20Mar/105
The Photoshop CS4 Companion for Photographers
- ISBN13: 9780596521936
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Product Description
"Derrick shows that Photoshop can be friendly as well as powerful. In part, he does that by focusing photographers on the essential steps of an efficient workflow. With this guide in hand, you'll quickly learn how to leverage Photoshop CS4's features to organize and improve your pictures." -- John Nack, Principal Product Manager, Adobe Photoshop & Bridge
Many photographers -- even the pros -- feel overwhelmed by all the editing options Photoshop provides. T... More >>
March 20th, 2010 - 17:14
Review by Wilson Nam
This book outlines a workflow for photographers using components in Photoshop CS4. It gives step-by-step procedures on what to do before, during and after downloading the image files from your camera to the computer. The first half of the book talks about the workflow utilizing Adobe Bridge, and Adobe Camera Raw to organize, tag, rate, batch process, and photo edit your work. It highlights the importance of customizing your own workspace(s) for each step of the workflow to maximize efficiency. The second half of the book talks about image editing in Adobe Camera Raw (for more advanced batch processing) and then in Photoshop (for refining images). The book finishes with a chapter on a list of handy Photoshop recipes for photographers and another chapter on printing tips.
Photoshop users include artists, designers, photographers and more. This book is specifically written for photographers. There are many other features in Photoshop not relevant to photographers that are beyond the scope of this book. If you are a photographer who wants to adapt a good workflow, this book would be a good read.
Review by Jeff Kew
this is a great little book for the price. It’s got everything in it that you would expect; download, processing and printing. It’s all there. What you’ll discover is that after reading the book, you’ll find it easier to just leave by your keyboard. It’s small enough that it doesn’t get in the way.
This is by no means a complete photoshop book. It is targeted for a specific task and it’s priced that way too. Far too often Photoshop books are crammed with everything and weigh in at a few pounds. For many that’s a necessity, but that’s not what this book is about. In fact, if you’re a shooter that is mobile and processes on site, you’ll probably end up throwing this book in your bag as a quick reference.
Rating: 4 / 5
March 20th, 2010 - 18:57
I picked this up while browsing. In the first 3 chapters I learned more than with all the “big” books on CS4 that I already have.
Sorry Scott and Martin. This provides an excellent introduction and step by step process through the wonderful world of ACR 5.4.
Processing has become quicker and better using the tools presented here. I still use the bibles when I need more in depth discussion
of a particular subject, but I start here. I highly recommend it for beginners and for advanced users.
Rating: 5 / 5
March 20th, 2010 - 20:08
I shoot all my photos in raw. I rely on CS4 raw for most of my corrections. I found “The photoshop CS4 companion for photographers” very helpful is working our standardized procedures. Derrick Story provides clear explanations with helpful illustrations. Finally, unlike many photoshop guides, the book is small enough to carry on a trip when your laptop is used for editing. Very pleased with the purchase.
Rating: 5 / 5
March 20th, 2010 - 21:15
I had never used any form of Photoshop before I purchased CS4 during 11/2008. I bought a couple of very good books but found that both Photoshop and the books were a little too hard to get started with. This book provided the introduction that I needed.
Story manages to provide a highly abridged and simplified guide to PS CS4 because he is the one author who isn’t afraid to make choices for you. He freely admits that his Companion isn’t meant to cover every feature of PS, just a bare minimum of the most essential ones. And instead of telling you about the 50 different ways to accomplish some task, Story just tells you what he does. The result is that you quickly begin to use PS in a useful manner.
I’ve since moved on to other sources. In particular, I highly recommend the video tutorials that come with Photoshop CS4: Essential Skills (Photography Essential Skills). Those tutorials fit very well into my learning style. But a newbie will need something simpler to get started. This book is an excellent choice for that purpose.
Rating: 5 / 5
March 20th, 2010 - 23:28
I got this book to complement Deke McClelland’s excellent One-On-One volume (ISBN 978-0596521899) and am glad I did. The books are definitely complementary.
The Companion for Photographers is well thought-out. Mr. Story presents a totally Adobe-based workflow that starts with importing images using Photo Downloader in Adobe Bridge, adds metadata, then does quite a bit of editing using Adobe Camera RAW (ACR), and finally uses Photoshop CS4 for final adjustments when needed.
The book doesn’t attempt to make you a Photoshop CS4 expert. I found it to be an excellent introductory guide for digital photographers who want to know enough about Photoshop CS4 to use the program well without getting inundated in too many details. It succeeds well at that level.
No sample/demo disc is included. Instead, Story invites the reader to follow along and try the techniques on their own images. This works fine for me, although some may prefer to use something provided with the book.
The workflow is logical and presented with sufficient detail and delightful prose. However, my workflow is based on Apple’s Aperture, and I didn’t know quite what to do with the Bridge description. What did interest me, and will likely cause me to try importing with Bridge in the future, was the automatic metadata addition/embedding during import, which I didn’t know about until reading this book.
I found the Adobe Camera RAW presentation excellent. ACR received a lot of enhancements in CS4 and Story covered them very well, succinctly and interestingly. He really shows how much you can do in ACR–much of which required Photoshop in earlier versions. His descriptions are simple, direct and understandable.
Layers–whose capabilities and accessibility were greatly improved in CS4–are covered very well in the book. You won’t become an expert in using layers after a casual reading, but you should definitely feel like exploring them if you haven’t already. And if you’ve been using Photoshop for a while, the discussion on new layer capabilities will serve as a good introduction to their capabilities.
There’s a very valuable “Recipes” chapter that covers many of the most common adjustments/edits photographers are likely to need for their images. Story presents them with impressive clarity.
Big plusses for me in this book: very approachable introduction to CS4; delightful prose (almost conversational, as opposed to academic); copious use of photos and screen captures; useful recipes for the most common photographic corrections; and the physical size of the book (makes it very easy to carry with you if desired). I’m highly recommending this volume to my digital photographer friends.The Photoshop CS4 Companion for Photographers
Rating: 5 / 5