arts and photography

Photoshop has become the image editor of choice for most graphic designers, photographers, and other creative professionals, but its vast array of capabilities, commands, options, and choices can make it an intimidating software tool to master, especially for the beginner. After purchasing and working my way through most of the popular Photoshop instruction books, I believe that Photoshop 7 Artistry: Mastering The Digital Image, by Barry Haynes and Wendy Crumpler, is hands-down the best available.

Rather than focusing on drop shadows, bevelled edges, chrome effects and other "Wow" and "Gee Whiz" Photoshop features (although these techniques are also well explained), Haynes and Crumpler provide a logical, complete, and in-depth process for creating a "master image" file that can be used for producing superb digital prints, web-site graphics, and other image applications. Each chapter is packed with detailed information, and more screen displays than I've ever seen in a Photoshop book. The examples are well chosen and the reader can load the tutorial files from the CD that comes with the book and gain hands-on practice while studying each chapter. The authors also provide an in-depth evaluation of many of the state-of-the-art hardware/software capabilities for scanning, color calibration, and digital printing. Barry Haynes' photographic background allows him to clearly explain techniques such as the Zone System and color correction.

You'll learn something new each time you open this outstanding
book. It's a "must buy" for aspiring Photoshop artists!

If you are buying one book to learn Photoshop 7 (or version 6), this is probably your best bet. Learning Photoshop is similar to learning Economics -- you must learn a number of different topics and bring all of that knowledge together in your mind to understand the subject. This is a great book to help you bring together the essential topics and it covers a wide range of interesting and useful areas.

Here are the main reasons this is the best book I have seen on learning Photoshop:

-Conceptually, the authors have clearly thought through what is essential about learning Photoshop and have indicated which chapters focus on the essential material.

-The authors have substantial experience teaching and writing about Photoshop and this experience comes through in the clarity of the writing and examples

-The book is big (just over 450 pages), it is full color and every page is densely packed with valuable information that is easy to read, understand and absorb. Most other books on Photoshop are either filled with fluff, filled with white space or short.

-The examples are well designed and available on the included CD ROM

-This book is useful to the photographer, too. There is even a chapter on digital photography and the Zone System.

-I have found the index useful and the book has helped me quickly resolve questions that I could not answer with other books.

The table of contents is available here on amazon.com (go to "look inside this book!" and select the introductory pages) and will give you a pretty good idea of the scope of this book. The material available will also help you get a feel for the authors' writing style.

If you find this book intimidating, I suggest you look at books by Scott Kelby such as "Photoshop X Photo-Retouching Secrets."

Kelby is easy to read, gives good instructions, is easy to understand and really knows what he is talking about (you would be surprised how many Photoshop authors give bad advice which causes degradation of files, for example. Kelby understands the product deeply enough to avoid doing this and to give you good, simple ways to deal with images).

My two complaints about Kelby may be his best charms for some readers. First, his books have a lot less content than they might, but the extra white space may make the books more approachable for some readers. Second, he injects a bit too much humor into some of his books. But, as I said, many users may value these "features."

Other books on Photoshop worth considering:

"Real World Adobe Photoshop X" by David Blatner and Bruce Fraser
"The Photoshop X Wow! Book" by Linnea Dayton and Jack Davis
"Adobe Photoshop Master Class" by John Paul Caponigro

Excellent book on Photoshop. There are many books out there which spend to much time going over the obvious but this book differs from that in its approach. If you are a beginner I probably wouldnt recommend this book, but if you have some experience with Photoshoop you will find this book an excellent way to extend yourself. Easy to read and well layed out. The book has a quality feel and is full of useful information...Highly recommended...