Showing posts with label reference. Show all posts
Showing posts with label reference. Show all posts

The North Light Book of Acrylic Painting Techniques Review

The North Light Book of Acrylic Painting Techniques
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The North Light Book of Acrylic Painting Techniques ReviewIf you have ever read any articles from The Artists Magazine then you will be familiar with the style of demonstrations of acrylic painting that this book offers. It is quite good at showing a diversity of painting styles - from airbrush photo-realistic to very thick impasto and impressionistic.
The book examines 23 different acrylic artists and shows some photos of each one making a painting in their unique style. I loved this book for the sheer number and quality of styles it displayed. The chapters ranged from discussions of the paints to the various mediums to airbrushing to abstract work.
For inspiration and over-all examinations of how-to in painting in acrylic this is a good book. It does, however, have one major flaw. Just like the magazine it doesn't give detailed instructions on EXACTLY how to practice any of these techniques.
For example, in my acrylic painting I am trying to learn how to blend. I know it is possible. I've seen plenty of other acrylic paintings that show excellent blending. I bought this book with the hope that it would show me how they got those blends. Nope. Blending only gets a page and a half in the entire book. You get statements such as "For blending colors, Kooluris Dobbs finds that her fingers work very well."
Well Ok. So fingers work well - so show me a photo or two of her ACTUALLY blending like this. But the book never does. And it uses generalized statements like the one above for practically every other technique mentioned as well. So if you are looking for a book that gives actual detailed step-by-step instructions for a technique this book won't do it. In spite of this flaw the rest of the book was so good and so inspiring I gave it a 4 when otherwise I would've given it a 3 (seeing as I find the over-generalization in a book that purports to be about acrylic techniques as a fairly big shortcoming).
I still think this book is worth getting despite the drawbacks. Everything else about it was high quality and the many beautiful paintings are inspiring in and of itself. If you paint with acrylics this is a good book to have on your reference shelf.The North Light Book of Acrylic Painting Techniques Overview

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Photoshop Elements 6 for Mac: The Missing Manual Review

Photoshop Elements 6 for Mac: The Missing Manual
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Photoshop Elements 6 for Mac: The Missing Manual ReviewAt its most simplistic level, Photoshop Elements offers useful and intuitive tools to make almost any photo live up to its best potential. But there's so very much more to use in Elements that without a guide you really can't begin to appreciate -- or master -- its powerful tools. That's where Barbara Brundage comes in. She has pretty much perfected the art of laying out how best to approach Elements 6.0 no matter whether you just want to touch up a photo or take it into enormously creative directions. Her tone is straightforward and user-friendly without talking down. She includes step-by-step approaches, frequent referrals to related materials, and loads of photographs to help the reader really understand. She also tends to frequent Elements forums, where she offers advice and helps people sort through technical issues that might pop up.
In a perfect world, Adobe would include a book like this with Photoshop Elements. This is not that perfect world, and I'm not sure I'd want to go into it without the right tools at my side. For me, that's Ms. Brundage's book, and the enthusiasm I bring to any photo myself. Well worth the money.Photoshop Elements 6 for Mac: The Missing Manual Overview

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Play According to Hoyle: Hoyle's Rules of Games Review

Play According to Hoyle: Hoyle's Rules of Games
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Play According to Hoyle: Hoyle's Rules of Games ReviewIf "Cheater!!!!" is a common refrain in your household, the "Book of Hoyle" is a must. It doesn't even have to be this edition, although I was afraid the newer ones would be a bit suspect -- sorta "kinder, gentler". :(
We don't sit down to cards without "Hoylie Bray" (a family name) at the table with us.Play According to Hoyle: Hoyle's Rules of Games Overview

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Timing Is Everything: The Complete Timing Guide to Cooking Review

Timing Is Everything: The Complete Timing Guide to Cooking
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Timing Is Everything: The Complete Timing Guide to Cooking ReviewThis easy to use book has been incredibly helpful. It will be an indispensable reference for anyone who cooks.Timing Is Everything: The Complete Timing Guide to Cooking Overview

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Adobe Photoshop CS4 for Photographers: A Professional Image Editor's Guide to the Creative use of Photoshop for the Macintosh and PC Review

Adobe Photoshop CS4 for Photographers: A Professional Image Editor's Guide to the Creative use of Photoshop for the Macintosh and PC
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Adobe Photoshop CS4 for Photographers: A Professional Image Editor's Guide to the Creative use of Photoshop for the Macintosh and PC ReviewThis book is one of the first wave of PSCS4 books available which, in my opinion penalizes it a half star. This due to several tech edit errors none of which are fatal. At worst, they cause some hesitation and a minute of thought before the reader understands that the error is caused by either a true error or the author using a pre-production release of the program which was a bit different from the version one buys retail today.
The author is plain that this is a book for intermediate to advanced Photoshop users. Take that advice seriously. The author spends no pages with elementary topics of either photography or Photoshop. Instead, it's right into the soup and a deep bowl of soup it is indeed. A beginner or a slight intermediate will, for sure, benefit from the book but probably not be able to follow a good deal of it. Thus he'll become quite adept at certain aspects of PSCS4 (those he understands) but utterly ignorant of other aspects (those he was forced to skip over).
Take one of many examples: the author describes when to and how to either create channel clipping or avoid the same. He uses clear examples going into this topic in fine detail written quite clearly. However, in no place does he define what channels are or how they are clipped or what clipping is. That's fine for the solid intermediate or beyond reader but it will surely leave the weak intermediate or beginner reduced to tears trying to discern what exactly is going on.
In many places the author gives tips and tricks clearly he's learned from long experience or, in some cases, from others (who he credits). Here's tremendous value. While this book is hardly inexpensive, to a serious amateur or professional, any one of these tricks will be easily worth the price of the book.
There is no filler at all in this book. It is all valuable content and also clearly the result of a huge effort on the part of the author and publisher. I would knock it down a half star due to the few tech errors but give it back an additional whole star (at least) for the superb DVD replete with valuable extra content including some videos narrated by the author.
Everything from the DVD to the quality of the example photos to the solid content demonstrate that this book offers unusual value for the more advanced PSCS4 student.Adobe Photoshop CS4 for Photographers: A Professional Image Editor's Guide to the Creative use of Photoshop for the Macintosh and PC Overview

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Adobe Photoshop CS4 for Photographers: The Ultimate Workshop Review

Adobe Photoshop CS4 for Photographers: The Ultimate Workshop
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Adobe Photoshop CS4 for Photographers: The Ultimate Workshop ReviewAdobe Photoshop CS4 for Photographers is a grab-bag of tips, tricks, and techniques for image manipulation, especially compositing. Some chapters that aren't really about Photoshop at all made it in as well, including some surprisingly basic tips on how to shoot sharp photos to good common-sense advice on how to run a photography business, and some slightly bad advice about running a backup system. (No, making copies on DVD's really isn't worth the trouble; a properly-run backup system on magnetic media is more secure, cheaper, and much, much less work.)
This is, in fact, the book's greatest weakness -- it often loses sight of its intended readership. The meat of the book is about compositing techniques, which are of primary interest to professional photographers doing catalog or advertising work, but they will not be very interested in the basic or non-Photoshop related chapters.
The techniques run the gamut from the simple, brilliant, and immediately useful (such as very clever ways of using Extended Photoshop's Stack editing for a variety of image manipulation tasks, or creative uses of Content Aware Scaling), to the incredibly complex (such as creating convincing drop shadows on a textured background in a multiple composite product photo). Advanced masking techniques, hair retouching, and other often difficult compositing-related techniques are also covered.
The upshot is that any individual reader will very likely find about one third of the book useful. The rest will be either not applicable to what s/he does, something s/he already knows, requires proficiences s/he does not (yet) have, or requires Adobe Photoshop CS4 Extended, which s/he has not bought.
This book should really have been called "Compositing in Adobe Photoshop CS4 Extended." That way, it would have been possible to drop the few chapters that had nothing much to do with compositing, replace some of the rather inane non-Photoshop chapters with an overview of what compositing is, and isn't, good for, with perhaps a note on the ethics of photo manipulation and a short historical overview thrown in, and rearrange the material to form a more coherent and focused whole. As it is, it's not a bad book by any means, and any "green-belt" Photoshop user will likely find something useful in it. With a more coherent vision of its readership and better focus on its core message it could have been much better.Adobe Photoshop CS4 for Photographers: The Ultimate Workshop Overview

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Photoshop Elements 8 for Mac: The Missing Manual Review

Photoshop Elements 8 for Mac: The Missing Manual
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Photoshop Elements 8 for Mac: The Missing Manual ReviewAuthor Barbara Brundage is no stranger to anyone who has previously read a book on Photoshop Elements or has visited the Adobe Elements user forum. Thanks to her and the entire concept of the "missing" series for jobs well done. Picking up the book for the first time will have you eager to delve further into both the program and the book as you read different ways to accomplish things and see new features in the software. There are almost always several different approaches to editing methods and all will be explained, yielding perhaps different and more efficient methods for you.
If you are a beginner to Elements you will greatly appreciate this manual for clear explanations and profuse cross referencing. One will be tempted to skip ahead (and often need to go back and study something in more detail.) The thoughtful and frequent cross referencing makes it possible and increases the value and usefulness of the book.
Adobe Bridge CS4 is included in PSE v8 for the Mac and covered extensively enough so that a new user can employ Bridge in its most useful ways. Bridge, we are taught, gives more intricate control of opening RAW files than does Elements itself. In a similar way iPhoto is covered and one can learn the strengths of using Bridge or iPhoto to advantage.
The printed words are dark enough and easy to read--no skimping on ink in this book--but the illustrations are also dark and often rather obscure. While the paper used feels substantial and the book's binding strong, perhaps the paper is not the best for photographs and obliterates some details. More readers may see the need for the missing cd available and explained in the book. The index is useful and seems comprehensive, one of the hallmarks in my opinion of a well done book.Photoshop Elements 8 for Mac: The Missing Manual Overview

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Painting Nature's Little Creatures Review

Painting Nature's Little Creatures
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Painting Nature's Little Creatures ReviewI LOVED THIS BOOK!!! THE ART CAPTURES GOD'S CREATION IN A BEAUTIFUL AND REALISTIC WAY. VERY WELL DONE. TOO BAD THE ONLY REVIEW HAD TO DO WITH THE FACT THAT THIS WAS NOT THE KIND OF BOOK THE BUYER WAS LOOKING FOR AND THEREFORE GAVE IT A BAD MARK. VERY REALISTIC PAINTING, IF YOU LIKE THAT, YOU'LL LOVE THIS BOOK!!Painting Nature's Little Creatures Overview

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The Acrylic Painter's Book of Styles and Techniques Review

The Acrylic Painter's Book of Styles and Techniques
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The Acrylic Painter's Book of Styles and Techniques ReviewThe painting techniques of seven master artists, whose styles are quite diverse, are highlighted in as many chapters of this book. Textural techniques, flat opaque colors, ultra-realism, impasto, luminosity through thin glazes and experimental abstracts are all carefully described and illustrated on the pages. Not only do the artists take the reader through step-by-step demonstrations on one representative work, but they also showcase a gallery selection of other work that has been created through the same technique. My favorites were the incredibly dramatic, ultra realistic studies of still-life flowers by Barbara Buer. The technique of Michael Nevin, in his urban paintings shows an intense atmosphere of light and dark, reminiscent of Hopper. Although these are basic techniques, there is much to learn from the examples and the demonstrations are clearly described. Now, after reading the book, I am anxious to try this out for myself.The Acrylic Painter's Book of Styles and Techniques Overview

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Painting Houses, Cottages and Towns on Rocks Review

Painting Houses, Cottages and Towns on Rocks
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Painting Houses, Cottages and Towns on Rocks ReviewI have never had so much fun with a book before! Being anewcomer to painting I thought I would try my hand at"rocks"--why not? The author, Lin Wellford, has made her instructions to simple to understand. She goes step, by step taking you through the whole process of painting a house or cottage on an ordinary rock. You begin following her instructions, but you suddenly find yourself using your own imagination and making your own little piece of real estate "just a little different" and totally unique! I find this painting on rocks to be a totally relaxing and enjoyable pasttime. I am absolutely amazed at what I have accomplished! So much so, that people I have shown my "rocky real estate" to have asked if I'm willing to sell them! I absolutely recommend this book for many hours of fun and creativity.Painting Houses, Cottages and Towns on Rocks Overview

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All the Math You'll Ever Need: A Self-Teaching Guide (Wiley Self-Teaching Guides) Review

All the Math You'll Ever Need: A Self-Teaching Guide (Wiley Self-Teaching Guides)
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All the Math You'll Ever Need: A Self-Teaching Guide (Wiley Self-Teaching Guides) ReviewI bought this book because my job search requires me to take civil service exams again and again for various jobs. The exams are full of mathematics (even if the job has nothing to do with that subject). I needed a math refresher course in the worst way when I realized that I'd forgotten my long division and multiplication, the more difficult stretches of the multiplication table, percentages, and anything to do with fractions. This book teaches you these things (and much more) in a very nice, courteous, non-intimidating, non-condescending manner. I really appreciate it. I don't want to become a mathematician. I just want to recall enough to get by. Thank goodness this book helps you do that. I definitely recommend it. I bought it together with a similar refresher math book and found out that this one is the only one you really need.All the Math You'll Ever Need: A Self-Teaching Guide (Wiley Self-Teaching Guides) Overview

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Photoshop Elements 8 for Windows: The Missing Manual Review

Photoshop Elements 8 for Windows: The Missing Manual
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Photoshop Elements 8 for Windows: The Missing Manual ReviewLike earlier versions of Photoshop Elements (PSE), Photoshop Elements 8 is both powerful and complex. While it has some automated functions, users hoping to harness its full power are going to need some help. Barbara Brundage offers this help in a detailed guide that explores the higher functions of PSE, while respecting the challenges many readers may have in grasping complex technology.
Brundage offers both conceptual overviews and tutorials of PSE 8's interface and functions. She effectively breaks down the the concepts of file management, basic editing, image manipulation and sharing of the results of these digital editing techniques. Particularly useful are the two appendices, which provide a summary of ALL of the (many many!)menu items in the two main components of PSE (its editor and the organizer).
Minor deficiencies are present in this book. While it certainly provides sound advice on avoiding Adobe's deliberate efforts to guide consumers to a purchase of the "Plus" version of the online extension to PSE 8, it doesn't mention the wide scope of Adobe's data collection of user activities associated with this (in both the free and "Plus" online adjuncts). Advice to consumers to read the EULA if they have concerns about how Adobe will collect their data would have been a welcome addition. Also, the book correctly states that PSE 8 can be installed with earlier versions of PSE. While this is true (and you won't be forced to uninstall any earlier version), it doesn't mention that PSE 8 will force you to choose which single version of PSE you'll want to keep using. Finally, the book says that "the help files that ship with Elements are sometimes incomplete". More correctly, in PSE they are absent. The Help menu in PSE 8 launches a browser and takes you online, where all the help content is located. You can download a 27 MB .pdf help file (which users without persistent connectivity should consider).
These are small shortcomings that do not detract seriously from the overall worth of this book, which is valuable tool with great utility for serious amateur (or frugal professional) photographers or digital artists expanding their craft.Photoshop Elements 8 for Windows: The Missing Manual Overview

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How to Make Clay Characters Review

How to Make Clay Characters
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How to Make Clay Characters ReviewSince so many Clay books are dedicated to the jewelry aspect of clay, this is a refreshing change. The book has insight into the best clays to use, supplies needed, step by step instructions with pictures, and hints and tricks. The book statrs out with simple figures and then as you build confidence it steps you through more difficult and complex characters. The book is easy to read and follow and also includes a troubleshooting section...Definitely a book to have if you are interested in doing people or cartoon like characters out of clay.How to Make Clay Characters Overview

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Color Drawing: Design Drawing Skills and Techniques for Architects, Landscape Architects, and Interior Designers Review

Color Drawing: Design Drawing Skills and Techniques for Architects, Landscape Architects, and Interior Designers
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Color Drawing: Design Drawing Skills and Techniques for Architects, Landscape Architects, and Interior Designers ReviewI'm thrilled that I finally have a book that tells how to digitally as well as manually color architectural and landscape drawings. It gives tips on using a scanner to get drawings or photographs into a layer of Photoshop and then how to manipulate the layers including opacity and filters. The technics for using markers and colored pencils to achieve realistic wood, rocks,leaves, water, and chrome are outstanding. Includes great tips on paper colors, and what to include or leave out of a drawing to give it visual punch. The entire 414 pages are drawings and tips specifically dedicated to the needs of architects, landscape architects, and interior designers though any graphic person would find tremendous value in this book.Color Drawing: Design Drawing Skills and Techniques for Architects, Landscape Architects, and Interior Designers Overview

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Adobe Photoshop CS3 Classroom in a Book Review

Adobe Photoshop CS3 Classroom in a Book
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Adobe Photoshop CS3 Classroom in a Book ReviewAdobe has released the new upgrade for Photoshop CS3 and a new version called Photoshop CS3 Extended. Whether you get Photoshop as a single product or as part of the Adobe Creative Suite 3, this book by the Adobe Creative Team is the latest edition of the official training series for Adobe software and covers both versions of Photoshop. As in previous editions, this book contains lessons that will help both the novice and advanced user get up to speed with the new upgrade. For the novice, the authors cover the basics of Photoshop and the advanced users will want to check out the lessons for the new features. Each lesson has step-by-step instructions and accompanying image files that give you hands on practice. At the end of each chapter is a Q & A review. Within the chapters are tips and techniques from Photoshop professionals Julieanne Kost and Russell Brown. Some of the new features and tools covered in the book include Smart Filters and the Quick Selection tool. Other lessons teach you how to take advantage of the improvements to your favorite tools such as Camera Raw and Adobe Bridge.
As you would expect, the authors begin by discussing the workspace's new layout which has several improvements to help you streamline your work. The next few chapters cover the basics of photo correction, retouch and repair. You will also learn how to create a PDF presentation and how to use the Adobe Lightroom. Next, the authors move on to discuss the many ways to make selections. They discuss some of your old favorite selection tools and new additions such as the Quick Selection tool.
I especially enjoyed the sample projects that were more interesting than usual in a book such as this. In one chapter the authors used an example scrapbook page to show how to use layers to organize the objects on the page and how to work with layer comps and blend modes. The next project was a book cover which the authors used to teach masks and channels. You will learn how to create temporary Quick Masks, store a mask as an alpha channel and how to use filters, effects and blend modes with masks. Working with type in Photoshop is one of my favorite tasks and the authors use a poster as a sample project for this chapter. They cover the Type palette, paths, shapes and Smart Objects. I especially liked the lesson about applying text to a complex path.
If you have never tried your hand at the Photoshop vector drawing tools, you will enjoy the chapter which covers drawing paths with the Pen tool, layer shapes and more. Advanced layers is next and the authors show you how to use adjustment layers and the Vanishing Point grid to achieve a 3D effect for product package design. Next, you will create a four image montage and learn about advanced compositing. In this chapter, you will also learn about automating a series of steps to speed up your workflow.
Photoshop is still the best when it comes to creating and optimizing images for the web. You will learn several tasks including slicing an image, adding HTML linkage to image slices, rollover buttons and optimizing GIF, JPEG and GIF animations. You will like how easy it is to create an animation with the Tween feature. The authors included a chapter that touches on some of the features in Photoshop Extended. You will learn about the Measurement tool, Measurement Log palette and more. The last chapter covers color printing, four color separation and preparing for PostScript CMYK printing.
The members of the Adobe Creative Team for this book were Andrew Faulkner and Judy Walthers von Alten. The CD includes files for the lessons, fonts, stock photos and training videos from [...] and Total Training.Adobe Photoshop CS3 Classroom in a Book Overview

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Painting Flowers on Rocks Review

Painting Flowers on Rocks
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Painting Flowers on Rocks ReviewI always like to come up with something new to do and paint and this is perfect. Some how to books are not always the best at showing you how to. This book goes in step by step and shows you great pictures of finished products.Painting Flowers on Rocks Overview

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Photoshop CS5: Essential Skills Review

Photoshop CS5: Essential Skills
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Photoshop CS5: Essential Skills ReviewIf you are interested in mastering digital imaging, the best way to hone your skills is not by picking up a few hints here and there on the Internet, but rather by having a book in hand and a tutorial DVD that will help you with digital basics. Before you purchase this book you'll need the latest version of Adobe Acrobat Reader in order to be able to read the PDF content and QuickTime 7 version or later in order to watch the movie tutorials. There are links to these resources on the DVD if you haven't already updated. Most people like to know what they are getting for their money so I'll try to be as detailed as I can in explaining what you'll get on the DVD as you cannot skim that if you pick up a copy in a bookstore. If you are confident PhotoshopCS5 is what you'll need, you simply can scan this review or bypass it completely.
What is on the DVD:
FOUNDATION MODULE
Digital Basics (DVD Chapter)
Channels palette
RGB* (Red, Green, Blue)
CMY* (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow)
HSB (Hue Saturation Brightness)
Perception
Titles of movie tutorials include Refine Edge, Mixer Brush, Content Aware Fill, Puppet Warp, Merge to HDR Pro, Repousse, ACR6, 3D Images, 3D, Foundation-l a.dng, Foundation-l b dng, Foundation-l c.dng, Project-l.mov, Foundation-2.dng*, Foundation-3.dng*, Vibrance.dng*, Foundation-4.dng*, Spot-l.dng*, and Spot-2.dng*. You can test print in JPEG or TIFF and your record sheets are available in JPEG OR PSD. Instructions are given for the PC or MAC.
* Note: Raw images cannot be displayed on some browser interfaces. Some of the movies take a while to load so you will need to be patient or press on the spacebar to load if they don't play automatically.
ADVANCE SKILLS MODULE
Layers and Channels
Titles of movie tutorials include Intro.mov, layers & channels.mov, layers masks.mov, Selections1 mov, Selections2.mov, and Selections3.mov.
You will then have an opportunity to work with several layer blends (opacity, darken, multiply, screen, lighten, overlay, difference, soft light, luminosity, and saturation).
Filters
You will be able to work with several pictures and will have one movie tutorial. Vanishing-Point.psd
RETOUCHING
There are seven movie tutorials and ten digital images to work with (TIFF or PSD format)
MONTAGE
There are seven movie tutorials and fifteen digital images to work with (a mix of TIFF, PSD, Raw)
ADVANCED RETOUCHING
There are eleven movie tutorials and nineteen digital images to work with ( a mix of TIFF, PSD, Raw, JPEG)
ALIGN AND BLEND
There are six movie tutorials and twenty-one digital images to work with (a mix of TIFF, PSD, Raw)
RESOURCES
In this section we can find Author Info, Free Skies (stock skies), QuickTime, Actions, Luminance Preset (Black and White), Essentials Skills, A Digital Basics Chapter, a Digital Darkroom Chapter, Focal Press, Adobe, a Shortcuts Printout, and RMIT University (Mark Galer is affiliated with this University).
USEFUL LINKS
* Essential Skills
* RMIT Photography
* Adobe Digital Imaging
* Deke
* Adobe TV
* Russell Brown
* PhotoshopSupport.com
* Image Science (Printing services)
* digital photography review
* PhotoshopNews.com
* John Nack
* Luminous Landscape
* Digital Dog (Andrew Rodney)
* Studio Exchange (Photoshop)
* Planet Photoshop
* Adobe Evangelist
* Retouch Pro
All of the links provided are current and provide many additional tips and techniques that the reader will find to be quite useful. The book and DVD are designed so you can take advantage of some of the best information out there at no additional cost. When they mention "Extensive Support" in the book, it is no exaggeration.
The book itself provides a step-by-step visual tutorial that provides a "structured learning approach" to learning Photoshop. You will learn about Photoshop revisions, the CS5 version of Bridge, workflow, raw processing, digital printing, digital basics (DVD, chapter 1), and digital darkroom (DVD, chapter 2). For the more advanced reader there are chapters on layers and channels, selections, filters, and layer blends. There is an imaging projects module that includes retouching projects, montage projects, advanced retouching, and a section on how to align and blend projects.
Each section provides general guidelines, thorough instructions, and is extremely generous with photographic illustrations. In the back of the book is a thorough index, a glossary, a list of keyboard shortcuts, and several recommended web links to explore (tutorials, illustrators, information and blogs).
If you want to acquire a thorough grounding in Photoshop skills, this is the book to buy. You can "hone your image editing skills" without having to pay big $ for a course or spend hours trying to glean bits of information from the Internet. You will obviously need to work hard learning these skills, but I think you'll be quite satisfied with yourself as you progress. I'd say that all things considered, the thorough tutorials provided in this book and on the DVD will be well worth the monies spent with this reference/tutorial.Photoshop CS5: Essential Skills Overview

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Collectors Encyclopedia of McCoy Pottery Review

Collectors Encyclopedia of McCoy Pottery
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Collectors Encyclopedia of McCoy Pottery ReviewI was very pleased with the information on the McCoy Pottery Company and the pottery manufactured by McCoy that this book offered. I would recommened this book to anyone interested in collecting McCoy pottery. This book has a large selection of photos of the various types of pottery produced and the different markings used on the pottery.Collectors Encyclopedia of McCoy Pottery Overview

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Art and Design in Photoshop: How to simulate just about anything from great works of art to urban graffiti Review

Art and Design in Photoshop: How to simulate just about anything from great works of art to urban graffiti
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Art and Design in Photoshop: How to simulate just about anything from great works of art to urban graffiti ReviewThere are plenty of beginner guides to Photoshop, and even a few dozen decent intermediate books. But, sooner or later, you reach a point when you're asking yourself, "What's next?" This book provides the answer. It's filled with techniques and ideas that will have anyone who's mastered the basics of Photoshop creating works of art. If you want to go beyond the simple tools of correction, compositing, and image repair, start here.Art and Design in Photoshop: How to simulate just about anything from great works of art to urban graffiti Overview

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Painting with Water-Soluble Oils Review

Painting with Water-Soluble Oils
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Painting with Water-Soluble Oils ReviewI feel a lot of the book was redundant, too much repetiton was used -- I believe it was to fluff up the page count. I'm new to oil painting all together and was looking for a book that would teach me to paint with this medium - for example, help me understand when I would thin with water, or when with watersoluable linseed oil. I thought that the promised "step by step demonstrations" would do that. Contained in only one chapter of the book, they seem almost an afterthought, and do not go into enough depth.
There is an entire chapter devoted to "what is watersoluable oil color?" There are 20 pages -- which is far too much information -- about the properties of every watersoluable oil paint by color and manufacturer, though there are some useful demos of the various marks different brushes and knives make.
The book contains more than I want or need to know about the processes by which watersoluable oils are created.
By far the lengthiest chapter is the one which showcases 14 different artists who try out this medium and provide some tips, which may be useful. But I believe its primary purpose is as a showcase for the various artists. There are some useful tips here, but much of what is said is repetition from one artist to another - and that gets boring! In some ways I am more confused than ever, having learned that some of the artists shown aren't painting soley with watersoluable oil paint - they are using the oils in combination with watercolor or acrylics or sometimes using all three together!Painting with Water-Soluble Oils Overview

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