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64 of 66 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
High Content and Great Production Add a Half Star, December 27, 2008
This review is from: Adobe Photoshop CS4 for Photographers: A Professional Image Editor's Guide to the Creative use of Photoshop for the Macintosh and PC (Paperback)
This book is one of the first wave of PSCS4 books available which, in my opinion penalizes it a half star. This due to several tech edit errors none of which are fatal. At worst, they cause some hesitation and a minute of thought before the reader understands that the error is caused by either a true error or the author using a pre-production release of the program which was a bit different from the version one buys retail today.
The author is plain that this is a book for intermediate to advanced Photoshop users. Take that advice seriously. The author spends no pages with elementary topics of either photography or Photoshop. Instead, it's right into the soup and a deep bowl of soup it is indeed. A beginner or a slight intermediate will, for sure, benefit from the book but probably not be able to follow a good deal of it. Thus he'll become quite adept at certain aspects of PSCS4 (those he understands) but utterly ignorant of other aspects (those he was forced to skip over).
Take one of many examples: the author describes when to and how to either create channel clipping or avoid the same. He uses clear examples going into this topic in fine detail written quite clearly. However, in no place does he define what channels are or how they are clipped or what clipping is. That's fine for the solid intermediate or beyond reader but it will surely leave the weak intermediate or beginner reduced to tears trying to discern what exactly is going on.
In many places the author gives tips and tricks clearly he's learned from long experience or, in some cases, from others (who he credits). Here's tremendous value. While this book is hardly inexpensive, to a serious amateur or professional, any one of these tricks will be easily worth the price of the book.
There is no filler at all in this book. It is all valuable content and also clearly the result of a huge effort on the part of the author and publisher. I would knock it down a half star due to the few tech errors but give it back an additional whole star (at least) for the superb DVD replete with valuable extra content including some videos narrated by the author.
Everything from the DVD to the quality of the example photos to the solid content demonstrate that this book offers unusual value for the more advanced PSCS4 student.
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31 of 32 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great Encyclopedia of Photoshop, January 3, 2009
This review is from: Adobe Photoshop CS4 for Photographers: A Professional Image Editor's Guide to the Creative use of Photoshop for the Macintosh and PC (Paperback)
Martin Evening's Adobe Photoshop for Photographers series has long been one of the most helpful guides on the market. This newest edition is updated for CS4 and offers full coverage of all the new features as well as continued coverage of everything carried over from prior versions. Weighing in at 704 pages and including a DVD with sample images, this is about as complete a package as you could ask for. The author methodically runs through feature after feature and does a good job explaining how to use them.
There are sections covering What's New, Configuring Photoshop, Camera Raw Image Processing, Selections and Masking, Darkroom Effects, Filters, Color Management, Automating Photoshop, and many others which I will not mention. This is truly comprehensive coverage. The writing style is clear and concise. This is a very effective guide that nearly always tells me what I need to know when I pull it off the shelf.
The closest thing to a negative (and it really isn't one) is that this book is an encyclopedia of Photoshop CS4 rather than a step-by-step "how to guide. Even with 700+ pages, when you have to cover the entirety of Photoshop there is a need for brevity. So if you're interested in Masking this book will certainly cover it but you can't expect the same level of narrative as you would from an entire book on layers and masking. Since there is no book that can possibly cover everything in minute detail, my solution (and the only practical solution) is to buy several books for my various needs. I buy this volume as a general reference guide and quick how-to helper and then buy a few other guides to help walk me step-by-step through some of the trickier aspects of Photoshop. Some of my favorites include Photoshop CS4 Workflow: The Digital Photographer's Guide which is an excellent foundation for beginners and intermediate users as well as The Adobe Photoshop CS4 Book for Digital Photographers (Voices That Matter).
In summary, Adobe Photoship CS4 for Photographers is an excellent and comprehensive guidebook. I would highly recommend it for anyone looking for the encyclopedic style Photoshop guide and it is worth considering even if you have the old CS3 version.
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52 of 60 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A thorough book for learning Adobe Photoshop CS4, December 16, 2008
This review is from: Adobe Photoshop CS4 for Photographers: A Professional Image Editor's Guide to the Creative use of Photoshop for the Macintosh and PC (Paperback)
Well, I decided to take a little trip to a local book store and look at the various PS CS4 books that are available. I grabbed a few that I have heard about and/or stood out, and I wanted to comment a bit about each of them and why I picked Martin Evening's book.
Martin's book is a true reference book. It's huge, about 675 pages or so, and it's a very thorough book. I like the smaller things about the format as well, from how he makes references to various pictures on the page like Figure 5.55 (Fifth chapter, fifty fifth image, always on the same page), to how each chapter as a color assigned that can be easily flipped to as the colors are on the top of the pages and can be easily seen and accessed when the book is closed.
I appreciate how he presents the information. It's broken down and again very detailed. What I appreciate is that he does not use any humor in the book. Humor has it's place and time, and a reference book should really not have it, in my opinion. He sticks with a good description of what the topic is all about, and explains how to use and where to find it.
I thought I saw the number somewhere, but there are roughly about 2000 images in this book. You can see by example what he is referring to. May I also say that the publisher is a very good one and the actual quality of the book is excellent.
I'll eventually write a review of the books that I am going to mention, so I'll be concise with the review:
Richard Harrington's Understanding Adobe Photoshop CS4: I like the way he presents it very well. I was going to get this book. But the book is about 3/4" thick and I didn't feel that it was worth it as it retails for $50.
Scott Kelby's The Adobe Photoshop CS4 Book for Digital Photographers: Since his CS4 book wasn't available, I grabbed his CS3 book. Again, it's about 3/4" thick, which wasn't great. But this is the prime example of a person trying to use too much humor. I'm not going to get a reference book to get a laugh - I'm trying to understand how the program works. Plus he uses a "Step 1 - Do this, Step 2 - Do this" approach with what he's talking about throughout the book. I don't like that format. Again, for $50, I didn't feel it was worth it at all, respectively.
Adobe's Adobe Photoshop CS4 Classroom in a Book: In some respects, you can't go wrong with getting the manual for how to use a program directly from the maker's of it. It presented the information well. But again, the book was the same size as the last two, and this book retailed for $55. I would like a certain value and content for what I am paying.
All of the books mentioned above included a DVD for extra information, included images that were in the book. Since I haven't accessed every DVD, I will say that Martin's DVD included many good things in them (nearly 2GB of information!), including images, video tutorials, bonus PDF chapters, PS shortcut lists as PDF, and more.
I highly recommend this book. I didn't know a thing about Martin Evening until I picked up his book and did some research about him. I am very happy that I purchased Adobe Photoshop CS4 for Photographers.
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