Features
- Cover Type: Paperback with 288 pages
- Published by: Peachpit Press
- Edition: 1st Edition October 26, 2007
- Written in: English
- ISBN 10 Number: 0321501926
- ISBN 13 Number: 978-0321501929
-
Book Dimensions:
9 x 8 x 0.7 inches
- Weighs: 1.4 pounds
Book Description
Scott Kelby, the world's #1 bestselling Photoshop author, and the man who changed the Photoshop and digital photography world with his ground-breaking, award-winning "Photoshop Book for Digital Photographers" unveils a exciting, brand new way of thinking, and working in Adobe Photoshop that will not only change the industry again, but it will change the way we all work in Photoshop forever, so we can finally spend less time fixing our images, and more time finishing them.
You're about to become a Photoshop Shark!
Scott has focused in and really narrowed things down to just exactly which Photoshop tools and techniques we absolutely, positively have to know, and he found that there are just seven major tools, seven major features that we have to master to enhance our images like a pro. But then he took it a step further. Out of those seven major tools, he looked at which parts or sections of those tools do we really need to master, and which parts can we pretty much ignore (in other words, he whittled it down so you're not learning parts of the tools that you're probably never going to need). Then, and perhaps most importantly, he determined exactly when and in which order to apply these seven techniques that make up Scott's amazing "Photoshop Seven Point System."
But the magic of this book, is not just listing the seven tools and showing how they work. It's how they're used together, and how Scott teaches them (and makes it stick), that makes this book so unique. You're not going to just learn one technique for fixing shadows, and another technique for adjusting color (every Photoshop book pretty much does that, right?). Instead, you're going start off at square one, from scratch, as each chapter is just one photo—one project—one challenging lifeless image (you'll follow along using his the same images), and you're going to unleash these seven tools, in a very specific way, and you're going to do it again, and again, and again, in order on different photos, in different situations, until they are absolutely second nature. You're finally going to do the FULL fix—from beginning to end—with nothing left out, and once you learn these seven very specific techniques, and apply them in order, there won't be a an image that appears on your screen that you won't be able to enhance, fix, edit, and finish yourself!
Plus, Scott's techniques work across a wide range of photos, and that's exactly what you'll be working on in the book, from landscapes to portraits, to architectural, to nature, from event photography to everything in between—there isn't a photo you won't be able to beat!
This is the book you've been waiting for, the industry's been waiting for, and Scott's "Adobe Photoshop Seven Point System" is so revolutionary that he's officially applied for a patent with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, and this new system is only found in this amazing, ground breaking new book. Once you learn these techniques, and start applying them yourself, you'll be the next one to say—"You can't beat 'The System!'
Reader Reviews
This book is Scott Kelby's typical witty and unpresumptuous style. So if the content suits you, it's a good and worthy read. However, you should be aware that it is really a set of recipes for correcting 'problems'. Some of the problems are 'real' problems, like gross underexposure, best handled by better camera work, and some are 'enhancements'. Granted, all photographers, or cameras, make exposure mistakes so the material is valuable. Some of the 'enhancements' are very distinct departures from reality, also OK if that is what you want, but might violate some of the ethical rules held by nature photographers. These are not serious problems, just issues of choice... serious choice. Bigger issues for me are the inconsistancies of the methods described. Sometimes color balance is achieved in Camera Raw, sometimes in Photoshop; same for contrast, same for sharpening. In most cases there are no explanations about how that decision is made. Recipes, not instruction. And the largest issue is that of retaining the ability to manage each step of correction so that intermediate changes can be recovered or changed. So while Scott makes a big deal of the fact that a change to LAB mode and back will not 'damage' the pixels, this requires that the image be flattened, which causes a much bigger problem (the need to start over from scratch if subsequent changes are not satisfactory.) In the very first example, Scott shows a very sophisticated approach to using the Shadow/Highlight filter as a smart object that avoids the issue of irreversibly changing the underlying pixels, yet later flattens the image to make the change to LAB mode. In example 1, the image is flattened 4 times! Geesh! Missing is the discussion of the possibility of managing irreversible change, when necessary, through various file and image management techniques. Overall, this book is written for the beginner, but uses very sohpisticated techniques more suitable to a more experienced user. The steps are demonstrated, but the reasoning is lost; and the advantages of the technique are lost in subsequent steps. So this book remains just a set of recipes, useful if you have images that correspond to the examples, but less ueful for generalized work.
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