Showing posts with label fine art. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fine art. Show all posts

George DeWolfe's Digital Photography Fine Print Workshop Review

George DeWolfe's Digital Photography Fine Print Workshop
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George DeWolfe's Digital Photography Fine Print Workshop ReviewMy grandmother was a great baker. But everything she did in creating a pie or cake came from memory or intuition. When my mother tried to create written recipes of my grandmother's procedures, she was frustrated by quantities like a handful of something or enough of something. My mother really lost it when my grandmother told her to roll out some dough until it looked right. If you can't deal with this kind of instruction, George DeWolfe may not be for you.
The book covers De Wolfe's recommendations for making a great digital print. I'd be overstating things if I said he never gives firm instructions but de Wolfe is more concerned with the feeling of a print than with specific rules. He says that there are six elements to control in making a print: cropping, contrast, brightness, color, defects and sharpness. He then proceeds to explain his workflow to deal with each of these issues, both globally and at a detail level.
This book is aimed at advanced users of Photoshop. Quite often the instructions that he gives to create a desired effect contain only the most significant steps in the process, leaving it for the reader to fill in the gaps. Occasionally he says that he is telling you all you need to know to use a particular Photoshop tool. For example he says that all you need to know to use the curves tool is that moving the curve upwards increases brightness and moving it downwards decreases brightness. That's hyperbole because there are other important functions of the curve tool that make it easier or more effective to apply.
DeWolfe sometimes favors some rather idiosyncratic tools to process images. Photoshop usually offers several approaches to accomplishing a task, but DeWolfe often selects the more unusual. For example DeWolfe prefers the use of the history brush to masks to effect adjustments to the image. He also suggests several procedures that other experts find problematic. For example, he says that, as a result of the nature of digital photography, detail sharpening is important early in the process as opposed to edge sharpening at the end of the process. Some other experts are less accepting of this approach.
I expected that a book called a workshop would require some participation by the reader beyond just reading. This might be tutorials or at least sample images to follow along with the text. Particularly when the author suggested some procedure that was counter-intuitive for me, it would have been nice if there had been an image to work from, either from a CD or downloaded from the internet.
DeWolfe regularly suggests that a Photoshop plug-in that he authored is the solution to a problem. I always wonder how impartial an author is when he suggests that you buy a product that he sells.
If you are just getting comfortable with Photoshop but want to move into more advanced techniques, I suggest starting with Rob Sheppard's "Outdoor Photographer Landscape and Nature Photography with Photoshop CS2". Its lessons are applicable to as many genres as DeWolfe's. On the other hand, if you are an experienced user and able to fill in the blanks when DeWolfe is skipping along, and if you are comfortable enough with Photoshop to decide whether you want to accept DeWolfe's techniques, this book will help you to examine your notions, get a better handle on a logical workflow and perhaps even learn procedures that are more useful to you then those you presently know.George DeWolfe's Digital Photography Fine Print Workshop Overview

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The Creative Digital Darkroom Review

The Creative Digital Darkroom
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The Creative Digital Darkroom ReviewIf you've bought a Katrin Eismann book before, you're no doubt looking at this one, too, since her books are so good. And what you've come to expect from her is indeed here - clear, concise information and step by step tutorials with plenty of diagrams showing what's being done. In its layout it's very similar to her Restoration and Retouching books, but denser, with a smaller font and more information, while remaining clear and balanced with a solid presentation. There's very few pages of wasted space.
As the title implies, the theme of the book is using traditional darkroom techniques in the digital world. In fact, part of the audience it's aimed at are experienced photographers who'd like to move to digital and carry over the skills they've learned. Focusing on this theme, the authors give us tools in global and local enhancements of tone and color, as well as sharpening/blurring and removing distractions, to bring out a photo's full potential.
It's all good and thorough, but be aware that in choosing to focus on that, the authors don't touch on many of the tools that are essential parts of Photoshop, including Photomerge, Liquify, Text, and Actions. It also doesn't cover Bridge or printing in depth, but there's actually a chapter on printing available as a PDF at the book's website: creativedigitaldarkroom.com.
It does cover Levels and Curves in more depth than any other book I've seen. It also covers Layer Masks, Shadow/Highlight, Perspective, Blending Modes, Lens Correction, Camera RAW (including the new Clarity tool), Split Toning, Sepia Toning (including Greg Gorman's technique), HDR, LAB, edge effects (using the Filter Gallery), Cross-Processing, and Sharpening, as well as including sections on creating a faded b/w photo and the like.
That said, I do have a few issues with the book. While the landscapes are like those you'd take yourself, many of the photos are a bit too abstract and arty for my tastes. Duggan uses Holgas, pinhole cameras, and a Lensbaby that blurs all the edges, and if you're not into such creative uses of cameras, these can get old once you've seen a few. Also, many are of moody old storefronts and gravestones, which adds a somber tone to the book.
Also, for those interested in working on portraits, there's very few of them here, and nothing about creating dynamic b/w portraits. The five or so portraits are used simply to demonstrate vignetting, sharpening, and the use of a warming filter.
Those points aside, this book delivers. Even when introducing the fundamentals of such tools as Levels and Curves, it goes right into detailed examples of how to use each. Some books merely list what each tool does, simply from lack of room, but by focusing on the essential tools, here you get exactly what you need - a brief overview containing all the important points followed by how you can best use them in your work.
Is a lot of it review? The majority of the tools outlined - the ones you use every day - are indeed covered much as they are in Eismann's Restoration and Retouching. The main difference is that Restoration covers mostly portraits, while this one focuses on landscapes and still lifes. Also, Restoration only covers up to CS2, while this one outlines all the latest tools in CS3, including a good deal on the very useful Black and White filter, as well as the new RAW 4.1 converter. It also gives a good overview of Lightroom, which I wasn't familiar with, but now has me looking that way.
If you already have Real World CS3 or a similar book, you already know more than most about Photoshop's technical aspects, and so you surely don't need a review. Still, this book's two chapters on setting up your Preferences, the different color spaces, and batch renaming are only fifty pages, so there's really not much to skip. And if you don't have Real World CS3, this book actually does cover all the basics you need in setting up your computer and workspace.
By the way, if you don't have CS3, most of the techniques here can be used with CS2 and CS. You won't have the use of the Highlight, Recovery, Clarity, B/W, and Curves tools in Camera RAW, and you won't have the B/W Filter with built-in settings like Infrared, but the authors do tell you how you can use the Channel Mixer, and Levels and Curves work much the same.
To sum up, you'll be pleased with this book if you don't go into it with any expectations that it be anything else. When I first saw it listed, I thought it'd build on where Restoration left off, going deep into creative interpretative techniques now that you have your photos optimized. Such techniques are indeed in the later part of the book, such as in using scanned paper for adding texture, but on the whole this book shows how to use the tools you're used to to get the most out of each photo's tone, color, and dramatic impact. In short, it's for experienced darkroom photographers as well as beginner and intermediate Photoshop users, instead of those who are already advanced in using Photoshop.
If you're a total beginner taking snapshots and are looking for a good overall coverage of all Photoshop has to offer, you might try Deke McClelland's Photoshop CS3 One-On-One or Martin Evening's Photoshop CS3 for Photographers. They're not as thorough as this book in each tool, but they cover more ground, give you a good tour, and set you up fine. From there, if you find your work focusing on family snapshots, portraits, and restoring old photos, go with Eismann's Restoration and Retouching, which covers a great deal more on repairing photos, such as using the floating Healing Patch and Pattern Maker. (You can download a full chapter from her digitalretouch.org site.) And if your interests lead you to fine art or landscape photography, this would be the book to learn from next.
Finally, if you already are a fine art or landscape photographer either new to Photoshop or without a solid grounding in the best use of all the fundamentals, or simply wish to brush up on your skills, this one is made for you.The Creative Digital Darkroom Overview

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Wonderful World of Watercolor: Learning and Loving Transparent Watercolor Review

Wonderful World of Watercolor: Learning and Loving Transparent Watercolor
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Wonderful World of Watercolor: Learning and Loving Transparent Watercolor ReviewBook Reviewed by Marie L. Meegan, Salem, Massachusetts.
If I were to pick only one book as a reference for mastering the art and science of watercolor painting, it would be Mary Baumgartner's Wonderful World of Watercolor. Besides being a technical masterpiece, it is a beautiful book, having many exquisite examples of watercolor painting. The author imparts her joy in the subject matter, as well as her delight in teaching - a winning combination.
The first section is devoted to color: choosing color, mixing color, and considering its warmth, or coolness, color values, transparency or opacity. The author provides sample charts for guidance, and in fact, insists her own students paint these charts so color mixing will not be a hit or miss experience.
There are chapters on supplies, work space and composition. Baumgartner carefully explains all the essentials for success, such as negative space, glazing, and lifting paint, to name a few. Drawing skills are handled in detail. Special advice for painting metallic objects, glass, water droplets, skies, clouds, foliage, and fur are covered in a chapter entitled "The Hard Stuff - Made Easy."
She writes about using artistic license to arrange a painting to enhance the qualities of the scene she might be composing. She guarantees a clear center of interest, and paints with the light source in mind. She photographs scenes, objects, and people for future paintings. The author, while not lacking in intuitiveness, is convinced one must do the work to create paintings that captivate the viewer. In the chapter "Telling a Story," Baumgartner quotes Edgar Degas as having said, "My art is in no way spontaneous - it is entirely contrived." If you paint or teach watercolor painting you must have this book.Wonderful World of Watercolor: Learning and Loving Transparent Watercolor Overview

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Digital Art Revolution: Creating Fine Art with Photoshop Review

Digital Art Revolution: Creating Fine Art with Photoshop
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Digital Art Revolution: Creating Fine Art with Photoshop ReviewOkay, so here's the deal: I have absolutely no artistic talent. Seriously, none. I can't even put a stick figure on paper with straight lines. However, all that might change. This new book, "Digital Art Revolution," has inspired me to start dabbling in the fascinating field of digital art.
What is digital art? From what I can gather, the author views it as another tool to artistic expressiveness, like a paint brush or a canvas. Digital art is not just about making web designs (although it certainly is that, to some extent.) Rather, digital art is anything you want it to be. It is a medium that is only limited by what you can imagine.
This book gets you on the path to thinking, acting and being a digital artist, a place where a simple scanned picture can turn into an artistic masterpiece. Like any new art medium, critics will probably call digital art low-brow, mindless nonsense. This book frees us from such snobbery and invites us to embark on an artistic journey that is only limited by our imagination.
If you have ever seen any of the author's digital art pieces, you'd quickly see the potential for digital art as a legitimate medium for the finest of fine arts. Digital art allows for a wonderful form of expressiveness that traditional mediums simply cannot touch. For instance, with digital art, you can take an ordinary photograph of a celebrity and turn it into a wild fantasy world with digitally-added nude fairies and a blazing inferno background. Or you can take a picture of fruit and flowers and digitally alter it to create a seascape that serves as a microcosm for the Universe. Or you can turn a photo of an old shoe into a branded logo for your firm. Or whatever you want.
This groundbreaking book is both practical and enjoyable to read, a real mix of engagement and how-to. I don't know of any book like it on the market, as it appeals to newbies like myself and experienced digital artists who are seeking new creative avenues to express themselves. And who knows: it might even make an artist out of me some day!Digital Art Revolution: Creating Fine Art with Photoshop Overview

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