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Photoshop book recomendatations
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Hi Folks,
Anyone got any recomendations on Photoshop books?
I am currently a bit of a dullard in PS – I use Elements 5 and my skills run to levels, curves, sharpening, basic selection and manipulation like contrast. However I start to glaze-over when anyone mentions adjustment layers, masks and so on.
I guess I am looking for something focused like ‘Photoshop techniques for landcape Photography’ or something like that so that I can quickly get up to speed in areas that be useful to me.
Thanks in Advance.
Gary
You won’t go far wrong with Martin Evening’s Adobe Photoshop for Photographers,
and then there’s Adobe Photoshop: Studio Techniques, by Ben Willmore. Like everything
else though, none of the tutorials you read ever apply to everything, and all techniques
have to be adapted to what you want to achieve yourself.One of the great endless debates is the best way to achieve a convincing monochrome
conversion – some will swear by LAB conversions, some will use Channel Mixer, and
Guy Gowan, Adobe’s own expert, would be hard to convince that Calculations isn’t the
ultimate conversion tool. But the simple fact is, all methods and techniques have their
uses depending on the image you’re working on, and this is something you learn from
experimentation. For instance, if you’ve got an image with a lot of texture and depth
to it, you’d be hard pushed to find a better way to convert than using Calculations, but
for a portrait where you want to maintain the full tonal range of your colour image
(especially with regard to skin tones), a solid colour layer with blending mode set to colour
knocks the socks off calculations…There is no one ‘right way’ to do things. And that’s the important bit to remember when
it comes to tutorials or books…Rob.
photoshop elements 5.0 maximum performance is also a great book. I am also using elements 5 and and from the short flick through I had in whs smiths the other day it looks perfect for what we need,
http://www.whsmith.co.uk/CatalogAndSearch/ProductDetails-Adobe+Photoshop+Elements+5.0+Maximum+Performance+-9780240520483.htmlMr H,
IMO there is no better purchase than Mark Johnson’s CS3 e-book. I learnt most of my landscape processing techniques from his CS2 e-book, and will probably download some updated chapters of the CS3 one. It is an absolute steal at $40, and I think anyone with the money to spare and an interest in PS is doing themselves a great disservice by not buying it!!
I just can’t stress enough how useful this book has been to me personally (over 750 pages btw).
http://www.radiantvista.com/goodies/downloads/cs3-companion-ebook
Let me know if you get it!
Steve
Speaking of e-books, another one which looks interesting is the Digital Basics File by Arthur Morris of the Birds as Art site. I have no idea what the book is like but he does seem to know his stuff.
Interesting to see this one kick off again after a couple of months – I still haven’t purchased the book so you aren’t too late!
Thanks for your suggestions Monty, Steve & Thorsten – I’ll take look.
Gary
The Adobe Photoshop CS3 book For digital photographers by scot kelby, you can also get it for CS2, this book is fantastic every thing is done it steps and its nice and easy to use.
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