Customer Reviews

Printing with Adobe Photoshop CS4

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

 

 

This book tries to cover a lot of ground - more than it should. Because of this, sections are brief and often poorly explained. There are many sections at the beginning that seem completely extraneous to this topic. Of course taking a good photo is important to a good print but that isn't the focus here.

It is clear the author knows his subject well but this books need a good editor. There are no transitions in the text and I often found myself turning the page in anticipation of an in depth explanation only to find a new chapter starting instead.

More frustrating though was that the explanatory screenshots and photos are often poorly placed without captions and it is impossible to figure out which one goes with the explanation. As mentioned before, the screenshots are too small to read. Also, I found the discussions of plug-ins and third party software completely extraneous to this text.

All that being said, when I finally got to the sections that discuss printing, they were excellent. I really enjoyed the sections on soft proofing and gamut, along with the print output functions. The creative print styles and edges chapters were very interesting.

I did learn several things from this text. It will stay as a reference on my shelf. However, less breadth and more depth on the chosen topic would have made a more useful text.

Everything you always wanted to know about printing but were afraid to ask? Well, not quite. A more accurate title for the book would be Printing Photographs with Adobe Photoshop CS4. But since photos are most of what people are trying to print, the title will reach its audience.

Printing is a nasty subject to tackle. It blends the complexities of arcane topics like color management with the harsh, physical realities of ink, paper, printers, and all the manufacturers of each. The topic touches too many companies. It's tough to simplify when a person just wants the print to look like what is on the computer screen.

Author Tim Daly notes that a good print starts with a good image. The early chapters in the book encourage good habits both at the moment of capture and throughout the editing process. There are explanations for what makes a good image and a good print. Even more useful are the techniques for correcting an image based on the resulting print, so the reader learns to refine the image to perfection. I would've liked to see more examples of this. Problems in shadow areas are specifically mentioned multiple times, but didn't have accompanying examples.

A major problem with the book is the size of the screenshots for the dialogs. They are simply too small. The text is completely unreadable in the screenshots. Considering how many dialogs have to be used to make decent prints, the screenshots are an important part of the book. The accompanying text does not really give enough details to expand on what is obscured.

Adobe Photoshop is rightly the center of the book. But it was nice to see mention of other companies both in the software world, like Nik Software's plug-ins, and printer manufacturer's like Canon, which have a plug-in just for some of their printers. The author also mentions a few of the online options available for printing these days like Blurb's on-demand books. The printing eco-system is big with a lot of options to be found in many places. This exploration is a welcome aspect to the topic of printing.

Writing comprehensively about printing photographs in a digital world is not easy. Even showing examples can't be simple. Imagine trying to show a mistake on a specific printer, which is itself printed in a book using a different printing process and type of paper. Yet even a good explanation of solving just that would go a long way to educating people about the process of printing.

Printing deserves a book to explain it well. A clear guide is needed for the complexities of the whole process, as well as Photoshop's approach to it. The scope of this book is very good, but many times the details are not explained in enough depth. The book is an improvement on the other books that I've read, but ultimately is still not the book I hope for on this important part of photography.

Tim Daly's Printing with Adobe Photoshop CS4 provides an informative, in-depth background on working within the program from a printing viewpoint. The book's 18 chapters are easy to work through and are broken down into a logical format, starting from camera essentials, understanding the difference between RAW and other formats, right through to color-correcting images for print and types of printers available on the market.

If a Photoshop plug-in is deemed worthy, it's briefly discussed where applicable. Daly additionally points out creative ways of achieving old-school photographic borders and effects that can be easily transferred to the digital medium.

Many of the printers, papers and vendors mentioned are geared to the UK audience, and on that note I did feel as though the book could have used a light edit for North American readers. Some of the sentences didn't seem to make complete sense, while text referring to a specific diagram didn't always point to the one being discussed. This however wasn't enough to keep me from reading through and learning some of the significant aspects of working within Photoshop CS4 in order to produce successful results.

Even a seasoned Photoshop user will benefit from the many topics covered in the book. I would further recommend this book to anyone who's learned the program but lacks traditional photography knowledge. Here is where the book especially shines. I plan on keeping it handy as an excellent future resource guide.

Tim Daly has both taught and written on the subject of digital photography and also runs Photocollege, an online photo imaging learning center.

As an experienced Photoshop user, I went in hoping to pick up some useful tricks and processes (which I did). This book is VERY readable and quickly skim-able with lots of screen shots and examples which are pleasing and helpful.

As for "Printing with Photoshop" I didn't see much of that in the book. It was a lot of "how to" (which is still good) and only a small section toward the end focused on printing. In fact, this book seems to go outside its bounds and talk about paper, inks, online printing services (which don't even require the use of Photoshop) and other aspects that go way outside the realm of "printing."

Good info on Photography basics, covering stuff that I learned long ago but haven't revisited in a while (metering, aperture, etc). Also good info on file types, like RAW and why it's good.

Overall a good read and useful book for the beginner to intermediate. Worth a look.

Half of the book's pages are spent for topics that have very little or nothing to do with how to print an image.
Preparing for printout starts at page No 105 of the book!!!!!!
That was one of my worst buy Printing with Adobe Photoshop CS4

I am a beginner at printing photography and digital art. I don't personally do photography, but I do want to be able to print photography for others. I do digital art. It is a great leap to take a digital image and put it on paper. This book is designed to teach the skills needed to effectively do this.

I found the basics of photography to be right at my level. Some of the methods in the book were more about using Photoshop than printing. There were several chapters devoted exclusively to printing, media, and printing accessories. I found all the material very informative.

I appreciate the color plates in the book. In several cases series of photos were laid out to show the process in preparing an image for print. I particularly enjoyed the chapter on creative edges. A properly finished edge with effects is much more important in printed media than it is in digital media.

This book is written at a level that can be understood by the beginner with some experience with Photoshop. It is not, however, too elementary for the experienced printer.

Printing with Adobe Photoshop CS4
By Tim Daly
Printed by Focal Press
ISBN: 9780240811383
Pages: 304
Format: Book - Paperback
Trim: 7.44in x 9.69in
Publication Date: May 19, 2009

[...]

Many books on Photoshop just glaze over the printing process, but this is the book to get to improve your Photoshop output. Tim Daly starts the book talking about the tools to capture your images, gets into color management and profiling. Then moves into solving problems like color casts and how to eliminate them from your final output. Tim also discusses paper types, printer sizes and ink types. This is the only book you'll need if you need to learn more about printing from Photoshop.

I was hoping for a good, in-depth review of the process of digital printing using Photoshop CS4. I came away mildly disappointed. Daly's book does indeed lightly touch on all of the major issues involved, from color management to the basics of image editing to an overview of printer and media types. It goes over the fundamentals of Photoshop's printing dialogues. But it never really digs in to the nitty-gritty details, the little 'gotcha's' that make digital printing so tricky. Daly's writing style could also be described as pedestrian at best, sedating at worst.

Unless you are an absolute beginner reading this book will be a waste of time (and of money). Vey simplistic treatment of really important things, the table of contents could be used as a guide for further reading somewhere else.

I would be surprised if it took the author more than a week to "write" this "book".