The Photoshop Book for Digital Photographers (Paperback)

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Some people make their living with a camera, and for these people the maturation of digital photo technology means a significant shift in their trade. The Photoshop Book for Digital Photographers is for people who are already adept with a camera, and pretty much up to speed on the peculiarities of digital photography, too. The book teaches these people how to use Adobe Photoshop, the standard photo-editing software package. More accurately, the book explains how to use Photoshop for the kinds of work professional photographers do.

Case in point: The removal from photographs of what are politely called skin blemishes. Author Scott Kelby (the editor of Photoshop User offers two strategies: One you can use to remove all traces of a mark but which requires a fair amount of time, and another procedure that delivers "pretty good" results and which can be done on many pictures (such as a set of class portraits) rapidly. Kelby teaches by means of heavily illustrated procedures, each between five and 20 steps long and spanning several pages. A good way to use this book is by scanning the table of contents for a procedure that interests you (say, "Fixing Underexposed Photos," or "Pro Wrinkle Removal"). This will enable you to spot Photoshop techniques you hadn't considered. --David Wall

Topics covered: How to use Adobe Photoshop if, for you, the program is one tool out of many in a photographic kit. Tricks teach you how to recolor hair, whiten teeth and eyes, modify unflattering body contours, dodge and burn, apply filters for effect, assemble panoramas, and do a score of other slick photo jobs.

Product Description

Finally, a Photoshop book that is written expressly for professional photographers and hi-end serious amateurs that doesn't talk about F-stops, exposures, and how to frame a shot (you know all that stuff already--if you don't¿I hate to say it, but this isn't for you).

This new book, from Photoshop User magazine editor and bestselling author Scott Kelby, starts at the moment your digital camera photos come into Photoshop, and he shows you the Photoshop pros techniques for managing, correcting, retouching and outputting your photos to knock your client's socks off, and turn you into a Photoshop production wizard. This book is absolutely ideal for traditional photographers who are making the jump to digital photography, and Scott's casual, step-by-step, plain-English style makes even the most complex Photoshop techniques seem so easy and accessible. It's the type of book that makes you smile and think "Ahhhh, so that's how they do it" and then immediately you realize "Hey, I can do this!"

The entire book is graphically rich, in full color cover-to-cover, and best of all it's packed with real-world project-based tutorials that will take you through the process of sizing your images with the proper resolution (and the secret to doing so without losing image quality), how to deal with High ISO noise, blue channel noise, and other common plagues introduced by digital cameras; you'll learn how the pros color correct their photos for output on everything from inkjet printers to printing presses, and the secrets to getting perfect fleshtones no matter where it¿s output. You'll learn the sharpening techniques today's top digital photographers use, and how the leading retoucher's perform "digital plastic surgery" in Photoshop, plus professional facial retouching techniques using Photoshop 7.0's amazing new tools.

Plus, you'll also learn how to manage your photos, "digital dodging and burning" tricks, dealing with common problems, making client presentations within Photoshop and on the Web, and the inside tips on how to work faster and more efficiently than you ever thought possible. If you're serious about digital photography and Photoshop, this is book you've been waiting for.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: New Riders Press; 1 edition (March 15, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0735712360
• ISBN-13: 978-0735712362
• Product Dimensions: 9.9 x 8 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (95 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #258,721 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

68 of 70 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Useful for entry level Photoshop processing only, June 19, 2003

By	Armen Jamkotchian (Los Angeles, CA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This book could be very useful for beginner amateur digital photographers not having enough experience with Photoshop. It is mainly focused on relatively simple photo corrections (cropping, color adjustments, removing blemishes, etc.), but doesn't address higher level artistic techniques. If you are using a digital camera for vacation or family pictures, this manual will let you make your photos look more natural, but if you are into serious digital photography and would like to learn those neat techniques that always aspired you, look elsewhere. For example, try the "The Photoshop 7 Wow! Book", or similar publications, which will give you in-depth coverage of those techniques.

This book uses "step-by-step" approach, which is helpful for the beginners, but can get very irritating for those who have some experience already.

Nevertheless, for what it is intended for, the book is quite good.

36 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great, even if you aren't a pro..., April 26, 2003

By	Stella Nemeth (Macungie, PA, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

The Editorial Review begins: "Finally, a Photoshop book that is written expressly for professional photographers and hi-end serious amateurs that doesn't talk about F-stops, exposures, and how to frame a shot (you know all that stuff already-if you don't-I hate to say it, but this isn't for you). "

I don't know any of that stuff about F-stops, exposures, etc., but this book absolutely IS for me. I'm not a professional photographer, but I am on my third digital camera.

I've worked my way up, over the last 4 years, from beginner photo manipulation software, through Photoshop Elements to Photoshop itself. I use Photoshop because it does the things I need to do. What Scott Kelby's book did was show me some of the less obvious ways to get things done. Some of the easier ones were amazing.

This is an excellent book that is intended for anyone who has a copy of Photoshop and needs to get digital photos fixed. It is very accessable. You can open it anywhere and follow the steps in any chapter and successfully adjust your own photos using Scott Kelby's instructions. He designed the book so each chapter is independent and none of them require that you read the chapters before it to understand what he is trying to accomplish. If you can follow along with the pictures, you can do what he is teaching. He believes in lots of screen shots and even though his screen shots show Macs and I'm using a PC, Photoshop is Photoshop and I can follow along. He gives both the PC and the Mac commands for every Keyboard shortcut he uses. This is great for me because I generally need to learn something that is buried in the middle of the book, and I don't have the time or patience to read four or five chapters to understand how to get it done.

I own several Photoshop books, and I've never seen some of the techniques he teaches in those other books. He also teaches some advanced general Photoshop techniques and he makes those easy to understand too.

Worth every penny...

28 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Scott gets DOWN & DIRTY behind the lens!, May 14, 2003

By A Customer

If you own a digital camera you NEED this book. I don't care what level you are at. But I have to make something clear. Make no mistake, this is first and foremost a PHOTOSHOP book. If you have a digital camera but you do not have PhotoShop, this book is not for you. But if you do have PhotoShop, especially PS 7, this book is INDISPENSABLE. Look, I can go on and on here about how great this book is, but why bother? If you own Photoshop you MUST know who Scott Kelby is. There really is nothing more to say. Either you get up every day and thank god for him every time you use PhotoShop or you don't. IF you do, this is his BEST book, enough said. Order it, and get very excited when it arrives. If he is not for you, you probably haven't even read this far. And I did put this book to the test. I took three of what I consider to be my best 8x10 digital pics (taken with my Minolta DImage 7) and re-worked them according to Scott's instructions. Although I was on the ledge as to if the re-worked images were better than my original images (I'm sure there was some ego on my part involved) I put the three images side by side with the reworked ones and showed them to 4 of my clients. And although the differences were mainly in the working of the midrange areas only, all 4 of my clients picked the re-worked images. Thanks, Scott. Everytime I pick up one of your books, you make me better at what I do. You gotta love this guy.