Adobe Photoshop 5.0 for Photographers [With Tutorial]

I got this as a gift for my husband who has used it every time he works on pictures.

I think this book is a wonderful overview of not only Photoshop techniques which directly apply to a photographer, but also a lot of information about the scanning,saving, and printing process. It makes the world of Digital Graphics real for a photographer. I recommend this book to photographers out there who are getting started with the digital processes. It clears the smoke.

This is a GREAT book. I've read a lot of Photoshop books about levels and curves, but this was the first book to show me how to actually use them to color correct scanned images. The other books tell you how the levels and curves work, but this book showed my how to use them to evaluate an image and then correct the image. This is also the first book that really taught me how to use the measure tool to automatically rotate an image to a level position. It's full of tips like that. I keep a pile of my most frequently used reference books next to my computer, and this is the one that's usually on the top of the pile. This is not a photoshop beginners book, but I use tips from this book all the time on all of my images.

I am finding this book to be extremely helpful. I have no idea what a previous reviewer was referring to as "oral jargon" but the use of "English" English can trip up American readers once in a while. The book does tend to be terse, I have had to re-read sections to truly understand what the author meant. Trying to use this book without a copy of Photoshop at hand to test techniques for yourself is a bad idea.The illustrations are small but extremely clear and very readable. These small illustrations are usually limited to low-density information such as sample dialog boxes. The photographic examples are produced very well.The emphasis is on using Photoshop to get photos ready for reproduction. As the author clearly states several times, correctly, very few people will ever see the original transparency or negative. They will see a print, a magazine, a calendar, etc. There is a short section on scanners but it is not complete. But then, I didn't buy the book hoping to learn about scanning techniques.The emphasis on service bureaus is extremely relevant, even for amateurs such as myself who have no intention of getting into the business. Many of the techniques and considerations required for getting a digital file ready for a magazine are the same as printing to an Epson at home. Also, most serious amateurs will not be happy with limiting themselves to home ink-jet output. They will find themselves sending digital files off to service bureaus for vastly improved results. I'd rather know how to optimize a file for a Lightjet 5000 myself than rely on the personal tastes of the machine's operator.All in all, a good job.

This is the first book I've seen that is about Photoshop specifically from the photographer's point of view. I found this a great attraction in buying the book.The book has a lot of information which I have found in no other place. The sections on color management in Photoshop are especially important and relevant. The sections on photographic image manipulation are well done and useful.I would recommend the book to photographers who are serious about digital imaging, manipulation, and printing.However, I do have some complaints about the book which annoyed me, and also may "put some others off". It is for these reasons that I think that this is not a "5-star" book.1. The job of editing the book is poor. Not a small amount of the English used is oral-jargon, and as such, is much more difficult to read than it would have been to hear. It makes the reading quite confusing in places. The editors should have picked these usages up and corrected them.2. Though the reporductions of dialog boxes, etc., are of good quality, many of them are reproduced in such a size as to make reading the contents very difficult. The effective type size in some of these boxes is less than about 6 pt. These illustrations needed to be much larger.3. A lot of the magic process of digital imaging is done -- needs to be done, and should be done -- at the scanner level. Doing the same sorts of corrections in Photoshop is much less effective. The author (understandably; this is a book on Photoshop) gives scanning short shrift. In my opinion, he should not have done so.4. Similarly, the issue of printing from Photoshop to ink-jet, sublimation, etc., printers is also given short shrift. The bias of the book is printing through bureaux. This is understandable, but the current stampede direction of users is in the direction of inexpensive, high-quality desktop printers, making this a serious omission.