"The Adobe Photoshop CS4 Book for Digital Photographers" by Scott Kelby
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From: tony cooper on 18 Nov 2009 23:11 On Thu, 19 Nov 2009 13:47:54 +1000, Troy Piggins <usenet-0911(a)piggo.com> wrote: >After a little deliberation, reading reviews, trawling a few >forums, I decided so splurge and buy a couple of books. I love >reading novels, but for some reason for technical information >I've always preferred online mailing lists, forums, and USENET >newsgroups. > >Splashed out and bought CS4 Photoshop and Lightroom 2 recently, >and figured they might be worth having some books to accompany >them. Decided on "The Adobe Photoshop CS4 Book for Digital >Photographers" by Scott Kelby and "The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom >2 Book: The Complete Guide for Photographers" by Martin Evening. > >Man, Kelby has so many books out. I know he's "the PS go-to >author", but you have to wonder if reputation precedes and if >there's actually better PS books out there but they get drowned >out by Kelby overload... > >Well, my fears have been realised. > I have the Kelby book on CS4 and I also have Kelby's book on Lightroom2. I found both quite helpful. I like his style. I do agree with some of your comments about not enough meat in some areas. I had an older book on one of the earlier versions of Photoshop that had the word "Bible" in the title. (I loaned it to someone, they never returned it, and I didn't press to get it back) Great, huge, thick book but godawful boring to work through. I got bogged down with too much meat. At least Kelby's slick style lets you move through the book. I'm a hands-on learner. Kelby may skim over some areas, but that works for me. He'll get me interested in something and I start experimenting and working it out for myself. -- Tony Cooper - Orlando, Florida
From: Better Info on 19 Nov 2009 00:30 On Thu, 19 Nov 2009 13:47:54 +1000, Troy Piggins <usenet-0911(a)piggo.com> wrote: >After a little deliberation, reading reviews, trawling a few >forums, I decided so splurge and buy a couple of books. I love >reading novels, but for some reason for technical information >I've always preferred online mailing lists, forums, and USENET >newsgroups. > >Splashed out and bought CS4 Photoshop and Lightroom 2 recently, >and figured they might be worth having some books to accompany >them. Decided on "The Adobe Photoshop CS4 Book for Digital >Photographers" by Scott Kelby and "The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom >2 Book: The Complete Guide for Photographers" by Martin Evening. > >Man, Kelby has so many books out. I know he's "the PS go-to >author", but you have to wonder if reputation precedes and if >there's actually better PS books out there but they get drowned >out by Kelby overload... > >Well, my fears have been realised. > >Books received quite promptly from Amazon. Good service, first >time I've dealt with them. But... > >The Kelby book. Very disappointed. The layout of the pages >themselves is quite appealing at first glance, plenty of images >to display what he's talking about. But when I think about it, >that's one thing that annoys me about it. Too many images. I >mean, if he's giving a step by step on something, does he really >need to give an image to show him clicking the menu button >described in the text? Waste of space where he could add more >text/info/tips. > >That brings me to my next annoyance. Every new chapter title >takes up 2 full pages. One shows a photo, the other some text. >The text is the chapter title, then the rest is the explanation >of how he came up with his "clever" chapter title. He seems to >have this thing where his chapter titles are songs or movies or >whatever that have words or something relevant to what that >chapter is really about. eg there's a chapter on Bridge so he >calls it "London Bridge". That's fine, cute, whatever, but we >don't need a page explaining why you called it that. We get it. >Just put a paragraph about this little nuance in your intro or >something and give us more meat in the content of the book. > >Next point. Give the man meat. I bought this book wanting to >learn uber-tips from the Photoshop guru. But in reality, it looks >to me like he's taken the easy road. Quite a few pages (like 10 >or so) on the unsharp mask. Not really cool things like using the >unsharp mask with edge masking or surface masking or anything, >just 10 (or so) pages on different combinations of amount, >radius, and threshold. > >Some of the cooler tips he's posted actually come from "friends" >of his showing him the tip. I like that he's passed it on, and >has acknowledged his mates, but I want to see more of his cool >stuff. I don't reckon he's sharing it all. Can't be. > >The first third or so of the book talks only about Bridge and >Camera Raw. Too much. Reckon you could split the book up, have >another thinner book on those, or each of them, sell them >cheaper. Gimme a book on CS4 Photoshop please, not the other >stuff, that's why I got Lightroom. > >Summary - I reckon the title should contain the word "Beginners" >in it. I'm not pro PS user, only had it for a couple of months. >But I picked up much of what was in the book by playing with it >and reading some online sites. > >I'll keep the book as a reference for some of the tips in there, >but reckon if I tore out the pages that contained stuff that was >either obvious or wasted space, I wouldn't be left with much >inside the covers. > >I'm just starting the Lightroom book, but initial flick through >looks like it goes into much more detail, which is what I want. Should have just downloaded them from alt.binaries.e-books.technical instead of wasting all that expense and time. They are both often uploaded, along with many other PS tutorial and tips books. None of which are worth buying. I've browsed or read large parts of the PDF versions, then promptly deleted them. Those useless 30 or 50 megs were wasting valuable terabyte drive space. Photography instructional books are written by failed photographers.
From: tony cooper on 19 Nov 2009 01:08 On Wed, 18 Nov 2009 23:30:11 -0600, Better Info <binfo(a)someisp.net> wrote: > Photography instructional books >are written by failed photographers. Is yours listed on Amazon? -- Tony Cooper - Orlando, Florida
From: Better Info on 19 Nov 2009 01:21 On Thu, 19 Nov 2009 01:08:45 -0500, tony cooper <tony_cooper213(a)earthlink.net> wrote: >Better Info <binfo(a)someisp.net> I have no need to try to pawn off bad photography bounded in an instructional book to try to make all that wasted time and effort with a camera worth it. My photography stands on its own merit. I don't have to trick anyone into buying it.
From: Better Info on 19 Nov 2009 01:35
On Thu, 19 Nov 2009 16:33:35 +1000, Troy Piggins <usenet-0911(a)piggo.com> wrote: >* Better Info wrote : >> On Thu, 19 Nov 2009 01:08:45 -0500, tony cooper >> <tony_cooper213(a)earthlink.net> wrote: >> >>>Better Info <binfo(a)someisp.net> >> >> I have no need to try to pawn off bad photography bounded in an >> instructional book to try to make all that wasted time and effort with a >> camera worth it. My photography stands on its own merit. I don't have to >> trick anyone into buying it. > >What if everyone was downloading your photography for free off >binary groups when you were trying to sell it? Then I stop selling it publicly, just as I have for that very reason. They're now by private sale only, in limited editions. It's not my loss, it's everyone else's loss. I could care less if I sell any more of my photography. I already earned more than I can ever use in a lifetime. Judging by those photography instructional books, the photography world would be a much better place if those authors pulled their books permanently. They're not even worth stealing. If it ain't worth stealing, it sure as hell ain't worth buying. |