Customer Reviews

The Adobe Photoshop CS4 Layers Book: Harnessing Photoshop's most powerful tool

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

As an avid but not advanced user of Photoshop I was intriguied by an entire book on the layers tool but I wasn't sure if it was necessary. I knew that it was used in a many different ways, but I didn't know how it would improve my experience with photoshop. This is the BEST book I've ever used on making me a better photoshoper. It's awesome. The book is beautiful and really clear. The author does a good job of explaining each concept and technique in direct language and I found the book really easy to follow. And it has given me a lot of great ideas of things I'm now trying. I feel this one book has elevated my photography to a whole new realm.

[...] I highly recomend picking this up.

The Adobe Photoshop CS4 Layers Book: Harnessing Photoshop's most powerful tool

I am somewhat familiar with Photoshop and its capabilities, but this book really opened my eyes to what can be done with layers and has really changed my work flow when editing images. There is more information here about layers than I thought was possible, and some of the techniques described are pretty advanced, but for now this has become my goto book on Photoshop.

This book is packed full of good information, but I don't find it a quick and easy reference. It is probably a better book for experienced Photoshop users, I am a beginner so it is a little more difficult to follow.

Generally this is a well-conceived text with a lot of good reference information and useful examples showing the full gamut of Photoshop's layering capabilities. It is a general reference so many workflows apply here, including things like retouching, artistic options and compositing, though there isn't a lot of information on the latter type. In general it's what I might call "foot deep, mile wide" rather than "inch deep, mile wide." There is a newer, photo-centric book from Peachpit called Real World Compositing, as well as Steve Caplain's popular book "How to Cheat in Photoshop" (also from Focal), if you're interested in combining photos.

The one vexing issue with this book here is that it visually breaks down the how-to copy in blocks of text on a color background, while other types of "tips" and special copy have different color backgrounds, and the general explanation copy is against page white. What results is that in some sections the pages become very cluttered with "boxes" in the forms of screen caps, colored text regions and white text regions, all jumbled together. It can be difficult at any given point in the book to know exactly where you are or what context you're in (unless you happen to be on a page with a section header or the start of a chapter). Overall though the information herein is useful and worth a look if you don't have a good book on retouching (most of which cover layers extensively). Definitely preferable to any of Kelby's quick-tricks books IMHO as it has more depth and context.

The Adobe Photoshop CS4 Layers Book by Richard Lynch does the job. It thoroughly covers each trick and nuance of learning layers. It peels back each layer of Photoshop allowing the reader to learn how to edit images in a nondestructive manner. Explanations are thorough and examples are in color and numerous. The hands-on practice files are icing on the cake. I liked it so well that I bought two copies of the book--one for my office at work and one for home. It's a great reference for the professional digital artist as well as the occasional dabbler. I can't wait to buy Richard Lynch's next book.

Deserving of ongoing mention and recommendation is one of the most powerful, effective Photoshop 'how to' books on the market: a guide to the notoriously tricky Layers part of the program. A visual, hands- on guide comes from a digital imaging specialist who provides step-by-step directions and practical applications for image manipulation using the layers feature. Screenshots and color sidebars of information make this simply invaluable.

I like this book. Very good examples and well written but when you buy it on kindle you don't seem to get a code to download the cd as many other publishers do for electronic version of the books. I am not too fussed about downloading the pictures but it would have been nice to be able to get a key to download the actions that are referenced in the book.
The amazon description for the kindle book needs to be changed so that it does not make references to fantastic cd with useful actions that you don't get.
I love the book but am disappointed that I was mislead in regards to the cd contents.

There is lots of good info here, and many lessons with which to practice. One should be a bit beyond the beginner stage to easily use the book. I found I had to supplement reading and doing the book's exercises with periodic trips to the Adobe help menu. Also, it is not designed as a reference -- i.e, a book where one can easily find "how to" information. I'm still working my way through it, so I feel that with work it will be a helpful learning tool -- just don't expect to quickly fly through it if you are a beginner.

This could be a great book for learning except ... Someone should have edited it more carefully. The text is easy to read and the teaching approach is a good one. The problem I found is with the tutorial exercises. They are 'buggy'. On page 20, for example, there is a "Try It Now" exercise that looks like a good one. The first two steps are as follows:

"
1. Open any image and flatten it if necessary (Layer>Flatten Image). The image should have only a background layer when viewed in the Layer palette. Use Sample_2.psd off the CD if you need an image to use.

2. Double-click the Background Layer. This will open the New Layer dialog (see Figure 1.9).
"

The first step works fine but the second does not. Instead of the "New Layer" dialog window opening, the "Layer Style" dialog window opens. Not only does the Layer Style dialog not resemble the New Layer dialog window that is shown in Figure 1.9, it does not provide the tools to do what follows in the exercise. After searching around a bit, I found that I could do what the author intended. I went to the main menu and selected Layer > New > Layer.

I don't know CS3 but it may be that this worked in that version. It does not work in CS4, at least not in the Macintosh version.

With a little "playing around" it is possible to do the exercises (and "Try It Now" tutorials). There is some value in doing a bit of "playing around" but learning can be accomplished a bit more quickly if the tutorial examples work. The beginner or intermediate Photoshop user may well become frustrated and put the book away. Someone who is very familiar with Photoshop will have less trouble, I suspect.

It could be that this book was written for an earlier version of Photoshop and not edited carefully when it was rewritten for CS4. I could be wrong.

Great book. If you have a Kindle, there is no way, Publisher, via Amazon ... to get the accompanying CD. So skip the Kindle version!!