Customer Reviews

The Photoshop Channels Book

5 star:		(38)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I bought this book hoping to understand the holy grail of channels and what they could do for me in my everyday work with Photoshop. After reading this book I came away believing that for the most part one can do without understanding or using channels. I fault the author for this outcome who as one reviewer noted seemed to have come up with the idea of a book about Photoshop channels and then scraped the barrel for ways to actually use channels in Photoshop. There are a few good sections such as how to boost sharpening with channels but for the most part the examples given are of very obscure use in the real and practical world and i doubt I will ever have the need to use them. I also agree with the reviewer who noted that Mr. Kelby glosses over explanations in his examples so one would be hard pressed to use the technique on his/her own for their particular picture because he didn't explain his choice of settings, i.e. the big picture. In conclusion, there has been a market for years for a book on Photoshop that dealt with understanding the use of channels. This book did not meet my expectations and I came away only slightly more educated in the use of channels. It seems that Mr. Kelby saw a marketing opportunity and seized it without really giving his readers the quality book they deserve. As Mr. Kelby jokingly (?) says in his introduction, anyone who buys his book either has a burning desire to learn about an obscure topic like channels or throws their money around loosely. After reading the book, I now read this as a very interesting comment which may reflect Mr. Kelby's own feelings about his final product. One could do far batter with Dan Margulis' book on Lab color as one reviewer mentioned. Leave this book by Mr. Kelby alone unless you have money burning a hole in your pocket. And for those that gave this book high marks, ask yourself how much you are really going to use the info in his book and how much of it was just an interesting, abstract read. I think there are only two groups of people who appreciate this book- those beginners who are wowed by the examples because they don't realize how obscure and useless many of the techniques and examples are and secondly, those that use Photoshop as professionals to make a living day in and day out and who might actually come across an opportunity to use some of these techniques. I just think this book was a poor and lazy execution by Mr. Kelby and misses the mark for most Photoshopers.

This is the book that seemed to never arrive. Announced last summer some time, many of us waited and waited, watching the delivery date recede. When it finally did arrive the book turned out to be just slightly disappointing.

Kelby seems to have committed to a book on channels and then realized he had to fill pages with nothing but techniques that somehow use channels. The result is a book that stretches to find a way to work channels into the discussion or veers off into little used techniques only because they make use of channels. How often will you work with spot color? Not unless you do prepress work for newspapers.

That said, the useful chapters are pretty useful. But if you ordered Dan Margulis's book on LAB color while you were waiting for Kelby to finish writing, you got the bible before you got the Cliff's Notes. Margulis does the heavy lifting. Kelby keeps it pretty light and breezy.

Some of the best stuff in here is about mixing channels or overlaying them to create better contrast or to control blown highlights etc. Doing that can create some side effects that are often corrected with a final layer blending technique called "Blend if". In the several cases where Kelby uses "blend if" he never tells you why he chose the settings he did, so his technique is really only useful if you want to correct the particular photo he uses as an example. Rather than teaching us about spot color, it would have been much more helpful if he had spent more time and ink teaching us the "why" of the blending technique.

I still found the book useful and enjoyable, and I still review it often just to make sure I completely grasp the techniques. I just wish Kelby had used the pages to go a little deeper into the useful stuff.

If you're just learning about channels, and want to learn ways to make your images look better, this book is a good start. Scott Kelby is certainly one of the most prolific pundits in the PS world, and here he assembles techniques from many sources. Explanations are simple, the techniques are tried-and-true, and the writing is not bad (albeit a bit corny). You'll get a lot better at Photoshop by incorporating these techniques into your workflow. It is indeed NOT meant for Elements users, and assumes use of CS2, although most methods can be used in earlier versions with minor modifications.
If you're looking for a treatise on the theory behind channels and color spaces, look elswhere (like Dan Margulis' work). But if you want to avoid the lofty explanations and just get in there and make your images great, this is the place for you.

I bought this book because I was confused about channels. Mr. Kelby does a good job explaining, and showing by example, how to work with channels in Photoshop. I read the reviews before I bought this book and noticed the criticism about Kelby's "cute" writing style and lack of detail. I bought the book anyway because I wanted the information. This is a good to great book if you want to know about channels. If you already know a lot about channels you'll probably be disappointed.

Channels are an important, if very under-reported, aspect of Photoshop. Channel manipulation is the key to much of the power of Photoshop, but it can be an intimidating subject. The early masterwork was "Photoshop Channel Chops" by David Biedny, Bert Monroy, and Nathan Moody, which is long out of print.

Kelby does here what he does most of the time in his books. He collects tips and techniques from various sources and cleans up the presentation. He is a good technical writer, able to translate what might be too technical for most readers, into plain English. Unfortunately, he also thinks he is a comedian. For some reason, many writers about Photoshop think they are funny: they are not. The attempted humor is banal and a distraction. But perhaps these futile attempts at comedy are a reaction to the dread so many people bring to learning Photoshop. In any event, it would be nice if Kelby and cohorts would recognize that they are not stand-up comics.

Much of what Kelby covers is fairly basic: but that's good. You have to start with the basics to learn the complex power of Photoshop. If there's a fault, it's that Kelby never goes too deeply into any subject. These are just hints, tips and techniques that scratch the surface. Yes, Kelby over-promises and under-delivers. On the other hand, he does offer a sugar-coated way for people to learn about various aspects of Photoshop.

One thing I could do without in this or any Kelby book is the relentless promotion of Kelby's little empire of Photoshop entities, such as his National Association of Photoshop Professionals, his seminars, his other books, his friend's books and products. This braggadocio gets old fast.

Since Photoshop Channel Chops is long out of print, Kelby's volume does fill a need and fills it reasonably well.

Jerry

Scott Kelby's newest book, The Photoshop Channels Book is the kind of book that you simultaneously love and hate. You might love it because the examples are clear, step-by-step procedures for selecting, compositing, adjusting tonal range and sharpening images based on the red green and blue components of an image (otherwise known as channels). And you might love it because all of the example images are available for download. It is a decent tutorial for those who want an easy introduction into what is too often a subject characterized by difficult jargon and inexplicable explanations.

But in the end you will hate this book because it is superficial. It does not provide you with the depth of understanding available for example, in Katrin Eismann's superb Photoshop Masking & Compositing (New Riders, 2005 ISBN 0-7357-1279-4). It is further flawed by self-indulgent flights of fatuous humor. This kind of "humor" wears thin very. People who buy this book want real solutions to real problems, not pages juvenile humor. I am also disturbed by continuing references to Mr Kelby's other publications. I don't want to spend money for advertizing.

Beyond my love-hate ambiguity, I have some real questions about the point of this book. Without doubt channel manipulation is an important tool for those of us who are advanced Photoshop users. But that group of people needs much more than this superficial book provides. It seems to me that Ms. Eismann has written the quintessential book on this topic, and, coupled with Bruce Fraser and David Blatner's comprehensive Real World Adobe Photoshop CS2 (Peachpit Press 2006; ISBN 0-321-33411-6) you will have covered 95% of the knowledge you need to be a Photoshop power user. And for those wanting a more basic grounding in Photoshop I strongly recommend Tim Grey's very clearly written books (Color Confidence and Photoshop Sybex 2006 ISBN: 0471786160 and CS2 Workflow;Sybex 2005 ISBN: 0782143962 )

This is not a book, as the author states, for someone new to photoshop.

That being said it is one of only two photoshop books in my library, and I am very glad that its there.

I've used photoshop for years, but never really delved into the subject of channels. I thought I was getting along just fine, until I picked up this book in an effort to learn a little something about I knew little of. Having read this book I realize how much it has opened my eyes to the possibilities of photoshop.

Photoshop's power lies in how it handels selections. Being able to cut images out of backgrounds, and applying filters to only selected parts of an image are very powerful tools that photoshop gives us. Channels I have found out, are one of the most powerful tools in the selection process. There are plugins sold for photoshop such as corel's knockout which help you in making complex mask selections, but as I have found out by reading this book, those expensive tools are not necessary most of the time if you know how to make selections using color channels.

Because color channels are such an effective tool to create complex selections, the book also covers related topics, such as quick masks, layer masks, blend modes, and layer adjustments, which are tools all photoshop artists need to know inside and out.

I found the layout of the book very simple to follow. There are a few other reviewers who complain about the lack of depth within each chapter. I found the brief examples refreshing. I would rather spend half an hour reading and two hours playing around in photoshop practicing my skills, than two hours reading and only half and hour practicing my skills. I found myself reading a chapter every night and then getting into photoshop to try out the new tricks I learned. This in not a book which is bogged down in explanations, and I looked forward to reading the next chapter each night. I feel anyone who is tight on time, but thirsty for knowledge on channels will also find the brevity rewarding.

I also enjoyed Scott Kelby's emphasis on teaching his lessons with keyboard shortcuts and a non-destructive workflow. Learning that way will only save you time and improve your productivity.

If you already know the basics, and want to take your knowledge of photoshop to the next level. If you don't have the money to spend on expensive classes, or the time to read an encyclopedia. Then I highly reccomend this book.

"The Photoshop Channels Book" continues Scott Kelby's well-established tradition of creating Photoshop instructional books that are concise, written in a lively and humorous style, and take the reader right to the heart of processes. This time he delves into the potential applications of Photoshop's "mysterious" channels panel, something that most people rarely use. While other books touch lightly on the subject Kelby devotes an entire volume to its functionality, and deservedly so.

The book is very well designed in a 1950's/1960's TV-channel metaphor, richly illustrated and very easy to follow. Nearly anyone can get something new from it in ten minutes or less. It's a superb work that should have a long shelf-life as Photoshop continues to evolve.

If what you know about Photoshop is from books, self-paced tutorials, experimentation and stuff you picked up off the street like most of us, this book will fill in the missing piece one ALWAYS feels about Photoshop. The program is so dense and full of possibilities and a hundred ways to accomplish the same result, it can be daunting. Mr. Kelby's new book is a subject that has been missing from the shelves of your local bookseller and even (gasp!) from Amazon. DO NOT HESITATE TO ADD THIS RESOURCE TO YOUR LIBRARY! This is classic Kelby. Fun, not intimidating, clear language, tutorially based-not only to teach a particular skill-but to throw in a sentence or two about WHY this tool works. The learning curve is flattened in a way few others write about Photoshop. Most importantly, this is not a rehash of stuff you have seen a hundred times translated into different verbage. It's well organized and beautiful to look at which, to me, it better be both if it is about Photoshop. Also: you don't necessarily have to have CS2 to gain immeasurably from this book. The how-to is there but so are the principles. Congratulations to the (seemingly tireless) efforts of a man with lots of skills and a sincere interest in helping the world get the most out of a remarkable product.

I waited to purchase this book from Borders because I didn't want to wait for it to be shipped. It was a "late arrival" (March 2nd) and well worth the wait. I'm a frequent reader of Mr. Kelby's Photoshop material ("Down and Dirty Tricks", "CS2 Killer Tips", and the magazines "Photoshop User" and "Layers") and I must say this book is another masterpiece. My copy of "The Channels Book" is only 6 weeks old and looks as if it's been in my library for years.
I've read a few reviews here that seem to do a disservice to someone wanting to learn the power of Photoshop channels.I myself like the fact that Mr. Kelby shows screenshots with his "optimal settings" and describes the images to which he applied those settings. It allows the reader to QUICKLY use the techniques being applied while also giving a starting point that causes the reader to THINK about how that technique may or may not apply to their own images.
When it comes to improving images, selection is key, and the approach you'll take from the use this book isolates just that part of the image that needs adjusting. With different image examples in each chapter along with an explanation of which techniques work where and why, the time-saving tools and correction methods you'll add to your arsenal are worth the price of admission.
One final note: There's a reason that Mr. Kelby was awarded with the distinction of being the world's #1 bestselling author of all computer and technology books, across all categories for the second straight year. His easy to follow, excellent writing style will help you develop lifelong skills faster and easier then you've ever imagined!