Last updated 3/07/2006
Adobe Photoshop CS Studio Techniques
Adobe Photoshop CS Studio Techniques
Authors: Ben Willmore
Publisher: Peachpit Press
697 pages .... $50.00
ISBN 0-321-21352-1
I was impressed by a video of a presentation on curves that Ben Willmore made at the Peachpit booth at Photoshop World, Boston 2005. I watched the video several times, and gained a much better basic understanding of how Photoshop curves work, and how to work with them, than I had ever had before. I was so impressed that I asked to review his book Adobe Photoshop CS Studio Techniques
for our Macintosh user group.
In Adobe Photoshop CS Studio Techniques,
Ben writes with the same clear nontechnical language and style as he uses in his live demonstrations and lessons. The book's chapter on Curves provides a more in-depth discussion about how curves work and how to use them than the demonstration. In addition the book includes what is different in using curves with color images. Reading this chapter made me more impatient to read the rest of the book.
I had promised to write this review. There was not time enough to study the whole book the way it deserves before doing so. Ben Willmore asks you to read the chapters slowly and more than once, and to spend time to study the tools if you want to master Photoshop. Now that I have finished this review, I have started real studying from the beginning of the book.
The purpose of Adobe Photoshop CS Studio Techniques
is for the reader to master Photoshop, to really understand the tools, how they work, and how to use them. I believe it does a masterful job.
The first part of the book provides a sound understanding of the working foundations of Photoshop beginning with organizing the tools and palettes for your workspace. Then it provides the same kind of clear in-depth understanding of basic selections and layers as I had experienced in his presentation and writing about curves.
Ben Willmore asks us to master these tools in preparation for later chapters. I found it a difficult to concentrate on some parts of this so far in advance of when I would learn to apply it, and postponed some of the in-depth study until later.
The second part of this book is a about production essentials including chapters on resolution solution, line art scanning, grayscale images, curves, color, camera RAW, and channels.
The third part is about creative explorations with chapters on advanced masking, sharpening, shadows, collage, enhancement, retouching, and type and background effects. My personal reason for reviewing books for our Macintosh user group library is to learn a little from reading them, and to decide which books I really need to buy.
I already have three excellent Photoshop books, a tutorial, a book about how professional photographers use Photoshop, and a book about using Photoshop for digital photographers. They are great books, but something was missing. They are focussed on using Photoshop to get specific results and not on understanding Photoshop itself.
I wanted a book about how Photoshop works, about the Photoshop tools and how to use them. I had a Photoshop manual, but I don't have the slightest idea where I may have put it, and it certainly was not a learning tool.
Adobe Photoshop CS Studio Techniques
is the book I need for a better basic understanding of how Photoshop works and how to work with Photoshop. It is good, clear, interesting reading. And, when I have studied the book, it will make an excellent reference for me to look up what I forget.
I recommend this book, in either the CS or CS2 version, for anyone who wants to learn how Photoshop works and how to use the tools.
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