Photoshop 6 Artistry

The first section goes over tools and functionality; section two shows color correction and how to create a "master digital image"; and section three covers a myriad of color, layer, and selection techniques using chapter-length hands-on projects, including one that covers restoring old photographs. Screen shots are plentiful, as are sample photos and other graphics, and the captions are a skimmer's delight--readers can learn a lot without even reading the full text.

Those who own previous editions will want to know what's new in this book. In addition to rewriting examples found in Photoshop 5 & 5.5 Artistry to reflect all the new features of Photoshop 6, the author has added new techniques he's learned from printing and selling his own art since the last book. There are several new examples that cover Photoshop 6's new color-management and color-calibration features. Also, this latest book has been reorganized so that it can be used as a classroom textbook. The CD-ROM has an improved version of the author's ArtistKeys--automated sequences, assigned to function keys, that save time by doing common tasks like opening or closing palettes and converting file formats.

The book works well for Photoshop-experienced professional designers and photographers, but would also be a good choice for a beginner. If you come to Photoshop by way of Photoshop 6 Artistry, you'll surely be a nimble expert by the end of the book. --Angelynn Grant

Product Description
Over 50 small sections show you a focused approach to doing specific tasks. Working through the reference chapters and the hands-on, step-by-step exercises, you gain an in-depth understanding of complex topics such as calibration and ICC color management. You master the relationship between Photoshops tools and learn how to get the most out of these tools for greater creativity and performance. The book will guide you to create and output stunning artistic images for a myriad of professional uses, including use for the web. In short, Photoshop 6 Artistry will instruct the reader how to get the most out of Photoshop 6.

1. photographers more then artists. Most of the examples are about photo's

2. in full color with loads of pictures that explain the steps and menu's. I counted on average 2 or 3 color pictures per page with a few lines of text about what is done. This is where this books shines and distinquish itself from other books.

3. it's obvious that the author(s) has a lot of experience with Photoshop, the book tells you best practice of how to do things. Good examples that are meaningful and useful.

4. it's not an easy book, there is a lot to read in a small font with the initial and finished examples on the cd. A book to learn, not a quick reference book.

5. A lot of depth, a lot of things are discussed in depth in 448 pages.

4. note that there's a version Photoshop v7 out now if you own 7.


Looks nice at first glance, but surprisingly uninformative   April 20, 2002
 9 out of 11 found this review helpful

I'm not a professional Photoshop user, but I play one around the office, and consider myself an intermediate-to-advanced Photoshopper, having "developed" tens of thousands of digital photographs thereby. I have a total of four Photoshop 6 books; Photoshop 6 Artistry is far and away the worst of the four. To wit:

- The many misspellings, grammatical and technical errors, and mismatched and incorrectly labeled diagrams make this book a chore to follow and a pronounced displeasure to read. The first spelling error ("persue") appears less than 100 words into the book, followed by glaring errors at what seem like every turn of the page. The diagram illustrating the Channel Palette icons (Chapter 2, page 8) is confusingly incorrect for the uninitiated, showing the same icon four times with different functions listed below each. Literally dozens of the hundreds of diagrams in this book contain similar inconsistencies. Technical inaccuracies include the explanation of feathering; several different explanations all state that a feathering value of "x" equates to a total feather-effect width of 2 times x, when in fact the total effect width is much greater.

- The entire book is geared towards Mac users, making almost no concession for Windows' command modifiers (Control vs. Command, Alt vs. Option) other than two paragraphs in the early chapters.

- The many "Hands-On Session" chapters, while very thorough in listing the steps used to achieve a certain effect, seem contrived for the images shown and don't transfer easily to general techniques. The author spends far too much time giving specific instructions that mirror his image-enhancement techniques without explaining the "why" behind the work, a la giving someone a fish instead of teaching him how to fish.

- The techniques themselves are lacking in many key areas -- too much emphasis is placed on using the conventional selection tools, the Curves tool isn't used to anywhere near its potential, and sharpening techniques are glossed over and not explained in detail. ("You will have to run some tests to determine the type and amount of sharpening that works best for your different categories of images and output devices." And how!)

- The images printed in the book lack sharpness, depth, and most importantly, detail. Many of the Before/After images look almost exactly the same, and do not illustrate the point being made in the text. The houses on page 101, for example, are supposed to illustrate varying degrees of .JPG compression, and fail to do so.

As you can tell, I'm very disappointed that I purchased this book. I highly recommend the Photoshop 6 Shop Manual (by Donnie O'Quinn) as the ultimate resource for every action/menu item/option within Photoshop, and Professional Photoshop 6 (by Dan Margulis) as the ultimate guide to color-correction techniques within Photoshop. Photoshop 6 Artistry: Mastering the Digital Image may be suitable for beginners (although Adobe's included-with-the-software guide is much more practical) and learn-by-rote students, but it's not for me.


This book will take you from Intermediate to Advanced!   April 9, 2002
 2 out of 4 found this review helpful

I just spent a week reading through a ton of different excerpts and reviews of photoshop books to decide on a book to help me improve my very good PS skills. I ended up buying this one and I am EXTREMELY happy with the choice. I'm an intermediate user with an interest in phot0 correction and real-life uses of Photoshop (I don't do much logo design or pure graphic design). This book will catapult me to an advanced user. It covers many of the tips and tricks like the Photoshop WOW book, but has a much strong focus on when, why and how to use the techniques. I highly recommended it.