Customer Reviews

The Adobe Photoshop CS3 Book for Digital Photographers

5 star:		(113)
4 star:		(26)
3 star:		(14)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

This is neither the biggest book on Photoshop, nor the most comprehensive. The author makes no pretense of covering every feature contained in the massive program known as Photoshop CS3. What he does attempt to do is identify tasks useful to digital photographers (and this includes film shooters who scan) and give step-by-step explanations to get them done. Most of the information is presented in a very task-oriented approach. The emphasis is squarely placed on giving you the tools to get things done quickly and efficiently. As such, I find it a highly useful reference book often as I edit photos.

For those who own the prior version for CS2, this is much more than a rehash of the same material with a few odds and ends added to cover the new CS3 features. I was surprised to see that most or all of the example photos appear to be new for this edition and the author has reorganized the material within each chapter. I applaud Mr. Kelby for what looks like an earnest attempt to earn our money rather than just cash in on the sales a new version of Photoshop automatically generate.

On the negative side, I do wish that the author would tone down his attempts to be funny throughout the book. Humor has gone from being unknown in how-to books to being painfully overused and this book is a prime example. It goes from being mildly cute for the first couple of pages to just getting in the way and slowing down the flow of information as you continue reading.

Overall, I highly recommend this book. Mr. Kelby has done an excellent job organizing and presenting a useful guide to Photoshop CS3 and I commend him for that. If he prunes 90% of his attempts at humor, I'll give his next book 5 stars instead of 4.

This is Scott Kelby's revised edition of his Photoshop for Photographers series covering CS3, but don't be fooled in thinking that it's just as the previous version with a few added extras. Not only does this book cover the new features of CS3 which are mainly relevant to photographers, it's packed with all new techniques for retouching and finally presenting your images.

Since the last edition, it's clear that Scott Kelby has been studying his craft hard. The book is full, cover to cover with beautiful photographs, taken by him, which are motivating by themselves. Amongst the many, two techniques which stand out to give superb results are what he calls the Trendy High Contrast Portrait Effect and the Hollywood Highlights technique.

The book is written in Scott's easy going humerous style, and yes there are people that don't relate to his sense of humour, but then you can't please everyone. That being said, if you don't like the humour, then do yourself a favour and look past it, cos amongst it is some of the most valuable information, we as photographers need if we want to keep 'up there'.

Covering everything from the Bridge, color correcting, enhancements, presentation and more, as I've said this book is a MUST HAVE for photographers of all levels.

Oh and incase you were wondering, 'no' I'm not on commission ... I just like to spend my money wisely!

This book reminds me of the old proverb, 'Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.' This book just throws some fish at you.

With that being said and the popularity of the book I guess a lot of people like being thrown fish. I wanted to learn to 'fish' but the book taught me little about 'fishing'.

I can say I did learn some stuff from the book and I was certainly glad I'd used Elements for a couple of years prior. The book is certainly not for newbies as it covers nothing about the many tools/options you have available in the toolbar other than in some contexts of creating a visual effect. I didn't see much in the book for a seasoned Photoshop user as only basic 'retouching' ideas are 'thrown' you.

I was particularly appalled when told to just use Adobe RGB as the color profile with no explanation other than sRGB is for the web. While I am no expert I do know there is a lot of talk/arguing in the industry about which you should/might use and the heart ache that Adobe RGB might cause you. There should have been some discussion on this topic, I don't need advice like this.

So, in my opinion, if you have played with Photoshop a little and are 'a learn by example' type of person then this book might be for you. If you want to learn about why you might grown/feather a selection, understand the various tool settings/options or learn anything remotely advanced I would look for another.

While many have criticized Kelby's stylistic prose, the content in the book is very helpful and allows hobbiest to hard core professionals to produce beautiful images. I feel that this series will allow users to maximize their output in the least amount of time.

Compared to the CS2 version, there have been some improvements and additions (smart filters and portrait skin softening) with great images. There are some redundant chapters, but still worth it for beginners as well as a refresher for advanced users. I've read through most of the book, and while a few chapters are useful, my workflow has not significantly changed.

Those with the CS2 version, I'm less convinced that this is a must have upgrade. For those on the fence who don't have the CS2 version, go get it as it'll be the best $30 you'll spend.

Don't get me wrong, this is a good book, as far as it goes, but I thought it could be more comprehensive. If you want to know everything about PhotoShop, this isn't the book for you. This is a step by step "how to" book. As such, those techniques which are covered are explained very well. The problem I have with this book is that it only covers a moderate sampling of PhotoShop CS3's capabilities, but only a sampling. If Mr. Kelby covered PhotoShop's editing power as extensively as he covers the associated file management Bridge, and Camera Raw, this would be an outstanding work.

If you are a real "pixel picky" techno-junkie, and want to know everything about PhotoShop, The Photohop CS3 Bible is a better choice.
Photoshop CS3 Bible

Am I a Scott Kelby fan? You bet I am! Not because he is a great instructor (which he is) but because he continues to produce books that inform, instruct, entertain, and most importantly, improve my skills as a photographer and user of Adobe Photoshop. This newest, soon to be classic, book is packed so full of useful information that you'll go back to it again and again. If you're looking for in depth discussions of the tools and technologies of Photoshop CS3 like what is Lab color and what does it do, then go look elsewhere. But if you want to know how to use Lab to improve your color saturation or give your image some amazing sharpness then you have found the right book. At 460+ pages, this book is no light weight. You will learn how to use every tool and menu that could possibly be used to enhance your digital photography. Want to know how to make great looking prints? It's in there. Want to know how to resize your images properly, get better flesh tones and smoother skin in your portraits, do you have a desire to make beautiful black and white images and then turn them into spectacular gallery prints? Yup, it's all in there. If that's not enough, Mr. Kelby has also included 4 on-line chapters that you can turn to for even more great tips, and tutorials that were covered in the previous Photoshop for Digital Photographers books but have been updated for CS3. Every lesson in the book is step by step and easy to follow. You can learn at your own pace and even skip around from chapter to chapter to find just that little nugget that you have been searching for to improve your photos. By the way, you might read some reviews about Scott infusing his sense of humor into the book which, in my opinion, is a welcome change from all of the dry, textbook-like Photoshop manuals out there on the market. If that's not your thing, just skip the first page of each chapter and jump into the juicy goodness of the step by step techniques. Bottom line, you want better pictures to come from your digital camera? Just buy the book, you can thank me later!

I've bought Scott's Digital Photography books since version 7. This one tops them all and I've only had one evening to peruse the pages. I've been keeping up with video/written tutorials of CS3 but Scott, you've out done yourself my friend, you've thrown in lots of tidbits I haven't seen.

Since I'm self taught using your books, NAPP website and tutorials I depend on you. Don't forget to read the Intro/Q&A section to get the "extras". Thanks again for all you do with Photoshop Scott, we your fans appreciate you!
Dr. David Jones
Muskogee, OK

I recently completed a class at a local Art and Craft institution on Photoshop. It gave me a good foundation, but the version they used was CS. This book on CS3 has been an invaluable aid to me, building on what I learned in the class and also introducing features I didn't know existed. Some reviewers slam Kilby for his humor, I tend to agree there may be too much there for some people, but I also enjoyed the conversational tone and one on one feel of the author's writing. I found the book to be very informative and it will remain at the side of my workstation for a long time to come for reference as I am one who needs to repeat tasks several times to master and remember them. What is nice about this book is there are specific recommendations for different settings and techinques. Material you can actually use to make things work for you. Once you understand the process you can certainly vary the settings and experiment - which is what we all should do, but it's nice to have a really good place to start. All in all, a very good book for a serious photographer who is working on learning how to best utilize Photoshop.

1. I've read / owned a lot of various photoshop books; most are pretty good, some terrible--> but Scott Kelby's books are always the best.

2. The layout is simple, the language is clear, the steps are clearly written.

3. If you're a photoshop user from beginner up to moderate advanced, this book should be a no-brainer purchase. Anyone with a high level of photoshop knowledge will know everything in this book and thus should look to more indepth tomes.

I am new to Photoshop and jumping in to it has been a bit overwhelming. Scott's books, this one and several others (including his Lightroom book) have made the journey fascinating. While others find his humor distracting, I have actually read some of the passages out loud to family members, in other words I get it. Scott shows the tools he uses most and gives step by step workflow examples in a simple and straightforward manner, untangling the seemingly infinite photoshop possibilites. I am inspired by his photography, and his style and friendly manner make him one of my favorite authors.