Another Type of Reference Book

[LadyJaine]

I've finally graduated from the "This button is here" books and moved on to the '"This is how you create this look" books.

I found Steve Caplin's "Art and Design in Photoshop" and his "How to Cheat in Photoshop CS4" books in Borders yesterday. A bit on the pricey side, but worth it. I work with CS3, but the two versions overlap enough that I'm OK. If you are working in Elements, Steve has editions of "How to Cheat in Elements".

I know this is one of the authors that digital kit designers are using for their references. I've seen some of the 'student exercises' in use. If you want to put a put a slogan on the back of a leather jacket, he shows you how to do it. Want to create bling? He's got directions. Steve also covers a lot of image editing. This isn't just remove zits and whiten teeth editing, this is create a different image editing. He guides you through taking the image that you have and turning it into the image that you want. A door opens part way, flat things become dimensional, light sources change and shadows appear or vanish. Since I'm playing more with extractions, I loved his sections on perspective and how to add an object or person into a scene and have them look like they were in the original image.

I do not suggest getting Steve Caplin's books as your first references on how to use Photoshop, or Photoshop Elements. You are going to be really frustrated by the missing information. He often tells you what to do, but gives no precise directions on how to do it. "Select using the pen tool" would be an impossible direction for a beginner, but it is fine for me. I know you don't get a selection, you get a path and have to turn it into a selection.