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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Read the Best Photography Books; don't bother with this one, February 22, 2007
This review is from: Preventive Photoshop: Take the Best Digital Photographs Now for Better Images Later (Paperback)
As a serious Digital SLR photo-hobbyist, I often look at my abilities and try to find weaknesses so I can improve. Currently I am focusing on my Photoshop skills. When I saw this book, I thought I could focus more on the Photoshop basics and creative technique, instead of skills related to correcting my photographic mistakes.
Chapter one starts off with "How many times have you heard the phase `I'll just fix it in Photoshop,' and then discovered that `fixing' an image means hours in front of your computer? ... Wouldn't it be better - and easier - to take the time to shoot the photograph right in the first place". The questions asked right at the beginning is what this book is supposed to be about, and I want to know the answers. Unfortunately the next 151 pages (excluding the index pages) fail to provide the answers I am looking for. Chapter one for example is 6 pages long excluding the opening statement page and contains a more detailed opening statement and discusses lighting, tones and toning, special effects, and sharpening, and a closing summary. These are some pretty weighty topics to split up between six pages. Unfortunately the entire book takes this approach.
There was not enough detail in the subjects for a beginner to gain a full understanding and was too generalized for an experienced photographer to learn from. I can honestly say I didn't learn a thing from reading this book. There are some topics I am interested in exploring, however my interest was not created from reading this book. The topic list is very thorough, but discussed too briefly to be of any benefit on its own.
I would recommend finding a book with a more specific subject to learn from. Brian Peterson's Understanding Exposure for the novice or Real World Camera Raw with Adobe Photoshop CS2 by Bruce Fraser for interest in workflow and working with RAW files comes to mind as excellent books to learn from.
PROS:
Offers a thorough list of topics that may pique interest in specific areas
CONS:
Topic discussions to generalized to be helpful for beginner or knowledgeable photographers
Fails to answer the questions, posed by the author
Provides a broad overview with no useful detail
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A good overview and thought starter, October 19, 2009
This review is from: Preventive Photoshop: Take the Best Digital Photographs Now for Better Images Later (Paperback)
Preventive Photoshop - Taking the Best Digital Photographs Now for Better Images Later by Douglas Ford Rea is not your typical Photoshop book. It is as much a primer on digital photography as it is a Photoshop tutorial. The book focuses on taking the best possible digital capture when shooting to avoid having to rescue images with Photoshop in postproduction. I see other reviewers have had mixed opinions regarding this book. I recommend you buy this book if you have a digital SLR and want to understand how to move beyond program mode and begin to exploit the camera's true potential. You will in turn be exposed to some very valuable Photoshop basics that I would venture to guess many long time Photoshop users may not understand as well as they should. I agree with the other reviewers that this book is too basic in many areas for advanced photographers, but I found it to be well written for helping novices gain a better understanding of several complex issues.
The book opens with two chapters dedicated to a brief explanation of what to look for in a quality image. Rea touches upon lighting, tonality, sharpening, metering, exposure adjustment and digital specific issues such as Raw vs. JPEG and White balance to name just a couple. Chapter 3 focus moves to pre-visualizing your desired image and using the tools of the digital world to make your vision become a reality. Chapters 4 and 5 go into greater depth discussing procedures for balancing mixed light sources and how to create special effects both in camera at the time of capture as well as in postproduction. Chapters 6 walks the reader through the Adobe Camera Raw converter. I have shot in Raw since I bought my first Canon G3 point and shoot around 2000. I don't know why you wouldn't use Raw. It gives you the most information and control over the final appearance of your image. I perused chapter 6, but having been a Raw shooter for years I didn't see much in the way of new information. If you have never shot Raw, this is a good introduction to the advanced control afforded by adopting a Raw workflow. Managing Color is covered in chapter 7. Rea discusses both camera color profiling as well as how to properly profile your monitor for a properly controlled color workflow. If your prints don't match what you are seeing on your monitor you are going to waste a lot of time and energy making adjustments, take the time and spend a few dollars to set up a color managed workflow. Having said all that, his discussion of color management is on the right track but a little too advanced for the beginner. The remainder of the book is dedicated to walking you through Rea's recommendations for setting up Photoshop and then using Photoshop and Bridge to manage and manipulate your digital files.
Douglas Ford Rea been on the faculty at The Rochester Institute of Technology since 1976, and is the Chair of the Photojournalism Department.
To me a review is most meaningful when you know a little something about the person writing the review. I became a full-time professional photographer in 2008, but have been an avid amateur photographer since the late 1970's and have been selling my work since 2004. I started into photography with a pair of Minolta XD-11's. I switched to Canon in 1999 and shot with a Canon 1VHS and 1D Mark II Professional Digital SLR until May of 2008. I currently shoot a Nikon D3 and while the Nikon files do have a different look directly out of the camera, in the end both the Canon and Nikon systems provide wonderful images once they have been worked in post process. I currently do my database and global image adjustment work in Adobe Lightroom 2 and all specialized postproduction is done in Adobe Photoshop CS4. I am toying with the idea of moving my database related work to Apple Aperture 2.
I am a member of the National Association of Photoshop Professionals (NAPP) and make extensive use of the abundant educational materials available on the member website. I have read well over three-dozen Photoshop training guides with one overriding goal in mind; producing the best images possible.
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4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Save your money..., January 27, 2007
This review is from: Preventive Photoshop: Take the Best Digital Photographs Now for Better Images Later (Paperback)
This is the most useless book on photography and Photoshop I have ever read. So much so, that it compelled me to write my first ever book review for Amazon.
The title implies the book will focus on camera techniques that will make image correction in Photoshop unnecessary, or at least easier. I found nothing that even came close to being helpful. This is ironic given that in the last few pages of the book he refers to a phrase he coined, "Photoshop Think", meaning to shoot with Photoshop in mind. A good concept, but there were no concrete examples of any shooting techniques and how they would relate to Photoshop in post-production.
The book in my view is nothing more than a shallow overview of digital photography and Photoshop in general. It describes general definitions and considerations in digital camera technique, and gives an overview of the capabilities available in Photoshop, but goes into no useful detail whatsoever.
This book might be of interest to someone who knows absolutely nothing about digital photography and Photoshop, to provide an overview of what they are all about. If you already own a digital camera and can use it, and if you have any experience at all with Photoshop, look elsewhere.
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