Customer Reviews

Rendering Fashion, Fabric and Prints with Adobe Photoshop

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

 

 

This book should have been 1/2 the size and 1/2 the price. I nearly returned it, but since there are so few instructional books on Photoshop geared towards textile/surface design available on the market, I stuck it out.

I'd throw out half the content. Too much text is spent explaining the textile industry. While it is important to understand the textile trade/printing process, that's not what I wanted when I bought this book. Much of the book focuses on "Basic Design" principles, putting together a portofolio, presentation boards, the future of digital printing etc... like a Textile Design 101 class. Some people might find this helpful ... I found it infuriating.

This book is NOT about inspiration. The exercises are drab, the illustrations and sample files are plain and artless. Sometimes key information about where to look for tools is missing or mis-labeled. One section refers to a Demo plug-in to use, but it doesn't name the plug-in and there are no plug-ins found on the CD. There are product placement "advertisements" that annoy me. And the author assumes from the get-go that the "student" has access to a flatbed scanner and other expensive hardware; clearly a textbook geared towards a shared studio/lab classroom situation.

The CD is a disaster. NONE of the file folders or names referenced in the text relate to the CD content. Most of the files are there, but not in any logical order and with different file names. When the author references a file in an exercise, you can spend more time looking for the file than actually performing the exercise. There are multiple copies of some files and it's missing other files altogether. Chapter 3 is the first chapter where exercises with CD files begin, but the Chapter 3 folder is empty! There are tons of images of "Student" work that is completely uninspired and seems more like a way to get the author's favorite student "published".

This is an unsophisticated and horribly uninspired text. I kept it because there is so little available geared towards textile design.

My background is in Fine Arts with an advanced understanding of textiles including weaving, sewing, handprinting textiles and traditional croquis painting. I am very computer literate and am not afraid of software. I've never been able to merge my hands on painting etc to the digital realm and have been looking for instructional aids to help with that. I had high expectations and wanted a fairly sophisticated reference book. I feel like I'm sifting through a lot of chaff for a meager meal. I guess I'm hungry.

I'm determined to break through to learn to utilize a very sophisticated product (Photoshop) for my needs. I'll get my inspiration elsewhere. I gave this book 2 stars only because there is some value in working through the exercises which are specifically geared towards pattern and textile design.

> If you are looking for inspiration, don't buy this book.

> If you know you'll be dissuaded and frustrated by disorganized and missing references to files and tools - don't buy this book.

> If you're new to design and don't understand textiles, I'm not sure you will be well-served by the presentation of the "Basics".

> If you buy this book, glean what you can and ignore the discouraging mediocrity.

Absolutely not worth the price it is being sold for. i agree with other reviewers that half of the information is totally not required.Plus the CD's are a mess as half of your time is wasted in searching the relative images in the CD for the excercises and some of them are completely missing!!! I could not render half of the fabrics as per the instructions since as they are very unspecific & confusing.So many pages have been wasted in giving a brief of textiles which is a different subject altogether and the one who would want to use this book has to be thorough with textiles. The information on textiles also is too brief & confusing.Aslo there were too many examples & mini biographies of people who are successful CAD/Textile designers which was totally not required.I hopped & jumped & skipped throughout the book expecting something useful but in vain.I finally gave up and returned it.Please do not waste money on this book.I really would like someone to come up with a more specific and useful book for using such important softwares like Adobe Illustrator & Photoshop specifically for rendering fashion as I desperately want to learn this. I expected that this book would be a good substitute (as this is the only book i hv found till now that uses photoshop to render textiles) for the highly expensive CAD courses here in NY. But unfortunately i was thouroughly disappointed. Can someone please suggest me any other good books related to Adobe Illustrator & Photoshop for rendering fashion, textiles & prints?????Suggestions are welcome - nins25@gmail.com

I am a textile/surface design student and find this book an indispensible tool to understanding the way new technologies are changing the face of textile design. This seems to be an uncomfortable time of transition between the old and new ways, as teachers hold on to the way they learned textile design, but in the real world the fashion industry is embracing technology at an incredible speed.
This book is well worth the $60 as it is crammed with information that will help you use Photoshop effectively as both a creative and practical tool. I found the little vignettes written by people in industry to be refreshing and informative.
That said, I was disappointed by the graphics. With a couple of exceptions, most of the designs used as examples are boring and unimaginative. I compare this to older, traditional books on textile design that feature beautiful prints.
The enclosed CD has many useful goodies.
The book even includes advice on the career marketplace and gives portfolio and resume tips.
I hope the authors come up with a similar book but for Adobe Illustrator. A couple of companies I know of use Illustrator exclusively for their designs.

I am a traditional fashion illustrator and wanted to become more familiar with doing more of my work on computers and specifically with Adobe Photoshop, however there were no Photoshop books specifically geared to fashion until now.

A friend showed me this book and I could not believe how complete and user friendly it was! I just had to have my own copy. The CD that came with it was so amazying---it had everything I could ask for and more. I higly recommend this book to anyone wanting to better understand Photoshop and fashion! Bravo!

this is one of only two refrences currently avlaible on the subject. (a third is coming soon)

there are a lot of editing problems, and missing files. extremly frustrating when you are trying to work thorugh the exercises.

but, i took the basics that it offered and ran with it.

it is a pricy book, but i would recommend it (as it's cheaper then the other book available) as of now, and seen the new book. hopefully a new addition will be released minus the mistakes. so that it can be more useful refrence for those of us intrested in this subject.

i'd also like to see some information on advanced techniques. and more info on using a drawing tablet.

the title is also misleading, as all you learn is how to render textiles.

I have found this book to be very informative and easy to follow for a beginning student of fabric design. Photoshop has so many applications and the author of this book really streamlined the information to apply directly to what I need to learn regarding fashion/ design applications. I refer to it constantly.

This could have been a long needed and sensational book for apparel and textile designers. However, the copy I received has CD's that are inoperable, in the case of one, and mislabeled with files that are hard to find in the case of the other. The necessary sample files to perform at least 1/3 of the exercises in the book are missing altogether. I have written to the publisher, the author, and the bookseller with no response. Does anyone know how to get correct CD's with this book?

Excellent Textile and Fashion Textbook

A must buy for anyone in the textile or fashion industries. Beginners will find all the info they need to begin a career in fashion textiles and advanced users of textile cad will find techniques to solve many fabric related issues of CAD design.

The book has been fantastic insight to using Photoshop as textile design software. The enclosed CD has many easy to follow examples that are outlined in the text and a second CD has a 30 day evaluation version of Photoshop.

The portfolio and resume tipsalone are well worth the $60!