. Highly recommended.

Diane states in the beginning that she, like me, is not an artist. She is however an excellent teacher. Thanks Diane.

(Note: for a more complete guide with color plates see "The Complete Idiots guide to PSP7" which is good for intermediate users, but I have found diffcult to use.)

This is a super book for absolute beginners, people who have never used a "major" graphics program before. All the basics are explained, clearly, with examples.

Those who have regularly used many, many other graphics programs may find the book a bit simplistic, and be slightly perturbed by the items that are missing. As others have pointed out Jasc's Paintshop Pro is quite different and exciting in that it combines the best of Adobe "Photoshop", with the best of Fractal Design's "Painter", and the best of "Ulead" -- so, if you are already familiar with these programs, you really want a book that's a bit more advanced than this one.

This book is for you only if you plan to use Paint Sho Pro to draw or design. It is shockingly thin in help for working with photographs. As far as photo editing goes, it covers the red eye fix and cheesy special effects features, not much more. I bought the book because I found the Jasc-supplied manual for Paint Shop hard to use, but I've gone back to it.

All of the "Roses" books by Lola Ades are a wonderful edition to any artists "how to paint" book library. This particular book adds even more versions of flowers and bouquets to learn to paint, from beginning to end. You can't go wrong, and this book is no exception.

For a book that claims to be "packed with practical information, helpful tips, & fundamental techniques", I found it disappointing. Here is a sample of a tip from Lola Ades: "The more you paint, the more you learn". More gems: "There are many colors of roses from deepest Reds to palest pastels." "Tonal values are very important so study them carefully." "This was a very beautiful rose and I painted the colors as closely as possible." Because this "gigantic booklet" was cheap,I won't return it and I may use a few of the rose paintings (a couple are ugly) for a future craft project. Make no mistake. This book will not teach you to draw or paint roses unless you already know how. Nuff said.

For a book that claims to be "packed with practical information, helpful tips, & fundamental techniques", I found it disappointing. Here is a sample of a tip from Lola Ades: "The more you paint, the more you learn". More gems: "There are many colors of roses from deepest Reds to palest pastels." "Tonal values are very important so study them carefully." "This was a very beautiful rose and I painted the colors as closely as possible." I won't return it and I may use a few of the rose paintings (a couple are ugly) for a future craft project. Make no mistake. This book will not teach you to draw or paint roses unless you already know how. Nuff said.

I bought some books with Airbrush paintings a few years a go from a nearby half price books. I was always amazed at the quality of the paintings and got quite interested to learn how the technique works. I am not an artist myself, so I was not looking for a very detailed technical book, but detailed enough to explain someone like me how this great technique works. I hoped this book will be the key to my queries, but it wasn't. It does explain the technique, the tools and provides some samples, but I did not get the feeling that now I fully understand how Airbrush works. I also do not recommend this book if you want to learn to use paintbrush, it does not seem detailed enough for beginners. It may be useful if you already experienced this technique before using "hands on" and want some reference book for further exploration.

This book is a quick and easy read for those interested or just beginning in the art of airbrushing. For those more experienced, and are looking to learn new techniques or enhance their already established skills, should look elsewhere. The chapters within are short and vague of details and procedures. Overall, the material of the book is nothing more than an introduction...possibly even, just a tease!

I would like to know more about this book. Miniatures is too general. Is it about Doll houses or Military /Fantasy lead Figures.?

The book is an introduction to painting miniatures (portraits, landscapes, animals, still life scenes) in oils, watercolours and gouache. I found it very useful in discovering the techniques used and being able to follow examples given by a number of expert British miniaturists.

Covers the basics for the beginner in oil pastels. This is a straightforward and concise guide with a decent number of demonstration paintings, but not a lot of text. There are several easy exercises for those new to this medium to help gain confidence, get a feel for working up drawings and see the results of applying different techniques. If you look beyond the simplicity of the content, you will find there are some interesting techniques applied here, from blending to give the image a painterly look, to dry-brush-style sketching for a look more like drawing or illustration. I purchased this book to try some new techniques for illustrating children's books, and I found it interesting and unique. The portrait and animal drawing techniques are very workable and easy to implement and the demo images convey a soft but not-too-contrived feeling that is often typical with this medium.

This is a worthless book, don't waste your money.
He doesn't tell you any more than you could learn from an oil painting book. He does show you that if you blend you can't see the white of the paper, and if you don't you will be able to see white dots. He uses turps to blend. That's the gist of the whole 28 pages which contains barely enough text to fill up two pages.

I was a little disappointed with the condition of my book. The front corner of the cover was clipped off...no mention of this in the product description.

It is easy to read and to understand. It has a lot of practical applications

I was desperate to get a handle on this program a few years ago and this was absolutely the best one for that purpose. I had purchased another humorous type (not a Dummies but something like that) but it just didn't get me the basic knowledge I needed. From the book, I started doing online tutorials, then joined PSP Yahoo groups and I am seriously addicted to the program. I think it is well worth buying if you want to learn the basics of PSP7.

I have used Sams Teach Yourself series (5 books) and have been satisfied for the most part. This book however leaves ALOT to be desired!! I might just be me...but as a reader I expect to be reminded where items are as I go through the book. This book explains what the buttons are in the first chapter...by the time I get to chapter 3 or 4 I have forgotten most of the 20+ buttons and options described in Chapter 1. Every chapter after gives the name of the button, but not an illustration of it. Also the author leaves you guessing about buttons and menu items since he does not mention which is which. Sorry, but this one can't cut it...I'm returning it to BNB and getting Paint Shop Pro Web Graphics (Because of High Rating Here) to see if better written and explained.

I found this book on the bargain rack for half it's cover price...It still wasn't worth it. During the step-by-step the author skips steps. When he says to click an option, it isn't there. He may be referring to the bar menu choices, the right-click choices or PSPs "exploding window" choices, but you are not going to know. Anybody want to buy a slightly-used PSP book?...You can't have mine - I threw it in the trash.

I bought the book because I needed help figuring out what color to paint my house, but it really didn't help me. The book looks good, but what I need is help choosing colors. I returned it.

I thought this book would give me photographs of painted houses and their paint colors. Instead it gave detailed information on the paint process itself with scant few houses where the whole house shows. Its mostly pretty photos like the rooftop of a house with a weatherwane on it, or a window with a window box of flowers under it. Where are the painted houses? I can't figure out what color to paint my house using this book.

Painting a house or even thinking about it is no fun. I visited a Benjamin Moore Paint Store and browsed through the store's only copy of the book, The Art of Exterior Painting. The book is very well written with the basics of house painting described in detail and with color photos describing problems, solutions and ultimate results. The book impressed me so much I went home and ordered it via Amazon for my own reference as I plan to paint my house. An excellent PRIMER!

I have purchased several guides for painting houses in the "home improvements" category. They were fine for learning about painting a house, but I'm hiring painter, so I don't really need that information. What I need is help choosing the right color. Obviously I don't want to make a mistake. I already know that I want a yellow house. But none of the colors I have tested look right. They are all too bright or dark even though they look pale on the paint chips. When I saw this book, I noticed the phrase "choosing paint colors" right in the title, so I assumed it was the answer. But, I felt every bit as stuck at the paint store as I did before reading the book. My expectation was that I wouldn't have to start going through paint chips anymore, but the information in the book wasn't specific enough to be useful to me. The book did not meet my expectations.

Obviously, since this book is printed by Benjamin Moore Paints, there will be a certain amount of self-advertising following it's advice on choosing the proper paints and equipment (like the recipies on the back of soup cans).
However, this book was a good primer (pardon the pun) for anyone who is compentant enough to paint the insides of a house, and is just starting to tackle the outside of their home.
I found it chock full of useful advice, but lacking in enough procedural details to be called a "step-by-step" guide.
It'll say things like "Strip and sand the exterior trim before priming" and I'll say things like "HOW?!?"

When the children "painted" the pages with water, the color was pale and very unsatisfying!

The pictures are great but the paper is too shiney and the water just sits on top of it!!!

My daughter is 2 years old and we recently got her started on paint with water books. She loves to do them but they are very hard to find in the stores. We have bought the Little People books several times and they are very colorful. Since she had already done 3 of those books we wanted something different and bought the Blue's Clues paint with water book when we saw it. I was very disappointed because the colors were very bland and gray. I would not recommend this book.

I bought this paint with water book because they are so hard to come by in my area. I had a few others (Care Bears) that were wonderful. This one is simply terrible. The colors disappear as soon as the water hits the paper. With the exception of the blue, which bleeds all over the surrounding areas. I wish I had read the other review first! SAVE YOUR MONEY!!!

I was excited to find 'paint with water' books for my granddaughter, Lily. This book, however, was of very poor quality. The colors ran together into a muddy greenish brown... I don't think this is worth the cost.

I found this book to be wonderful, I have been looking for this book for years, and no one has ever reprinted it before. This book was originally written during the Civil War and Mr. Carver has allowed us to see it once again.

I unlike the other reviewer think the collection of photos is wonderful. The photos helped allow me to 'see' what the author was talking about.

Great Book, and I recommend it highly. If you are interested in regimental histories this one is wonderful.

I ordered this book with the hopes that it would be a detailed history of the 14th Alabama. I received it and was immediately disappointed. The book is 115 pages (+/-) and conatins very little history. The muster rolls are all available on the internet. Pages 38-115 contain photos. The right page contains a single photo approximately 2x3 inches. The left page contains a one to two line location/explanation of the photo. No mention is made of the 14th's involvement in the photos. A real waste of paper putting only one photo per page and using a whole page for a description. A waste of money overall in my opinion.

Just received my book and read it in about 15-20 minutes. There is very little in the way of historical facts in the book. It contains mostly pictures that don't indicate the 14th Alabama was a part of the photo displayed. The only way this book contains 115 pages is because of the way they stretched out the photo section. The right page contains a single picture of roughly 2x3 inch. The left page contains a very brief description (one to two lines)of the photo. This method took up pages 38-115. The list of names on the muster rolls in the book can all be found on websites making this book, in my opinion, pretty much a waste of money.

THIS BOOK IS NOTHING BUT PICTURES. VERY UPSET WHEN RECIEVED BOOK.
WOULD NOT RECCOMEND TO ANYONE

Unfortunately I was hoping that within the 62 pages the book would have a lot more to offer than just the after effect pictures. Sure they have several pictures in this book but none of them show you HOW the technique was applied. With simple writing like "Several brushstrokes of Boltgun Metal (GW) were applied over a white or grey undercoat" doesn't tell me HOW to apply the color. Should I use a white or grey primer for a better effect? Should I apply the paint in a more horizontal manner or a vertical one? How thin should the paint be? Should I mix the paint with water to thin it down a bit? Often, the book also uses airbrush techniques which I am completely unfamiliar with but the book doesn't give alternatives either. How do I accomplish a similar look while only using my brushes? Although the artwork provided in the book is of the finest quality, for a HOW TO book it certainly did not help me in any way improve my own painting. For the money I should have just bought a few White Dwarf magazines that at least give me a more step-by-step approach.

I had high hopes for this book. It suffers from translation from spanish to english. The Andrea CD painting course is much better.