40 Photoshop Power Effects [Illustrated] [Paperback]

Scott Hamlin (Author), Scott Balay (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 2002

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

Whether you are new to Photoshop and want to produce some startling and impressive effects quickly, or you are a professional designer looking for inspiration and ground-breaking techniques to push your work to a new level, this book is for you. We've teamed up with top professionals from Eyeland Studio to show you how the experts do it.

We've been ruthless while editing this book: any effects that didn't make the grade were cut. We wanted to have only the best in this compact volume - speed and efficiency were a criteria not just for the effects, but for the book as a whole. Every full color page is precious and we didn't want to waste a single one.

From the Introduction: As the Web has expanded the role of Photoshop beyond it's more traditional role in print design, designers are called upon more and more to turn an empty document into a visually compelling masterpiece in increasingly dwindling timeframes. In a world where our work can be published to the masses in the time it takes you to pour a cup of coffee, time is more and more of the essence.

Clients don't just want innovative and fresh visual effects - they also want them immediately. Third party plug-in filters are typically no help. It doesn't take very much time for their redundant usage to kill their effectiveness for that whole "fresh and innovative" criterion. It doesn't take a designer's trained eye to pick out the abuse of many popular 3rd party filters. We may only have a short time to make our effects, but we rarely want it to look like our effect was done in haste.

As with all Friends of ED books, we offer efficient, comprehensive email support absolutely free.

About the Author

Scott Hamlin is the author numerous books including Flash 5 Magic, Flash 4 Magic, and Effective Web Animation, Interface Design with Photoshop, and CorelDRAW Design Workshop. Scott has also written over 100 articles for over a dozen industry periodicals including Computer Arts Magazine, InterActivity Magazine, Computer Arts Magazine, Web Review, and Web Techniques Magazine.

In addition to Photoshop, Scott Balay is also an avid Flash, Javascript, and PHP developer. His clients include Nokia, Procter & Gamble, and Cisco, and he has been featured in and contributed to numerous Flash and Photoshop publications, such as Computer Arts magazine and the upcoming Inside Photoshop 7 book. In his free time, Scott enjoys accumulating technology and using it to make music, travelling, playing racketball, painting, and contemplating the platypus.

Eyeland Studio is a Web content design studio specializing in online game production and original content design (as well as site design). Eyeland Studio produces several products sold over the Web and on CD-ROM. Eyewire.com, the worlds largest stock imagery company, carries Eyeland Studio's products. Eyeland Studio's past client list includes Nokia, Proctor & Gamble, Sun Microsystems, MTV Europe, Nabisco, and Extensis Corporation.

Product Details

• Paperback: 250 pages
• Publisher: Friends of ed; illustrated edition edition (March 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 190345056X
• ISBN-13: 978-1903450567
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 8 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,685,234 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Step-by-Step walk-through is Great!, June 7, 2002

By 

Jodi E.M. Burt (Atlanta, GA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: 40 Photoshop Power Effects (Paperback)

I am a multimedia developer having used Photoshop since version 3. I make a lot of interfaces for online learning material, and have been frustrated with seeing some neat designs, but not having the slighest idea how these designs are constructed. Scott and Scott's book takes you into the designs and makes it much easier to learn by providing clear instructions and loads of illustrations. Within 30 minutes of reading Section 8: Interfaces, I had completed a design and used it as the shell for one of my tutorials. This book has paid for itself may times over in saved time and impressing my bosses!

I also liked that the example files are also available from the publisher's website(friendsofed.com).

Jodi Burt
Lead Senior Technical Writer for ADP, Inc.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Suprisingly good, April 26, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: 40 Photoshop Power Effects (Paperback)

Based on the cover and the name, I wasn't expecting much from this book. But when I flipped through it, I very pleasently suprised... I would say at least 50% of this book is unique. I've never seen anything like the Abstract chapter (which is mainly why I bought the book). Some of the chapters that contain material I've seen before were done better than I've seen in any other book. The buttons chapter, for example, is better than anything in the Wow book or the Down and Dirty book and the Interfaces chapter is more detailed and informative that anything I've sen in another Photoshop book... on the Earth, Text, and Trimmings chapters--which are just more polished versions of tutorials you can find on the Web. Overall, though, I would say it was money well spent. I'm already getting in the habit of using those shortcut keys, to. Another solid Friends of Ed book!

4.0 out of 5 stars useful tricks, February 5, 2011

By 

iplanes - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: 40 Photoshop Power Effects (Paperback)

Anyone who is addicted to Photoshop will find this book a good addition to their bookshelf. If you are into simply adding a few bits and pieces to pictures or contructing entire images from scratch there are useful ideas here. My only criticism is the insistence on the use of key stroke notation. I much prefer to use a mouse rather than the keyboard as it is much more intuitive. Apart from this a great book.