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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Well-written, thorough step-by-step tutorials but it's limiting because..., October 12, 2010
This review is from: Beyond Photoshop: Advanced techniques integrating Photoshop with Illustrator, Poser, Painter, Cinema 4D and ZBrush (Paperback)
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"Beyond Photoshop: Advanced techniques integrating Photoshop with Illustrator, Poser, Painter, Cinema 4D and ZBrush" by Derek Lea is a wonderful book for those who are looking to incorporate Photoshop to their illustrators, 3D work or painting projects.
I recommend this book for those who are past the basics of Adobe Photoshop and those who have dabbled and own the software mentioned below. It's important to note that the author is using CS4 for these projects.
The chapters are:
CHAPTER 1: Sharp Edges and Painterly Blends (Adobe Photoshop CS4 & Illustrator CS4)
CHAPTER 2: 2D Textures and 3D Vectors (Adobe Photoshop CS4 & Illustrator CS4)
CHAPTER 3: Live Trace and Pathfinder Effects (Adobe Photoshop CS4 & Illustrator CS4)
CHAPTER 4: Hand Painted Magic (Adobe Photoshop CS4 & Painter 11)
CHAPTER 5: Create an Old Master (Adobe Photoshop CS4 & Poser 8)
CHAPTER 6: The Best of Both Worlds (Adobe Photoshop CS4 & Cinema 4D 11)
CHAPTER 7: Sculpting Raw Materials (Adobe Photoshop CS4 & ZBrush 3.2)
The first step is to go to the website for the book and download the project files and from there, begin following the instructions laid out in the book. Instructions are very thorough and one of the reasons why this book has only 7 chapters is because it's thorough and Derek Lea does a fantastic job explaining each step.
The good news is that with each step, there is a picture of the artwork and the tool on the software being used, so you can see what is being selected.
If anything, this is a book that works well for those who are at the intermediate level. Beginner level, it all depends on how fast you learn and your familiarity with other software. And this is where the book has its caveat and that is one may own Illustrator but then not own the other software and thus making the other chapters obsolete until you get it.
Even for me, I've purchased and owned only four of the software, so I can only go up to chapter 5. And I assume that many people will be in the same boat.
There are awesome techniques from Derek Lea but it's a book that will be subjective to the user because you need these software to work the project files. Also, it depends on how current your software is. Granted, if you know the software well, you don't need the latest versions and do your own personal workaround.
Overall, "Beyond Photoshop" is a book that is well written and definitely handled quite well by the writer Derek Lea. It would be great to have multiple "Beyond Photoshop" books that focus on Photoshop and one software rather than one book featuring techniques with several software, because it limits the user to the software they own. If you only own Photoshop and Illustrator, you only have three chapters to work with.
This book does favor Photoshop/Illustrator with three chapters and one for the others. So, in a way, I wish there were 3 chapters dedicated to Photoshop + another software each to make the book balanced (if it was well-balanced, this book would receive a 5-star rating) but since it's not, I'm only going to give it three stars. But it's a very good book, it's a well-written book but unfortunately, it's limiting.
It's a solid book but if you intend to buy this, make sure you have the software, so you can utilize each chapter.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Limited in scope, but some good stuff, September 4, 2010
This review is from: Beyond Photoshop: Advanced techniques integrating Photoshop with Illustrator, Poser, Painter, Cinema 4D and ZBrush (Paperback)
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
This is a fairly unique book. Basically, it's a step-by-step, even click-by-click walkthrough of 7 projects. In all cases, you are using Photoshop in conjunction with another tool, to create the final artwork.
The projects are:
1) Using Illustrator and Photoshop to create a stylized women's face with some fancy little traces in the background.
2) Another Illustrator and Photoshop project, this one more cartoony
3) Another Illustrator and Photoshop project, this one has you create a complex composition with lots of different elements.
4) Corel Painter and Photoshop. You use a couple of photos, composite them together in Photoshop, and use Painter to make a digital Painting
5) Poser and Photoshop to create an interesting digital composition. You create some figures in Photoshop, render them, create the background in Photoshop, and composite them together.
6) Cinema 4D and Photoshop to create an alien head render.
7) Zbrush and Photothop to create a devil's head composition.
Each project is pretty substantial, taking about 50+ pages to complete. Some of the art assets you create, and some of them you can download from the author's website.
So how are the projects? Well, there is some good learning there. And very little prior knowledge of these tools is assumed, so if you are just getting started in any of these tools, the projects can be very useful. As far as the actual art that is created, if you are thinking of following along with your own art assets and creating a unique composition: I dunno, I liked the Poser one and the Painter one, but really none of the others. But that is just personal preference.
Whether this book is useful to you is likely to be a matter of which tools you own and use. Obviously there is a heavy emphasis on Illustrator and Photoshop, and only one project using Poser, Painter, Zbrush, and Cinema 4d. If these are tools you own and use, and you are a begginer - intermediate, then I think you can definitely get something useful from this book.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great deal, December 16, 2010
This review is from: Beyond Photoshop: Advanced techniques integrating Photoshop with Illustrator, Poser, Painter, Cinema 4D and ZBrush (Paperback)
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
I really love this book, it's been on my shelf at work for the past month and I have been referencing it for my design work, but it makes me want to make up my own projects because its fun. The author goes through painstakingly detailed instructions on how to achieve each project he has included in the book. I use Illustrator for it's superb vector drawing but when it comes to pain tools, Photoshop takes the lead. I use both and this book really teachers you how, using both programs for some of the things you will learn in here.
Whether it's creating text, constructing, 2D texture and 3D vectors, doing live trace and pathfinder effects, painting, sculpting and even combining cinema 4d with Photoshop, this is a beautiful and easy to follow reference guide that I keep near me when I work on the computer. I will be looking for more titles from this author. Books like this one inspire me, I find that just looking at these pictures and projects makes me want to have fun and make my own stuff and see what happens.
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