Rating: 
Summary: Expert Information
Review: A wonderful and thorough job of covering topics such as tonal and color corrections, scans, color management, spot colors and duotones, prepress and the web. I found answers to topics such as spot colors in this book that I haven't found anywhere else. The authors are expert in their field and portray that information in an easy to understand format. They also throw in some humor here and there.You'll get very comfortable using levels and curves by the time you complete this book, it is very thorough and in-depth. You'll learn how to judge what adjust needs to be made and the best way to do it. Like most full-featured programs these days, there is more than one way to achieve a task. These authors teach you the most expedient way to accomplish a wide range of tasks. You'll learn how to calibrate your monitor, make tonal corrections, remove color casts and silhouette an image for catalog work and more. This book should be on the shelf of every serious photographer
Rating:
Summary: Better than Adobe Photoshop 7.0 for Photographers
Review: I was looking for a good reference book to learn about Color Management and using it to print photos to an inkjet printer. This book's color and printing section is much more thorough than the book Adobe Photoshop 7.0 for Photographers. If you want all your questions answered about color management, this is the better book.
Rating: 
Summary: Falls short of instructive illustrations and guidance
Review: I was nonplussed by this book. I unfortunately listened to the previous reviewer (Ian) from 2002 and purchased this book.
Real World Photoshop is a large text but fails to provide even minimum pictorial guides and step by step instructions. The lengthy text does not stay on target and show how to actually resolve the issues or photographic problem being discussed. There are far better Photoshop books available that teach you needed skills. This one doesn't do the job.
Rating:
Summary: This book tells you how to really use a great product.
Review: I've gradually been working my way up the Photoshop ladder for the last three years and finally got to Photoshop 7. It became obvious fairly early on that that there was much more to it than Adobe's manual described, so I started searching for a better book. Blatner and Fraser's book is it. I still have a lot more to learn, but now I feel comfortable with using Photoshop 7. The book is oriented to photographers, not web designers, which is what I wanted and their description of the uses of levels and curves is great. Also, since I'm not a professional, my interest does not lie in preparing images for a commercial print shop, however,my guess is that the discussion of how to do such work would be extremely helpful to those who do. Sydney Self
Rating:
Summary: This book tells you how to really use a great product.
Review: I've gradually been working my way up the Photoshop ladder for the last three years and finally got to Photoshop 7. It became obvious fairly early on that that there was much more to it than Adobe's manual described, so I started searching for a better book. Blatner and Fraser's book is it. I still have a lot more to learn, but now I feel comfortable with using Photoshop 7. The book is oriented to photographers, not web designers, which is what I wanted and their description of the uses of levels and curves is great. Also, since I'm not a professional, my interest does not lie in preparing images for a commercial print shop, however,my guess is that the discussion of how to do such work would be extremely helpful to those who do. Sydney Self
Rating:
Summary: These boys know there business.
Review: OK, I'm reading one or two other books at the moment that are pretty good for what I need but this is the book that fills in the missing blanks.
Written in an approachable way that really makes it easy to understand and learn, highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: The Ultimate Digital Dark Room Technique Book
Review: Real World Photoshop 7 is an ultimate digital dark room technique book for Photoshop 7 users. The largest part of the book is dedicated to dark room techniques, but a good part of the book covers such things as getting the best scans, creating effects, saving for the web, making half-tones, etc. They cover lots of issues that help me understand WHY I might want to do something a certain way. Such as, the differences between RGB, CMYK and LAB color. When I bring a digital photo into Photoshop, I almost always feel a need to adjust it, fix the levels, etc. Fooling with the levels usually causes a color shift. To avoid that, they explain how to change the mode from RGB to LAB color, and then apply the levels command to the L (luminance) channel, leaving the color untouched. I can change the mode back to RGB afterwards, if I want. In discussing color correction, they talk about fixing the neutrals so the rest will follow and explain that in Photoshop's RGB mode, it automatically calculates the amount of CMYK to produce neutrals, but in CMYK mode, you have to manually fill in the percentages. The section on color correction is incredible. They discuss printing from Photoshop 7, the issue of different file formats and which to use when; the Rule of 16; which settings take precedence over others, and much more. The book is well laid out, with an easy to follow structure. Several light bulbs spontaneously illuminated for me while reading this book. This book is useful to new Photoshop users and for seasoned photographers who have past experience with Photoshop but like to keep a reference of new features.
Rating:
Summary: If you wanna make money with P shop
Review: Then GET THIS BOOK!..
You wanna make cool wacky stuff then go get the WOW! Photoshop book.
If you plan to make some sort of income with Photoshop, you would be NUTZ not to read this book. If only for the chapter of color managment, do it!
Rating:
Summary: If you wanna make money with P shop
Review: Then GET THIS BOOK!..
You wanna make cool wacky stuff then go get the WOW! Photoshop book.
If you plan to make some sort of income with Photoshop, you would be NUTZ not to read this book. If only for the chapter of color managment, do it!
Rating:
Summary: Gets My Highest Recommendation!
Review: When I purchased PS7, I knew that the standard manual was not going to cut it. I then began my search for a real guide to PS 7. After considering many different books, I settled on this one.
I consider myself to be an advanced amateur photographer and my equipment includes a digital SLR. This book is helping me to get the most out of my camera.
I have used a few different photo editing software packages but was new to PS7. Using tutorials that I found on the WEB, I was able to do some basic editing but wanted to know much more. Well, "Real World Adobe Photoshop 7" is a treasure trove of information.
The book is easy to read and the occasional humor makes the journey through the book even more enjoyable. The book is full of tips and "how-tos". Note that this book is NOT a step by step tutorial with a CD where you get to practice on someone else's photos. I wanted a how-to guide where I could immediately apply the technique to my own photos - and this book fulfills that need. I have no desire to waste time on someone else's images.
"Real World" includes chapters on color management, curves and levels, sharpening, printing, etc. The instructions on profiling using Adobe Gamma were the best I've seen. I thought I already knew something about USM and sharpening until I read that chapter. Do you convert from RGB to LAB and back again when you apply USM? Well, that may not be a good idea. Did you know that you can sharpen very effectively without USM by using Layers? There is so much more I could mention but hopefully this gives you a little flavor for the book. I also like that the book provides instructions for more than one way (sometimes many ways) of accomplishing a task. In this way, you can try them all and determine what's best for your workflow.
So, what about negatives? The authors wrote the book from a MAC perspective. This is clearly mentioned up front and occasionally elsewhere when there are functional differences. At other times however, you will find that their descriptions do not exactly match what you are seeing on your PC. I found this to be very minor but wanted to mention it here, just in case.
Also, I would not recommend this book for true PS beginners. The authors do assume a certain pre-level of knowledge.
If you want the get the most out of PS7 or want to learn alternative (better) ways of doing something, you won't regret this purchase. Thanks to this book, I'm able to give advice to others regarding PS7 questions and problems.
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