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Review by Lauren Bavin and
Meryl Bartho
If you are familiar with Scott Kelbys writing style
you will already be aware that his books do not read like your average
technical manual.
He writes as if he is sitting across the table from
you having a coffee and discussing his latest discovery about his
closest friend, and I must say that Photoshop must be his dear friend
as he has such insight into this programme.
For those not familar with his style - you have
been missing out. Far from dry and full of facts and instructions,
Scott Kelby imparts his knowledge in such a way that you are constantly
having those "aha" moments as you browse through the chapters.
In fact within the first few pages I had one of
those aha moments as he discusses saving your digital negatives
in a way that was eminantly sensible but that I'd never thought
of before.
Chapters One and Two are entirely devoted to the
file browser – this I must confess is a part of Photoshop
which, up till now, I have just ignored, since reading these chapters
I’m navigating folders, adding keywords, ranking and flagging
– all like a pro! I have several other programs to manage
graphics on my hard drive which I feel now are obsolete –
did you know that Photoshop’s File Browser is all by itself
more powerful than many stand-alone products? As Scrapbookers, just
think of the reward of after a few hours work being able to easily
find long lost photos and elusive elements!
In Chapter Three we move on the Cropping and Resizing
– as he says this does not sound exciting but sadly, we spend
a great deal of time doing just that. Many’s the time I’ve
seen questions in the scrapbook site forums asking about sizes,
my feeling is that all your questions would be answered within this
chapter, along with clever tricks like how to straighten crooked
photos, how to use the crop tool to add more canvas area, how to
reach the transform handles when you have dropped a too-large photo
onto your layout, sizing photos up and down correctly.
One part of these chapter was worth the cost of
the book alone to me. Scott Kelby describes the automated cropping
and straightening tool which I had never discovered. He describes
how Photoshop CS will automatically crop and straighten a scan of
multiple photographs. Think of the time saved using this technique!!!
How many of us have not, when viewing our photographic
efforts, found ourselves wishing that we’d turned off the
flash, or turned it on to fill in the flash? These and many other
photo flaws (wonderful info on red-eye removal!) Kelby shows, step-by-step
how to correct in Chapter Four. Also included in this chapter is
very valuable information for digi scrappers on dodging and burning,
as he says “done right”.
Also covered in these chapters are vital techniques
for reducing digital noise and fixing under exposed photos ( a great
solution which I have used many times since reading the book)
Colour correction is dealt with in great detail
in Chapter Five. In the past I have waded through tut after tut
trying to unravel the mysteries of scary things like curves and
levels – his detailed, but to the point instructions make
it a cinch. If you are about to embark on a photo shoot, his black
/ white / grey card, included in the book is an absolute must have!
Its something I had never thought of but is perfect if you are one
who likes to do the "home photoshoots" like I do Levels
and Curves are just so easy if you can establish a white, grey &
black point in a photo – at the start of the shoot you get
your subject to hold this card for one test shot, after this each
photo (which is taken in those lighting conditions) can quickly
and easily be adjusted using his technique.
He also discusses the colour space used in Photoshop
which is likely to be the number one most important change to make
for digital photographers.
The very first thing I ever wanted to do was to
extract things from backgrounds – I just wish I’d been
able to read Chapter Four before doing so! Go through the stages
of using the extract filter with Kelby and soon you will have every
whisker of hair preserved – he has such clever tips and techniques
to help you through this often requested task. Scared of the incredibly
useful pen tool? I was a little intimidated by this vector tool
until I read the chapter on the use of this very powerful tool.Like
everything else Scott Kelby writes about the he explains it just
makes it sound so easy.
Chapters 7 and 8 deal in depth with retouching digital
photographs . Scott Kelby delves in depth into digital plastic surgery
in order to make the subjects of our photographs appear at their
best. In these chapters he teaches the use of the healing tool,
a tool which is much used by digital scrapbookers in photograph
repairing.
He also discusses techniques for softening and applying
the popular "dreamy" effect to your portraits.
One of my favourite chapters is the chapter on photographic
special effects. In this chapter Scott describes how to apply 38
different special effects to your photos.
Some of PSCS’s great new features are also
explained - photo filters, creating depth of field, stitching panoramas
together – and good advice on how to take a good panorama
in the first place – if you set it up right, Photoshop will
do the rest for you.
Simple but effective effects such as a blurred lighting
vignette is described so simply you will wonder why you didnt think
of this method yourself!!!!
He also covers very useful techniques for digital
scrapbookers such as replacing skies, adding motion effects, and
collage with layer masking ( very useful for the more graphic style
digital scrapbooker)
Black and white and sepia photos and beautiful used
with full colour ones on a scrapbook page – if you are less
than satisfied with the results you have been getting Chapter Ten
is for you. Who would have though that there could be so many ways
to turn a colour photo black and white? – beautiful, different
effects can be achieved using his different techniques. In fact
even if you are satisfied with the results try out a few of these
techniques – maybe you will be surprised at just how much
better they can be!
Perhaps one of the most important lessons I learned
was in the chapter on sharpening - Scott Kelby gives us precise
instructions on the optimal settings for sharpening those soft digital
photographs.Digital i scrappers will also enjoy his tips on web
sharpening – you have put a great deal of work into your layout
– make the web copy the best it can be!
The final chapter deals with showing your photographic
work to your client. Most of us don’t have clients but still
there is a lot of interesting information in this chapter - for
example, the creation of a copyright brush, creating watermarks,
adding copyright info, creating picture package layouts.
The photographs used in this book are beautiful,
many of them contributed by top photographers. All of them are in
colour, which for a book on Photoshop make great sense, but yet
so few are. Project images in the book are downloadable, so you
can work along.
The book is one that you can put down and pick up
when you have a few moments free or like me read it from cover to
cover!!!- It is a very well thumbed bible for me already and absolutely
well worth the cover price.
I can only but thoroughly recommend this book to
you. I only wish I’d had it when I first started taking my
first trembling steps with Photoshop, it would certainly have saved
me a great deal of trouble and frustration!
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