Customer Reviews

Photoshop Blending Modes Cookbook for Digital Photographers : 49 Easy-to-Follow Recipes to Fix Problem Photos and Create Amazing Effects (Cookbooks (O'Reilly))

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Of all the tools available to photographers to manipulate their pictures in Photoshop, one of the least used sets is the blending modes. (Blending is the method by which a color overlaid on another combines. Blending modes generally deal with the way the colors in two layers are combined. Blending of layers is controlled by the little window in the upper left-hand corner of the Photoshop layers palette.) This book aims at training photographers how to use these modes.

The book is divided into three main sections. The first is a general section called "Getting Started with Blending Modes". The next section, "Blending Modes in Detail", describes each of the modes. Finally the cookbook recipes are presented, with an illustration of effects and the steps necessary to achieve those effects. Like most cookbooks, the recipes don't explain what each step does, but the reader can easily refer to the first two sections to understand what is happening.

A typical recipe is one called "Woodworm". It creates an image which looks like an old woodblock with tints from the original photograph. The process of creating the image involves inverting two duplicate layers of the original picture and combining them using the "hard mix" and "pin light' modes".

The recipes presented fall into two camps. In the first very subtle changes are made to a picture to improve it, such as softening too hard a light in a portrait, or cooling down skin tones. Most users of Photoshop will find these recipes helpful. Usually, Photoshop offers some other tool that can achieve similar results.

Most of the images created by using the recipes in the second camp are so different from the originals and so stylized that I don't know if they can be referred to as photographs. There is no doubt that using these recipes can create unique images. The author clearly shows the before and after, with several variations, of each of the latter recipes. However, it's my guess that most photographers will find it hard to visualize most of the results that can be achieved on their own photographs using the recipes provided by the author. On the other hand followers of Freeman Patterson, Andre Gallant or other impressionistic photographers will certainly be interested in these techniques.

Beardsworth's presentation is clear and experienced Photoshop users will have no difficulty in following these recipes. On the other hand, whether you want to achieve many of the results that can be reached by using blending modes in many of the ways that the author presents will depend on the individual photographer. Anyone interesting in developing their Photoshop skills will certainly benefit from exploring blending modes.

Realizing that there could be many practitioners in the digital fine arts community who likely will strongly object to the title of this book (..."cookbook, recipes," etc.), and noting that the biggest chunk of the book is taken up with the forty-eight picture-making prescriptions without any real insights into why they were selected ..., it does have some things to strongly recommend it. First, it deals comprehensively with one of the least well documented of the creative feature sets within Photoshop: the blending modes. Second, the author manages to encompass a lot of creative options without really using genuine montage (that is, he blends together different versions of the same starting image, without introducing totally different image subjects as separate Photoshop image layers). Third, the author deliberately restricts the use of other tools within the context of the book - for example, only 'Gaussian Blur' and 'Find Edges' are utilized with any regularity from the Photoshop Filters menu. And fourth, he has come up with a neat way of documenting the settings used in the blending undertaken, which simplifies reproducing the procedures. The recipes (yuk!) turn out to be as easy as, well, making different flavors of fudge (yummy!) ...

Despite all these pluses, the book suffers from numerous editing and layout problems. There are typographical mistakes, there are missing page numbers (!), and the format is quite confusing (and is only "saved" in some instances by the fact that there are lots of fairly large example images, so that it's possible to see what was done, without needing to follow the text).

Finally, potential purchasers should know that one of the author's favourite blend modes is 'Hard Mix', which was initially introduced in Photoshop CS, but remains a sort of oddball in the full list of blending modes. (Personally, I've found no good reason to upgrade beyond Photoshop version 7, and would note that there are independent means of simulating, and even exceeding, what 'Hard Mix' is shown to provide in the book.)

Overall, it seems to me that the attributes of the book outweigh its negative points - and that it might be useful to consider as a way of expanding creative image-building options for those with interests in web-based graphics as well as advanced photography and fine art.

Cooking with Photoshop
By Bakari Chavanu

Photoshop Blending Modes Cookbook
for Digital Photographers
by John Beardsworth
O'Reilly Press
ISBN 0-596-10020-5
176 pages
US $[...] CAN $[...]
[...]


Amateur and professional photographers use Photoshop mainly to enhance their photographs. Anyone using this powerful program knows what magic it can do when simple features like color enhancement, increased saturation, cropping, and unsharp masking are applied to their images.

It's hard to tell how most people use Photoshop, but I would say that many of its layer blending modes are rarely used non-professionals unless you're lucky to have a deep creative streak within you that makes you wince at simple straight forward images that most photographers produce.

Flip through any creative, cutting edge magazine or website and you'll discover what professional and crafty users of Photoshop are doing with photography. Up until flipping through John Beardsworth's Photoshop Blending Modes Cookbook for Digital Photographers, I had little appreciation and knowledge for what could be done if you would only stretch the the use of Photoshop beyond the quick fixes and enhancements.

Beadsworth's book is part of what seems to be a very good series of digital cookbooks that illustrate how to play around and deepen your use of Adobe Photopshop for retouching and photo effects.

The book can be used with any version of Photoshop, but many of the recipes rely on the Hard Mix blending mode that was first introduced in Photoshop CS. Beardsworth explains that this mode "reduces an image to just eight pure colors" which basically brings about a very increased sharpening effect.

Now if you're not an avid Photoshop user yet, don't let all the technical terms scare you away. The best way to use this book is to simply run into Photoshop's kitchen like a kid and mix stuff around. Whatever you don't like can be undone (Command-Z) or not saved. Whatever you create can simply be "Save-As", keeping your original photo intact and your new creation as a separate file. Nothing to waste here. All you need is time and an willingness to experiment.

The heart of the blending modes can be found right in the Layer's Palette of Photoshop. There you'll find a list of blends that you typically apply after copying the original background of a selected image.




Simply applying one or more these modes can get you cooking. My examples don't do justice the wealth of this book, but I just want to show what you can do in a few minutes of blending stuff together in Photoshop. A simple Color Halftone effect with Blur adjustment turned this photograph into what could be a more useful artistic image.






If the above is little too much for you, how about something closer to home? Beardsworth includes numerous blend recipes for portrait shots.


(Original)





This Soft glow blend was done simply by making three layer copies of the original photo and adding darken and screen layers (again, blending modes), plus a mix of Gaussian blur for the soft focus effect.

There are 49 blending recipes in this colorfully illustrated book. Each one is presented with step by step instructions with a screen shot of the layer's pallet and controls used to make a particular blend. Beardsworth explains what is taking place with the various blend modes when they are applied to an image, but quite frankly you'll never understand the deep underpinnings without cooking up lots of recipes and playing around the cabinet of spices-I mean, menu controls and tools.

I find it fun to just to open an image, make a copy of its layer (Command-J), highlight the selection mode in the tool bar, and use the Shift-+ key combination to cycle through the various blend modes to see what I get. It's almost like coloring easter eggs, though Beardsworth instructions and expertise provide you with better outcomes.

Here's another one I did using one of the photos in the hefty folder of images that you can download from the book's companion website.



This typical type shot is turned into something very artistic and funky in a matter of minutes.



Again, it's just means adding a mixture of Hard Mix, a little Hue/Saturation adjustment, opacity reduction, and a drop of blur to soften the effect. This would make for a very useful illustration in a magazine.

One of my first thoughts when using this book that these recipes would make great Photoshop actions, but as Beardsworth points out, blending is not just about layering an original photo with various blending modes, but it also entails understanding unique requirements for the images you're working with. In his words, actions are not "magic bullets" that will give you instant and powerful creations. You have to experiment and eventually understand how blending modes work. Of course, any of your favorite blending recipes could be turned into actions to be used over and over again.

I've done a handful of blends so far (see my Flickr set [...]), but now I want to go back and reread the sections on the how, when, and why of blending modes, so that I can figure out for myself what modes and processes I might use for my photos with or without the use of the book. It's really all about understanding how blending modes/layers affect how Photoshop renders colors that have come from the original image. By doing several, and often similar, recipes in this book, you immerse yourself in the process and as a result learn something new and different each time in the process.

Thus, I would say this book is more for intermediate users of Photoshop-users who know what layers are and can already do basic and necessary adjustments to original photos before jumping in and using blending modes. Blend modes won't always fix photos that haven't been processed for color contrast, exposure adjustment, and so forth. This book is not an introduction to Photoshop, but it's a very useful one to add to your library if you're seeking to master another part of this powerful program.

Perhaps as a follow-up to this review, I will review a few other related books from O'Rielly's Cookbook series.

5 out 5 stars

This was the second book I purchased in this series. Like the filter effects book, this one does an excellent job of showing each blending mode and how it works. Blending modes are probably one of the least utilized features of Photoshop. Through the combination of explaining each mode and then showing examples of ways they can be used, the book makes it easy for anyone to use them all, not just the lightening and darkening ones that are most often used. I would have liked to have seen them apply different modes to the same photo like they did for the filter effects book, rather than using so many photos. But, overall this book is so useful that I can overlook that. It will definitely be kept in easy reach for reference, and I now plan on picking up the other two books in the series.

I don't know if you have noticed, but O'Reilly has been putting out some amazing Photoshop books lately. I'm quickly becoming a big fan of their Photoshop Cookbook series, of which this book is a part of.

If you're unfamiliar with blending in Photoshop, it's basically the process of combining multiple layers in different ways (of usually the same photograph) to produce aesthetically pleasing results. It's surprising how combining an image with itself can potentially produce so many varied results.

I'm certainly no Photoshop expert, and maybe that's why I really enjoyed this book. Blending is a subject where I have a lot of trouble, and this book did an excellent job of showing a "Before" picture, shows how to perform the specific blend (e.g. reduce digital artifacts), and then shows the "After" picture. This type of step-by-step process with pictures (especially for Photoshop) really helps and makes the various "recipes" very intuitive and easy to follow.

This is a great book for giving some of your digital photos that extra help they might need. This book certainly gave me some ideas for improving some of my photos-and I think that was the author's point.

I recently got O'Reilly's suite of Photoshop books and I must say that I have been really impressed. The first of these books that I have read/used is "Photoshop Blending Modes Cookbook" by John Beardsworth. For any Photoshop book, I would expect lots of big, vibrant color photos, and easy to follow steps, carefully detailing out how to achieve the effects that I would be interested in and tons of before and after images so I could easily understand what to expect from the effect that I trying to use. This book is extremely easy to follow, and makes learning blending modes a snap!!

Highly recommended for all Photoshop users, along with all the other books in this series.

***** HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

Many end users are aware of the countless features that Adobe has provided within Photoshop. One of the most powerful features that many operators do not use (or forget to use) is the blending features. These can be found within each layer and are essential to the many creative tools found in Photoshop. These tools provide different blending capabilities that can address the creative professional.

This book addresses these needs and is an excellent creative resource to guide users to use these powerful blending features found within Photoshop. This publication is well written and is easy for many beginners to follow, yet it also addresses the needs of the professional seasoned Photoshop user.

There is a great amount of publications about Photoshop ... this is one of the finest I have encountered. The information is valuable and this book is reasonably priced (compared to some that are full of fluff and useless). O'Reilly places valuable information within the reach of the masses that will not require a second mortgage.

This book actually rates 4 1/2 stars. If you have the need, it comes highly recommended.

This book does a very nice job describing and showing you what the different blending modes do to photos. I like the books larger print format and the substantive number of pictures - not only of the photos, but also of the photoshop menus and palettes which give an additional and useful bit of context.

The first third of the book details the blending modes and what each does, what it is used for, and includes a few examples. I found the descriptions, although short, are enough to give you a sense of what they do and why. The examples are also easy to follow and understand, I think it has a good mix of photos and explanation. The rest of the book are the "recipes" (it is a "cookbook", after all). Each of these are simple descriptions as to how to create various effects using one or more blending modes.

The appendix has a very nice short description of each blending mode with examples which spread across four pages, all referencing an original image from the first page. Not a big deal, but it would have been nice if the original had been reproduced on each page to make it easier to compare the results of each blending mode.

To sum up, I think it's a great book describing blending modes.

I think O'Reilly books are, in general, splendid. I have many of them for Microsoft Office products and Photoshop training.

This book, in my opinion, suffers from poor examples. Often the results of an exercise look worse than the original photo. More often than not, I find the original more appealing than the modified one. The position of the original and modified versions are randomly positioned with the label "original image" often confusingly close to either image.

It's a good book, but could be a lot better with more meaningful image improvements.

I was looking forward to reading this book but unfortunately the publishers of the book decided to use extremely thin typeface (or font or whatever you call it) on a beige background. So, you actually cannot read it without a magnifying glass.

So rather than reading and being able to comprehend some complex techniques, I find myself going back to the beginning of a paragraph time and time again just to verify what the words are.

Frustrating because I haven't made it through the first chapter yet and I flipped through the book and the type is the same throughout.