Plug-ins for Adobe Photoshop: A Guide for Photographers [Paperback]

Jack Drafahl (Author), Sue Drafahl (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1, 2004

This guide to the Adobe Photoshop plug-ins most useful to photographers documents for both amateurs and professionals the makers of these plug-ins, where the physical files are installed, how to access files from outside Photoshop, and which of the available plug-ins are compatible with Photoshop. How to employ these plug-ins to make meaningful, natural-looking enhancements in photographs is then examined. Photographers can study techniques for color and gamma correction, grain reduction, dust and scratch removal, perspective control, and black-and-white conversion. Also investigated is how various plug-ins offer sophisticated ways to create artistic effects such as posterization and solarization, text effects, simulated photo edges and frames, and other eye-catching effects that will help to create stand-apart images clients will love.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Jack Drafahl and Sue Drafahl are professional journalists, lecturers, and multimedia producers. They have written more than 500 articles for publications including Petersen's Photographic, Rangefinder, Photo Lab Management, and Ranger Rick. They are the authors of Step-by-Step Digital Photography, Advanced Digital Camera Techniques, and Photo Salvage with Adobe Photoshop. They live in Portland, Oregon.

Product Details

• Paperback: 128 pages
• Publisher: Amherst Media, Inc. (May 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1584281294
• ISBN-13: 978-1584281290
• Product Dimensions: 11 x 8.4 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,997,874 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars OK book on the subject of Photoshop plug-ins, February 9, 2006

By 

calvinnme - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Plug-ins for Adobe Photoshop: A Guide for Photographers (Paperback)

This is a very light and readable book on Photoshop plug-ins. The authors investigated over 5000 plug-ins to Adobe Photoshop using several different computers since apparently Photoshop crashes if you install more than 1000 plug-ins into it on a single computer. This is a limit I guess few of us will ever be able to verify.
The authors will show you how to find the right plug-ins for your system and install them as well as explain what they are and how they work. They will also show you how to manage your plug-ins or even make some of your own. This book is a good resource written especially for the digital photographer, and has plenty of color images demonstrating what various plug-ins can do to a photograph. In the back of the book there are listings of web resources for finding the various plugins. Several of the links are now broken, but there is still a lot of good information there.
Besides going over the set of plug-ins that deal with image correction such as lens distortion and correcting for JPEG compression effects, there are sections on adding "the elements" to your images and also for surface effects. The element plug-ins include lightening, trees, fog, smoke, and fire. The surface effect plug-ins include fur, jigsaw puzzle, tape, and wood. The section on creating your own plug-ins mainly refers you to on-line resources, which is good since there are many good tutorials already out there on making your own Photoshop plug-in. There is even a chapter on plug-ins for hardware devices such as digital cameras, graphics tablets, and scanners.
The release of Photoshop CS2 has made some of this book obsolete, but it is still a good resource of creative ways to use Photoshop in digital photography that is a cut above most books on the subject out there since it deals with more than mere image correction. Also, the web resources and listing of plug-ins are still useful. For under $20 it is still a good value, especially since it is hard to find books on the subject of Photoshop plug-ins.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars important book, June 26, 2007

By 

Ido Levy (Australia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Plug-ins for Adobe Photoshop: A Guide for Photographers (Paperback)

This book covers information you can find yourself through a good research on the Net, but for what it cost I would get the book and save myself hours of research.
For the lazy type of person this book is a must ;-)

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Good Book Covering the Topic Well, March 16, 2006

By 

Patrick Rice (North Olmsted, Ohio USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Plug-ins for Adobe Photoshop: A Guide for Photographers (Paperback)

This is a very good book covering the subject of Adobe Photoshop plug-ins. There were numerous plug-ins that I was not familiar with that I have since acquired because of this book. The authors explain the good and bad aspects of each of the plug-ins included throughout. I couldn't expect anything more from a book on this topic.