Customer Reviews

Adobe Photoshop CS5 for Photographers: A professional image editor's guide to the creative use of Photoshop for the Macintosh and PC

5 star:		(82)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is arguably better than the missing manual to Photoshop CS5. The author has a clear writing style and the illustrations are first rate so that you can actually see the modifications he is discussing. This book also includes a DVD with movies showing some of the new features of CS5 including content aware fill and puppet warp. There is a significant discussion of using raw to preprocess pictures even if they were not captured in RAW format. He even covers color management in considerable detail, well beyond the usual display profiling and calibration.

Of course every book can be improved and even though I gave this book the maximum number of stars I believe that there are short comings that some other authors can and will address. For example, the index seemed a little hard for me to use, at least at first, and I wished that the entire book, rather than selected chapters was on the DVD so I could search for what I wanted. Nevertheless the DVD does include a help guide that complements the book and provides some desktop assistance. Also, even though the book contains numerous specific examples of photographic modifications and repairs and the DVD contains the original photographs when possible for your practice, I think that there are other Photoshop books that provide more fully illustrated examples with the steps more clearly outlined. I also have the Scott Kelby Photoshop CS4 book for digital photographers as well as the CS3 book and these guides teach by example, with the books organized as a series of photographic fixes. As I am writing this review, however, the CS5 book is not yet available and I've been temporarily saved from having to read through Mr Kelby's humor to get to the good parts.

So to sum up. Martin Evening has created a tour deforce explaining the features you need to run Photoshop CS5 that is better illustrated than the Adobe Photoshop CS5 user's guide available on the Adobe web site! (see it's not really missing and you can Google photoshop CS5 user guide to find it like I did) He has also included a DVD and movies illustrating his skills, a nice touch. And he has left room for other authors to provide illustrative examples in guides organized differently.

I recently upgraded from PSE7 to CS5 and was a bit overwhelmed with all the new tools and options now available to me. Martin Evening's CS5 book is fabulous! It does assume some prior PS knowledge, so I wouldn't recommend this book to someone completely new to PS, but it is very informative and full of practical tips for someone relatively familiar with Photoshop. I had a question about one of the techniques in the Image Retouching chapter and emailed the author. I received a prompt reply in less than 24 hours from Mr. Evening clarifying his description in the book and pointing me to some other resources. I have many pages earmarked already and will continue to use this as a reference whenever using CS5. Highly recommended!

This book is a great deal. The book itself is quite thorough, and the DVD has so much material in it that it alone is worth the cost of the book. The DVD has tutorials, tool detailed descriptions, and my favorite, which is a 33 page PDF of all the Photoshop keyboard short cuts. I printed this out and keep it at my desk.

The book was originally written for intermediate to advanced users, and although he says it is now written to include beginners, I'd say it's still a book for people who know their way around Photoshop.

I have his previous book for CS4, and I thought it was quite good, so I was really excited to see this one come out so soon. At first glance, I wasn't impressed, because it uses his old material, but as I took my time and studied the book, I found it was quite updated for CS5. He does a great job of explaining the aspects of CS5, and I love the fact that he goes into such great detail for Camera Raw, which he obviously uses quite extensively.

I consider this an excellent reference book, while I've read it and watched all the tutorials on the DVD, this is a book I keep by my computer, and refer to it when I need detail on a particular aspect of Photoshop. This is my favorite Photoshop book, and I have many.

So why didn't I give it 5 stars? Many of the photos he uses as examples are not well shot or good quality, and that always influences my impression of a book about photography or Photoshop. He's also a curves snob saying you can do just about anything with curves, but without going into detail as to how he would do so. This is a problem throughout the book as he doesn't always explain himself, for instance he mentions about how you can deactivate and activate a computer to use Photoshop so that you don't exceed the license limit of two computers, but he doesn't tell you how. (You find it in the help menu, and Adobe really only lets you license 2 computers)

Those weaknesses aside, this is a great investment.

I bought this book a couple of months ago after reading all the excellent reviews. I must say that I am disappointed. Not that it isn't a comprehensive book, that it is. But it is not too useful if you want to refer to it when you are working - in fact it is frustrating if used in this fashion. For example, I wanted to know how to use the clone stamp tool. Good write up on the features and all the options. Nice picture showing you half way through a touch up using the tool. As to how to set up Photoshop so that you can work as described and shown... out of luck. Read the other 720 pages. This is a good manual, not a good reference book. I just ordered the Kelby book, hoping it will be more useful.

The problem with Photoshop is that it is not so much a computer program as a way of life. It is an amazingly diverse set of tools but also a complex application; becoming fully expert in its capabilities can take a long time. Also, PS has evolved over the past 15 years, adding more and more features while rarely dropping any, so there is some redundancy. This can be confusing and means that Photoshop may offer more than one way to produce a given effect - an easy way versus a cumbersome way, or a crude versus a sophisticated way, or a messy versus a precise way. So it is important to be guided towards good habits and proper style.

As a result a whole industry has grown up to teach Photoshop, including books, online tutorials, videos, seminars, courses, and magazines. For the professional photographer or graphic editor, this is all good; one must learn Photoshop. But my perspective is the advanced amateur or hobbyist who has to decide how much time I can devote. The big investment is not the dollars to buy the software, but the hundreds of hours required to become fluent. What I need is an efficient resource to learn quickly and to find a specific technique when I need it. This book, the semi-official PS manual, is helpful. Martin Evening is a British fashion photographer, and this is the 8th edition of his manual.

When I first received this book my first impression was: wow, heavy! Weighs several pounds and 768 pages. And not just a book but a DVD packed full of examples. Although it does cover basics, this is not for the beginner; rather an encyclopedic resource covering every technique an advanced artist might need. Included are sophisticated techniques such as High Dynamic Range and workflow issues such as the choice of a companion file management program. The DVD is good because one can watch over the shoulder of a master, step by step. There is also a companion volume "Workshop" coming out with another 496 pages of tips and examples. The two books plus DVD comprise the bible of Photoshop.

I do have a few complaints. First, part of the reason this book is so gigantic is that the author seems never to say in five words what is possible to say in ten. He spends most of a page explaining that his office has been painted a neutral grey so his color perception won't be tilted. His sentences are clumsy. I wish the publisher had provided a disciplined editor who would have cut the page count in half. Second, although the volume is nicely printed and produced, paper media cannot capture the subtleties one sees on a computer display. So, some of the side-by-side illustrations will leave you scratching your head to see the difference - they should have been in the DVD instead. Third, although both PC and Mac versions are discussed, the author is an Adobe man and barely mentions non-Adobe products such as Aperture, which may not be your inclination.

Bottom line; serious PS users both amateur and professional will want this on the bookshelf. Just don't let it fall on your head!

Martin Evening may be the last best hope of comprehending the infinite complexity of Adobe products. There are those of us who are giving up on use of all the things Photoshop can do. Adobe doesn't seem able to manage them very well, either, so an early and unusual update on CS5 was sent out to cool the nerves of many jangled users.

Because of his very close relationship to Adobe Mr. Evening has an overview few of us can match. An accomplished photographer, his book is based on an eye long sharpened to photographic effect rather than "just another pretty shot." The material on shooting raw images is urgently required reading for every serious photographer.

And, because he has been at it for so long, Mr. Evening can ferret out new complexities that have crept into the coding on more than just new additions to Photoshop's burgeoning bag of tricks. This 746-page book and a superb DVD with video and text-with-illustration have answered every question I've raised since CS3 when I first discovered Mr. Evening's
abilities. Every new issue by Adobe has been met with the careful language and detailed explanations that have brought him is well-deserved fame.

On-line training is always very helpful but it is frequently necessary to have printed material to open and read for full understanding of the inner workings that make Adobe great to use but extremely difficult to 'grok.' This is the way to do it, with Adobe Photoshop CS5 for Photographers.

This is not a beginner's book. On the cover, this is described as "a PROFESSIONAL image editor's guide to the creative use of Photoshop". (Emphasis supplied.) While you don't have to be a master Photoshop user, you definitely have to have a prior understanding of what Photoshop is and a good comprehension of its incredible (and seemingly endlessly expanding) capabilities. Yes, Martin Evening makes some concessions to neophytes, but this is really a book for power users and those who want to become masters of Photoshop.

You can use this book as a reference, if you like, cherry picking the many chapters, each on a specific aspect of Photoshop. For a thorough education, read it from beginning to end, which ought to take several months.

Evening, thankfully, is not a comedian. The pages are not littered with silly attempted jokes.

This is a no-nonsense book. The chapter on configuring Photoshop is a must-read, even for pros because it brings you up to date on new requirements for CS5. Image Editing Essentials, with its 87 pages, is an exhausting tour of just the essentials of image editing - and this is in addition to a separate chapter on Camera Raw that runs 125 pages. The text is well-written and copiously illustrated.

Evening presents Photoshop from the perspective of a working photographer who wants to produce the best results possible and as someone who understands the technology powering Photoshop. He does well. In sidebars, Evening occasionally sheds light on his thinking. For example, Evening has been criticized for his obvious affections for Curves adjustment. He explains this by saying that of the 22 (!) image adjustments available, Curves can generally accomplish whatever you want. In fact, in a single paragraph, Evening explains a very profound Photoshop issue.

The chapters on color management and output for web and print are better than some single volumes I've seen devoted to these subjects. The chapter on automating Photoshop, while introductory in scope, is useful.

Finally, the DVD has useful content and includes a help guided with many of the examples from the book. It also hs many other goodies in the form of a Help guide.

Overall, this is a book for those interested in developing a deep understanding of Photoshop. Beginners will find it tough sledding unless they are highly motivated. Those with some experience will find it a wonderfully thorough and educational experience.

Jerry

If you have any interest in photography, and therefore in Photoshop, this is the ONLY book you'll ever need. I've read every Martin Evening book since the issue of Photoshop CS, and each book has been extensively re-written to accommodate all the new features of each edition of Photoshop. These books are not exhaustive, but then they're not supposed to be. Only the tools a photographer is likely to need are discussed.

This latest edition has been broadened to appeal to even beginners using Photoshop. The emphasis is on digital, of course, because that's where the future of photography lies. There are new sections here (among others) on converting to black and white, and an extensive section on the new "Merge to HDR Pro" tool in Photoshop CS5.

Evening himself is a successful professional photographer, and is also a respected advisor to Adobe Systems, Inc. This book is excellently written and painstakingly illustrated, and is a joy to read. The book is also highly unusual in that you can read it from cover to cover, and you can also use it as a reference guide. Once you examine this book (and heft it), I think you'll realize that your money is very well spent. So buy it, and you will indeed realize that this book is the most comprehensive and readable treatise on Photoshop (for photographers) that you'll find out there, and the only one you'll need.

Put this on your bookshelf right next to Scott Kelby's, "The Adobe CS5 Book for Digital Photographers."

The latter is the "how to" guide; Evening is that plus the "why."

As are all of Evening's books, this one is excellent.

Martin Evening set the standard for Photoshop books aimed at photographers several releases ago, and continues to produce the most comprehensive guides for those who spend a lot of time behind the camera. It may seem odd that photographers need a special version that relates to their needs, but too many Photoshop books are written by graphic artists who also take pictures, or by amateur photographers who develop skills in Photoshop and fancy themselves "real" photographers. Martin Evening is one of the rare breed that has both amazing photographic skills and is adept at applying Photoshop to optimizing his images. Unlike books that simply show you how to repair ill-captured images in Photoshop, this one will help you take great shots and make them even better.