Customer Reviews

Photoshop Channel Chops

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If you aspire to be a hardcore Photoshop user, this book is probably the one you want above all others. It's not a step-by-step tutorial, a mere reference book, or a book that leads you through the tools and various functions of the software. Instead it discusses the fundamental concepts you need to know to use Photoshop to its fullest. Some statements in the book are outdated, but fortunately, they are usually statements of opinion and occur only in a few places. Most of the book is still applicable since Photoshop today still has channels, alpha channels, paths, layers, and calculations. This book hasn't been updated since it was written in 1998, but it really doesn't need to be. It's not about how to use particular tools and new features. It's about how to think with Photoshop. And it's deep enough to read over and over for reference. I would encourage even beginner Photoshop users to read this book if they are really committed, especially if they want to learn about compositing. By the end of this book, you'll be able to understand how Photoshop does what it does, and why it is such a powerful program.

Being an Adobe Certified Expert in Photoshop, I was quite literally flabbergasted with the detail and concepts that this book presents. I teach Photoshop two nights a week at a Fortune 500 company, and was trying to put together a syllabus for my Advanced Photoshop Course. When I read this book I threw out the syllabus and made my students buy this book instead.

I've probably read every book available on the subject of Photoshop but i've always come away from each of them with no more than a few tricks you can only use in very specific situations. "hey look, pillow-embossed text!" PCC is the exception to this rule. It's content far outweighs it's perceived size. David's writing style and obvious enthusiam for the subject shows with every paragraph. I found myself excited and couldn't wait to jump into PS and start trying out some of the concepts that he so clearly explains. I think my favorite quote is from the begining of the book: "Learn how to be a creative problem solver. Memorizing sequences of commands in a graphics program isn't the way to such enlightment." I've been trying to find a nice way of saying that for years. You owe it to yourself to hit the buy button. You wont regret it for a second. Actually, you wont have time to regret it, you'll be too busy having fun using the techniques from this book.

This is one of the best books on using photoshop for what it was originally designed for - compositing images. Written by ILM alumni David Biedny and digital film production veterans Bert Monroy and Nathan Moody, this is not your standard "how to use photoshop" features walkthrough. It is also not a beginner book. You will not find out what the "edit" menu does in this tome... It is designed for someone who already knows what the tools in photoshop do, but wants to find out how to apply these powerful (yet sometimes misunderstood) features to real world tasks. It extensively covers channel operations (add, subtract, multiply, screen, etc) and how these somewhat esoteric "modes" are useful in compositing images. These guys know what they are talking about from thier years of photoshop and feature film production work. This is the second book from these guys, and remember that they wrote the first-ever book on photoshop, years before anyone had even heard of the program! The book also contains the best discussion of blue and green screen techniques that give better results than some well-known software packages costing thousands of dollars. This section alone is worth the price of the book! Includes a section for After Effects users too. I highly recommend this book to anyone involved in compositing images, whether it be Photoshop, Premiere or After Effects or any similar package on any platform! Chris Athanas Director of Engineering, DigiEffects

Though this book was published at the time of version 4 its content is totally relevent with versions 5 and 5.5. Chapter four that deals with Apply Image and Calculations increased my creative potential with Photoshop to a level where I now prefer the imaging possiblilies of these two functions over all of the program's combined filter effects. The most worthwhile book I've read on Photoshop.

I'd like to mention a book that came across my desk a couple weeks ago, Photoshop Channel Chops by David Biedny, Bert Monroy, and Nathan Moody.

I see a lot of Photoshop "how to do this and that" books, and usually it's beyond me why anyone bothered to write and publish them, since Photoshop comes with a perfectly good manual. This book caught my eye though, because it seems like I never know everything I think I should about complex channel operations, masking layers, compositing, and the like.

The book has a lot of good discussion of basic concepts of color and image density and how they relate to combining image elements with matting, keying, and mathematics. The book derives its authority from the fact that the writers are real world power users of the product, and so their attention is focused on operations that really matter, rather than a bunch of cutesy effects.

The book is written around Photoshop 4, but it's pretty much all applicable to version 5. If t! hey update it, I hope they'll use a slightly larger type font to go with the full color illustrations; I had to squint a bit to read it. But that's a small quibble. Recommended.

I hate the books that only talk about particular special effects and how to achieve them, without telling you why it should be done that way. With Photoshop, you want to be in control. This book allows to be in control. It will explain exactly what's going on behind the scenes. After reading this book, I felt like being a Photoshop guru. It was nice.

Even though this book was written for Photoshop 4, nearly all of it's content still can be applied to the newest version of Photoshop. I suspect in 200 years this book will be just as valuable. What it teaches are extremely advanced technigues that are and always will be at the core of photoshop. This book definately changed the way I use photoshop and even the way I look at an image when I first import it in. In brief it covers channels, calculations, transfer modes, and selections/paths.

I've read 7 different photoshop books, and some 30 other computer software books and this is by far the best computer book I've found. If you want to know about plug-ins, filters, and the new liquidify feature, then this isn't the book, nor would it be a good book for an beginner. For someone who wants to UNDERSTAND photoshop, this is the book.

Simply the best....If you are intrested in understanding Channel operations and the way Photoshop really works than this book is for you...One of the two or three best Photoshop books ever published...Even the seasoned Photoshop professional will benifit from this book..Order it now!

As the book title suggests, channels are the main event here. The problem is that with the introduction of layers in Photoshop, many of the techniques discussed in the book are now much more easily done in layers, making the book out-of-date. The authors suggest that channels are still a valid way to do the work, but why make your work harder than it needs to be?