Photoshop Effects for Portrait Photographers [Paperback]

Christopher Grey (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0240808940 | ISBN-13: 978-0240808949 | Publication Date: October 25, 2006 | Edition: 1

Want to offer your clients more to chose from? Here's how: award winning photographer, Christopher Grey, has developed techniques to enhance portrait photography, using the creative applications available in Photoshop. Photoshop Effects for Portrait Photographers contains detailed explanations of how to replicate many darkroom techniques with Photoshop (Dodging, Burning, Vignettes, etc.) as well as camera and earlier technology techniques (Short Focus, High Speed Film Grain, Hand Coloring, etc.). Grey has also developed almost two dozen ways to replicate traditional painterly and illustrative techniques such as Rough Charcoal Sketch, Wet Watercolor, Silkscreen, and Oil Chalk. Images available for downloading at http://www.ChristopherGrey.com/booksamples.

Key Features
* Each effect is covered in a 2-4 page full color spread for easy comprehension and step-by-step directions
* Effects built with Photoshop CS2, but almost all will work with any version of PS that supports Layers
* Takes some of Photoshop features that are not quite up to par and gives you the tips to take the effect to the next level

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A manual for portrait photographers introduces a range of useful techniques designed to enhance images by using the creative applications available in Photoshop, explaining step by step how to replicate the techniques used in a darkroom with the image processing software to create a variety of special effects." - Paper Clips (Oct. 2006)

"Loaded with high quality illustrations and easy to follow step by step tutorials... it covers some of the best and most often used techniques for going beyond the straight portrait." - Apogee Photo Magazine, November 2006

You'll find a number of interesting techniques in this book...combining these techniques in a slim volume aimed at portrait photographers is an interesting idea.-Peter Bauer, Photoshop user, Feb 2007

"This book is a great tool whether you're a whiz with a camera or not...It has a great down-to-earth approach, without a patronising tone in sight. The author and self-confessed 'Photoshop geek boy' (his words) keeps things simple, omitting all the unnecessary 'Click OK' commands so often littered throughout tutorial-based books...If people are your thing and you prefer a no-fuss approach to tutorials, this book will keep you occupied with a host of projects" - Photoshop Creative

Book Description

Deepen your bag of tricks by building on tools Photoshop offers to expand your product mix and offer your clients more options to choose from!

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 152 pages
• Publisher: Focal Press; 1 edition (October 25, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0240808940
• ISBN-13: 978-0240808949
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 7.6 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,203,473 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A mediocre book from a good photographer., June 8, 2007

By 

Findedeux - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Photoshop Effects for Portrait Photographers (Paperback)

The author is quite a good photographer. His other book, "Master Lighting for the Portrait Photographer" is a great book. This book, on the other hand is not only superficial in its instruction of processing (in that it is all step by step without any real explanation of the tools) but many of the methods covered are subpar.

The problem is that over 1/3rd of the book covers extremely gimmicky techniques that no self-respecting photographer would want to use. Examples of such horrendous methods include making your picture look like a lithograph, a linoleum block, a scratchboard, a pencil sketch, a photocopy sketch, a grain sketch, and an impressionist painting. Of the last 54 pages, only 17 of those pages went over worthwhile techniques.

If this book were cheaper, say $10.00 I could easily recommend it. But for $20.00 or so there are much better books available.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars No revolutionary trick, March 10, 2007

By 

Mehmet Turan "Mehmet" (Istanbul, Turkey) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Photoshop Effects for Portrait Photographers (Paperback)

I base my ratings based on how many times a book makes me say "ahhhh" unfortunately this wasn't much in this book.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A bit short, March 27, 2007

By 

R. van Gaal (Netherlands) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Photoshop Effects for Portrait Photographers (Paperback)

Although the book is a nice read, it does skip details here & there. For experience Photoshop users this is not really a problem though.
The techniques don't go too far, so it's easy enough to blast through the book and read it within a couple of hours.
A few nice techniques though, so if you're really looking for some new effects, there might be something in there.