This book is aimed at portrait photographers who have an intermediate level of understanding of Photoshop, specifically layers and masking, who have not yet learned the best way to use Photoshop to create effects that clients love. It is loaded with high quality illustrations, and easy to follow step by step tutorials. While it is not a lengthy book it does cover some of the best and most often used techniques for going beyond the straight portrait.

This softcover book is 9.6 X 7.6 inches and 152 pages. It retails for $29.95 and is distributed by Focal Press. www.focalpress.com 
I rate it: A (MF) (Reviewed November, 2006)

The great Scott Kelby has done it again: another fine, quality book with easy explanations.  If you are familiar with other books by Kelby, you will like this one as well, especially with Elements becoming a more viable and affordable alternative to Photoshop.  The thirteen chapters include the usual photo editing techniques like cropping, selection, retouching, and sharpening.  The last two chapters are a little more unique.  Chapter 12 is titled Showing it to Your Clients and includes watermark and copyrighting, putting images on the web, creating a digital frame and more.  Chapter 13 is called How to Make Presentations with Your Photos and includes how to do slide shows, creating calendars, creating a video CD, and more.  I highly recommend this book to someone wanting to master Photoshop Elements 4.
472 pages, New Riders Press; 1st edition (November 9, 2005), Paperback, US$34.99
I rate this book A+++ (Reviewed Aug. 2006)

This soft cover book is about 8x10 inches, with 281 pages, retails for US$29.99 – and is published by SYBEX and can be ordered at www.sybex.com
I Rate it: A+  (Reviewed June 2006)

Here is a super new Photoshop how-to book that will show you everything you ever need to know about Photoshop plug-in filters, and how to use them. The book is richly illustrated with many samples of every filter, plus screen captures showing the settings used for each image. I don’t know how the author could have made it any easier to learn from. You can’t take full advantage of your filters unless you know how to use them, and if you can’t learn how from this book, you won’t learn how from any.

This soft cover book is about 9x10 inches, with 192 pages, retails for US$29.95 - and is published by O’Reilly Media and can be checked out at  www.oreilly.com       
I Rate it:  A++   (Reviewed Jan. 2006)
 
 

One last book that is a must-have for all PhotoShop users is PhotoShop Masking & Compositing. The majority of photo imaging work usually requires one or both of these two steps, and this book covers every step and trick to doing that at it’s best. This 8x10 inch, soft cover, 544-page book has 13 chapters that also shows the settings of each tool used, and it is fully illustrated from front to back. This isn’t just the usual replacing the background in a portrait type fix. One example is the combining of a drawing of the muscles in the hand over a photo of a hand, and another places a child’s face with a shot of water, so that it looks like he is under water swimming. And those aren’t even in the advanced part of the book. This is one more book that will be next to my workstation all the time. It retails for US$54.99 and is published by New Riders. It can be checked out at   www.peachpit.com      
I Rate it:   A+  (Reviewed March 2005)

   

Photo Retouching with Photoshop, A Designer’s Notebook, and Illustrations with Photoshop, A Designer’s Notebook, are two new books from leading French artists.  For anyone interested in doing some of their own photo retouching, there is a lot to learn in this first book. It covers everything from restoring 100-year-old family photos, to retouching for a modern ad page. One very interesting chapter converts an old church into a ghostly castle complete with custom graveyard.
For anyone interested in combining photo images with illustration work this second book will be most interesting. Most of this book deals with illustration type images, but the techniques used would be most helpful to all PhotoShop users.

Both books are soft cover, 8x9 inches, and retail for US$24.95. Both are published by O’Reilly and can be checked out at:   www.oreilly.com      
I Rate both:  A  (Reviewed Feb. 2005)

Click on the above image to find out current pricing or to purchase this book from Amazon.com

Photoshop Type Effects, Visual Encyclopedia,
by Roger Pring.

Another book on the shelves that will be of great interest to many Photoshop users is the Photoshop Type Effects, Visual Encyclopedia, by Roger Pring. This is not your regular photo-image effects book, but one that deals with what all you can create using type fonts. But then there's nothing that says you can't use these same tricks on your images as well. Why would a photographer need to use type effects you ask?  With today's DTP (desktop publishing) abilities on every home computer, there are now few photographers who do not use at least some of their work for self promotion, or even just for holiday and greeting cards, so just think of how much more impressive those cards will be when you can add your own special type effects to them.

I couldn't begin to mention what all this book covers, as just about every one of its 190 pages is full of PS effects, and those illustrations also include screen shots of the settings for each tool used. That means you don't just read about what to use, but you can see what each tool is set at to get that effect. (Sure wish more books would do the same!)  This soft cover Photoshop book is published by New Riders, and retails for $45.00. Oh, and did I mention that it also comes with a CD in the back with even more help with your type effects?
(Reviewed Feb. 2004)