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Creative Photoshop CS4: Digital Illustration and Art Techniques
 
 
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Creative Photoshop CS4: Digital Illustration and Art Techniques [Paperback]

Derek Lea (Author)
4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (42 customer reviews) |
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Book Description

Publication Date: April 7, 2009 | ISBN-10: 024052134X | ISBN-13: 978-0240521343 | Edition: 1
If you are a digital artist, illustrator, cartoonist, graphic artist, designer, or serious hobbyist looking for new and interesting ways to use Photoshop, this is the book for you! You already know how to use Photoshop as an image editing tool; now, challenge yourself and discover the more artistic aspects of the program with one of the world's best teachers by your side.

In addition to four brand new chapters on real world projects, this new edition of award-winning digital artist Derek Lea's bestselling Creative Photoshop contains several brand new features such as "What you'll learn in this chapter” summaries, so you can quickly find projects using the specific tools you'd like to focus on, and supplementary information at the end of each chapter, containing useful resources and additional gallery images to provide further study and inspiration. As you work through Derek's fantastic artistic methods, be sure to visit www.creativephotoshopthebook.com for more information, including the project files for each chapter, available for download for you to work with, a reader forum, and more.

*Stunning images from award winning digital artist Derek Lea inspire you to push your own creativity further than you even thought possible
*Compatible with previous versions of Photoshop
*Explore Photoshop from an entirely unique perspective as you learn how to create graffiti, antique effects, stencil art, and so much more
*Fully updated throughout for CS4, plus four brand new chapters on real world projects that combine traditional art methods with Photoshop to create tactile images

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Customers buy this book with Adobe Photoshop CS5 Classroom in a Book by Adobe Creative Team Paperback $30.43

Creative Photoshop CS4: Digital Illustration and Art Techniques + Adobe Photoshop CS5 Classroom in a Book
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Editorial Reviews

Review

Amazon.com quotes for previous edition: "A tutorial book that is CREATIVE AND FUN!!! I really can't recommend this book enough. The tutorials are easy to understand even when dealing with advanced techniques. It could be a bit much if you are brand new to Photoshop but I doubt it. I don't think anyone looking into purchasing a book of this type would be at all disappointed. There are other tutorial books out there but this one has subjects and artwork that are truly engrossing. Not only are the tutorial format and content superb but the author offers an online community that can be accessed through his personal site. Here you can ask for help on problem areas from other readers and often the author himself and also post your own work that the lessons have hopefully helped you to create. An easy 5 stars, great work." "Phenomenal! I purchased this book on a whim and was pleasantly surprised by the quality of its content. Lea takes readers step by step through simple and very complex design techniques. His instructions are easy to follow and, unlike many other Photoshop books I have picked up, just as easy to apply to other projects! Having access to the author through the reader forum on the book website makes this an even more useful tool. Any tips that might seem vague are easily explained by the man who wrote the book - and other readers that have overcome similar problems. I have worked through several books on Photoshop, but this has been the best by far!" Amazon.co.uk quotes for previous edition: "Fantastic! I have been a fan of Derek Leas work for a number of years since first discovering his tutorials in Computer Arts magazine. I often emailed Derek asking him if he was going to write a book on advanced digital imaging techniques. Derek finally took the challenge of writing a book and to say that the wait was worthwhile is an under statement! If you are a keen digital artist hungry for new techniques to apply to your work this is the book for you. I cannot recommend this book highly enough!!!" "Detailed discussion of sophisticated digital art techniques. This is one of very few Photoshop books that focuses on the creation of digital art, rather than the techniques required for certain standard tricks and effects...all of the tutorial images are genuinely inspiring, rich in textures, reflecting the author's emphasis on the importance of incorporating scans of real world objects into digital illustration...Congratulations to Derek Lea, and needless to say, highly recommended!" Amazon.ca quotes for previous edition: "This Book is a refreshing change. There are so many generic Photoshop books out there that I stopped looking at them a while ago. Then I found this. Derek Lea has written the definitive guide for artists who want to create within Photoshop. I find the art so inspirational and the style of writing so easy to follow that I'd recommend it to anyone who wants to do something really cool with Photoshop. Lea also maintains a companion website to the book with an active forum. I found loads of people posting questions and even Lea himself was there to offer support to almost everyone who posted. Buy this book, then check out the web forums that go with it. You won't be disappointed.; --#34

About the Author

Award-winning digital illustrator, author and regular contributor of tutorials and articles on Photoshop and Illustrator techniques to leading magazines worldwide; professor of Graphic Design-Media at the Centennial College, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Product Details

  • Paperback: 424 pages
  • Publisher: Focal Press; 1 edition (April 7, 2009)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 024052134X
  • ISBN-13: 978-0240521343
  • Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 7.5 x 1 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (42 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #200,648 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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More About the Author

› Visit Amazon's Derek Lea Page
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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews
50 of 50 people found the following review helpful
Unusual--but excellent July 4, 2009
Format:Paperback|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)
This is a project-based book for fairly experienced Photoshop users. It is not general Photoshop information or instruction for the uninitiated. It also seems to be geared to a niche category of designers, not the more conventional art, advertising, or photography market to which I belong. What follows are my subjective interpretations of the book's content.

The good points:
* Clearly explained thought process and workflow supported by equally clear and logical screen shots of Photoshop dialogs and, particularly, detailed layer stacks (so necessary to understand the sequence and the logic).
* The author is a more than a merely competent artist. His original art (sketches, cartoons, line drawings, photographs) are the basis for the projects in the book.
* The author knows how to teach. Not every artist or technically-skilled author knows how to put himself in the place of a reader with less knowledge or abilities and explain the how's and why's of the process.
* Originality in the use of Photoshop for unusual purposes. While you might, personally, not share his artistic vision, the projects do open your imagination to ideas you might not have otherwise considered and which can be made applicable to your own taste and interpretations. Excellent as a launching pad for your own brand of originality.
* Web downloads for the project materials, etc. It helps to do things his way first using the exact same illustrations shown in the book before going off in your own tangent with your own materials.
* Excellent organization. Each chapter/project begins with a synopsis explaining the project, what he hopes to achieve, how he will proceed, and the purpose of the exercise. I wish other Photoshop books would do this.
* Although a certain proficiency in Photoshop is assumed and probably required (i.e. knowledge of paths, pixel and vector masks, layers, selections, etc.) an experienced user can follow the text and screenshots to complete all the project steps.
* Excellent index and general organization.
* Excellent marginal notations: practical, on-point, clear, and just plain interesting.
* Probably the most original Photoshop book I've ever come across.

The not so good:
* I don't particularly care for his type of art (based on the genre of graffiti, tattoo, aliens, eyeballs, etc.). This is a problem because it is the art that sets the mood and 90% of the book is art I cannot relate to. Once I got past this, of course, I realized the actual techniques can be successfully adapted to any other graphic elements, but I wish there had been greater variety in the presentation.
* Our approaches to photography are polar opposites. He takes a photograph of a generic, middle-age woman and adds about 20-years worth of lines and wrinkles; sagging skin and chins; bags under the eyes and, possibly, a couple of terminal illnesses. I would take the same photo and try to make her skin smoother, her eyes brighter, and try to take 5-10 years off and an equal number of pounds. (Of course, what he does is so much more difficult than what I do that I might be displaying my jealousy here). Seriously, I did find this chapter extremely interesting and keep coming back to examine again how he did things. I don't plan to use it myself (unless I get really mad at someone!) but as an exercise in reverse engineering it is priceless.
* You have to keep in mind that this is not, strictly-speaking, a "Photoshop" book. Photoshop serves as a supplement to or support for the original art created in another medium (hand-drawn then digitized art, or art created digitally in Illustrator or some other vector drawing program). You either have to have access to or be able to create the art, then bring it into Photoshop and go on from there. (There are two exceptions, in which the projects are based on photographs.)
* Plain Photoshop is used for most projects, but for the 3-D project, Photoshop CS4 Extended is required.
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14 of 14 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)
When I taught Photoshop I told students it was the "Swiss Army Knife" of applications - lots of different users, who knew their part of the program very well but had no idea how to work the rest of the commands.

There are people who make their photographs look better, scan operators and professional photographers, people who remove unwanted boyfriends and husbands from pictures of happy occasions, and those that can take a cracked picture taken over fifty years ago and make it look like it was taken yesterday. I taught all these methods, but there was the equivalent of a locked door between us and those people who created artwork without using any pre-existing photographs or drawings.

That door has now been pretty much kicked open with Derek Lea's Creative Photoshop books where he reveals step-by-step instructions for making his own pictures. Lea's artwork is often unsettling (like the Woman/Octopus on the cover), but if you ignore that you'll find the whole book full of techniques that it's hard to find anywhere else.

I'd rather have a book that shows you how to make illustrations that are current, rather than someone giving you baby steps by showing you general principles. We may never have Lea's visions, but working through this book will give you a huge amount of techniques.

This book claims to be for Intermediate to Advanced digital artists, rather than just Photoshop users. For most, it may look intimidating, but just about every step is in there, and if you're the sort of person who knows the basics of Photoshop's features, you can work your way through. Lea helps by adding advice on problems you might have, and it's obvious he's given deep thought on how people become digital artists.

This book is published by Focal Press, who have a knack of bringing out books that show you unusual ways of using programs. I'm a fan of Martin Evening's books on Photoshop for photographers, and in Lea's book you get the same feeling that you're looking over the shoulder of a master of the game.

So, if you're a Photoshop user that is willing to spend time on facets that you've probably not looked at before, this could be the book for you. I'm sure you'll never look at Photoshop the same way again.
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19 of 21 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)
I am giving this book three stars because I like it.
But I can't give it five stars like most of the folks here.

Art style sets the tone for an art book. For that reason you only buy a manga art book if you aspire to draw big eyes, spikey hair and cat-human hybrids. This book has a similar self-imposed limitation. It feels like I am looking at the catalog of what Tim Burton's Tattoo Shop would look like...if such a thing existed.

The author goes out of the way to exaggerate the grotesque and the bizarre, and while this does make for some interesting and helpful projects, these aren't images I would place in my own portfolio.

Note this book is not a "Let's create art in photoshop" manual. It is project based, and assumes you created your initial art someplace else. Photography, pastel, or finger-paint. In other words these projects are using Photoshop as though it were nothing more than a very complex filter for art that already exists.

There are some useful techniques I haven't seen in any other book or forum, so you do want this in your hands for a week or two. I suggest getting it from the local library and saving yourself a few beans. Page for page ROI is a negative.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
I Wish This Guy Would Make More Books; Simply The Best!
I have been using Photoshop for years and I know it pretty well, but I would not say I am a master. This book taught me some new things about Photoshop and a lot about art... Read more
Published 19 days ago by Schnizle
Creative Photoshop CS4
I started a project and realized I could not do it with the software I had.
I decided to give Photoshop a try. It's been too many years since my last Photoshop project... Read more
Published 3 months ago by sci-fi-guy
Creative Photoshop CS4: Digital Illustration and Art Techniques...
Excellent resource book, best Adobe Photoshop book that I have bought so far & new condition just as described. I recommend this book for CS4..
Published 11 months ago by B R V
Not for intermediate or advanced users
I think this book would be good for beginners. Perhaps people who have a basic knowledge of photoshop and want to start learning new techniques would get a lot out of it. Read more
Published 19 months ago by Ann Kruetzkamp
great book, fast shipping, very happy
I felt secure when buying from amazon. transaction was fast.
But the book is awesome, easy to follow and takes you from ground to top (mid level would say) you have to know... Read more
Published 19 months ago by lux
Fantastic resource
Couldn't find a copy of this locally (South Australia) to have a good look through before deciding to purchase, but was intrigued by the techniques noted and the style of art that... Read more
Published 22 months ago by rylee
Regurgitated Material From Previous Book
Bought creative photoshop last year, bought creative photoshop cs4 a couple days ago. What a rip off. Read more
Published 22 months ago by Clutch
Awesome Book
This book is well written. If you're the type of learner who does well with written step-by-step tutorials, then you will probably like this book. Read more
Published 23 months ago by Jeremy D Driscoll
Disappointed in this book
While there are a lot of color and imaginative pictures and ideas in this book, I haven't found one idea that would apply in the real world.
Published 23 months ago by E. Nevitt
Excellent Book!
This is definitely not a book for an inexperienced Photoshop user but for an intermediate user it is just right. Read more
Published on December 27, 2009 by D. Rose
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