He Did It Again

PhotoShop has become the gold standard for the processing of digital photographs. And that means not just as a method of creating montages of things that never were, but more importantly, as a tool to make the final photograph, be it print or electronic transmission, reflect the vision of the photographer. But this capability comes at a cost in complexity. Moreover, many of the tools are of little concern to the photographer.

Tim Grey is a leading guru in the PhotoShop educational field. He has written several top-notch books about specialized aspects of the software, as well as articles, and he teaches around the country. Now he's come up with a book that's a step by step approach to processing digital photographs from the second they are transferred into a computer until they are saved ready for printing. At first that sounds like something that should be simple and shouldn't require any great knowledge once the picture is taken.

For people who are satisfied with a quick snapshot for their memory book, that will be true. But an underlying assumption of the great photographers like Ansel Adams, and the creators of PhotoShop, is that media, whether film or digital, just doesn't have the range of the human eye. Serious photographers have been trying to extend the range of the capturing media for many years. That's what PhotoShop is capable of and that's what Tim Grey is teaching.

Grey's approach is simple, methodical and almost boring. He leads you step by step along the way with practical instructions and suggestions. He starts out by explaining how to use the PhotoShop Raw converter, a part of the program that takes those information loaded files that are an optional format for many cameras, to recover all of the data that a camera can capture. (The JPG format, while easy to use, losses a lot of this information.) Grey even tells you what controls not to use because there will be better opportunities later in the process.

Grey then gets progressively more complex. He tells you about basic adjustments like cropping, tone and color controls and cleanup. Many users will find that his suggestions in this area will help them to utilize the software far more effectively then they've been doing. But then he goes on to discuss more advanced adjustments, including the targeting of adjustments to specific areas of the picture. He finishes up with help on file saving and the automation features of PhotoShop that make repetitive tasks easy.

The book will appeal to beginners in PhotoShop because of the simplicity and directness of its approach. But even experienced users will glean something of use. I've been a user of PhotoShop for several years, and I picked up a few techniques that I didn't know that have already led to an improvement in my photography.

Grey also tailors his instruction to the users of PhotoShop Elements, the slimmed down version of the software that some photographers use.

This book should be in the library of every PhotoShop user. But it is not the only book one needs. Grey's writing is instructive, and there are loads of examples, but I've found that a person needs practical exercises to master the program. I've found the tutorials in the "PhotoShop Artistry" series by Barry Haynes to be extremely helpful in mastering PhotoShop. Haynes doesn't provide the clear explanations for his procedures that Grey does, but his hands-on tutorials are amongst the best around.

I do have one bone to pick. The screen shots of selections were so small that I couldn't see the "marching ants" without a magnifying glass. Have some pity on us old guys and let the graphic artists enhance these pictures.

Awesome work

This has been the most helpful Photoshop book I have ever read. Rather than just breezing through hazy step-by-step instructions on his personal favorite techniques, the author takes care to explain not only the function of each adjustment, but also how it works. This approach spurs the reader to invent his own understanding of the various adjustment methods instead of bombarding him with mysterious Filter and Tool references.

If you aren't Tim Grey himself, this book WILL increase your Photoshop knowledge. ;)

Highly recommended.

A What to Do When Book, Not a How to do it.

When you first start working with digital photographs, that is beyond the shoot and store on hard disk, you wind up working with Photoshop. And when you start working with Photoshop, you are faced with a bewildering assortment of things that you can do. You're going to spend lots of time with your computer. If you're like most of us, you will try this and that, and eventually find that you can spend an enormous amount of time manipulating an image. Some of the things produce dramatic impact, many do not.

Most people want to go shoot pictures and not spend too much time staring at a computer. This book is about applying some organization to using Photoshop. If you follow a procedure to first look at your pictures, then decide what to do and in what order, you can get better pictures faster, leaving more time to go shoot more.

This book is about all of these steps. It is a mixture of what to do to an image (it is not a how to do it, that's a Photoshop book), in what order, and how to wind up with a spectacular picture quickly.

This is a different concept from any of the Photoshop books I've read.