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 enlarge | Author: Scott Kelby
Publisher: Peachpit Press
Category: Book
List Price: $49.99
Buy New: $28.00
You Save: $21.99 (44%)
New (46) Used (18) from $23.65
Avg. Customer Rating:  83 reviews
Sales Rank: 5766
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 288
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.6
Dimensions (in): 9 x 8 x 0.7
ISBN: 0321501926
Dewey Decimal Number: 006.686
EAN: 9780321501929
ASIN: 0321501926
Publication Date: October 26, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 This is the book that I have been looking for a long time!! October 1, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is the book that I have been waiting for for a long time. I have been optimizing my photos with photoshop, but it always felt uncomfortable because of a lack of structure. The seven points system allows me to keep a structured approach and my photos look a lot better. What I also like about the book is Scott's writing style which is lively and funny and keeps me reading (usually I get bored and don't finish the book).
This one I finished, with pleasure, it's the first book I rated with 5 stars,thanks!
Scott Kelby's 7-Point System for Adobe Photoshop CS3 (Voices)
 Worth the money. September 6, 2008
I enjoy Scott's pedagogy - he has a flair of writing in a tone that is approachable to the novice but with a few nuggets for the more advance users. This book is in a nutshell Margulis secret weapon arsenal: (1) Curves, (2) Channel Blending, (3) Sharpening, (4) Highlight and Shadows, (5) Apply Image and the use of (6) LAB space but with a few additions, masking in "painting with light" and RAW. Here, Scott diverts from the Margulis philosophy of making global changes and "RAW processing". However, the story is re-told with the classical, engaging and always humorous Kelby voice making his books a joy to read and well worth the money. I hope what comes next is a joint adventure with Scott Kelby, Karen Eismann and Margulis - in a narrative trialog.
Misses Some Basic Teaching Opportunities August 22, 2008
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
Kelby's 7-point system for using PhotoShop is highly touted, but I haven't found the book as well written and helpful as I expected. Despite this man's reputed teaching skills, there are many things a teacher should do that are missing in this book. It certainly isn't a book for beginners to PS. He assumes you know a lot and often uses the PS lingo and if you don't know it, you have to figure it out for yourself because he leaves much of it unexplained. It also appears as if he wrote much of the book from his memory as to how to do these procedures, rather than going back and running through them in PS and making notes about names and places. I'll give some examples below from chapter 1.
The most amazing thing to me is that this entire book is just about built on the Camera Raw add-on to PhotoShop, but our author doesn't tell you how to find and open Camera Raw! How essential is that? I had to go into PS and find a default to open all JPEGs in Camera Raw. I still don't know how to find it without that.
Lesson 1: The lesson doesn't have a title but the example picture is dark, monochromatic, and without detail. So my assumption is that the purpose of this lesson is correct those problems. You would think a teacher would mention that, even put it in the title! Here are some problems I encountered in trying to do lesson 1.
He starts with the basic screen in Camera Raw and adjusts three things: White Balance, Exposure, and Black. He doesn't explain very many "whys" and a bit of explanation here would have been helpful. For example, why does he set the temperature at 7100? Why doesn't he adjust the tint of the picture? Most interesting to me is, there must be a reason for setting the exposure at +1.30, but he doesn't explain why the picture has to look nearly washed out before proceeding. So, by this time, I'm just doing things because he says so, without understanding very much about why? He does tell me that increasing the black will bring back the saturation and density enough to fix the image, but I don't know whether his 39 setting is good for every picture or just this one.
Now he takes us to PS proper to use its "Curves" feature for more improvements. At this point, if you are a beginner, things are confusing, because, I learned by trial and error, that there are two ways to get at layers. There is a layer drop down menu on the top bar, but there is also a layer panel on the right side of the screen. It isn't always clear from his writing which one he is referring to, and they do some different things, so it is essential to know. This sentence is an example: "Once the photo is open in Photoshop, click on the Create New Adjustment Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers panel and choose Curves from the pop-up menu." (Beginning of step 5, p. 4) Well, I didn't know the Layers Panel was on the right side of the screen, and had little icons at the bottom. Another sentence and a slide of the panel would have cleared this up. This is what I mean by a teacher who misses essential elements, at least for the beginner. I went to the layers menu at the top to do these things and was confused by his reference to icons. I was about one-fourth the way through the lesson before I finally discovered the Layer panel on the right side, and half-way through the lesson, before I discovered the icons at the bottom. Call me slow, I admit it. But a paragraph and a slide of the Layer panel would have saved me frustration and almost giving up in the middle of the first lesson. I discovered many things by both trial and error. I'm not a lazy student, but I felt some anger at having to resort to trial and error unnecessarily.
I mentioned that he used different names than I sometimes found in PS. An example is in reference to the eyedroppers in the Curves dialog box. He said they had to do with shadows, mid-tones, and highlights. But when you place your cursor on the eyedropper it talks about black, grey, and white. I figured out that was what he was referring to as shadows and highlights, but I wondered why he didn't use the terms used in PS and then explain what I just did. Another oversight a good teacher wouldn't make. He has you put numbers in each of the colors for R, G, and B, but doesn't explain why. They are saved and have now become the default, but I don't know why those numbers were picked or what they represent.
The most difficult part of this lesson for me was a little side trip he has you take to learn how to find the brightest spot on a photo if it is so monochromatic it is hard to tell. He has readers create a new layer with the Threshold option in the Layer menu. I won't go into detail here, but when you are done with this he says "then drag this adjustment layer into the trash (at the bottom right of the Layers panel) to delete it." I still hadn't sorted out the difference between the Layers menu at the top and the Panel on the right so had a hard time finding the trash. I expected it to be at the bottom of the entire screen. After several aborted efforts with this I finally figured it out. But I wondered why he simply didn't have the reader "cancel" the Threshold operation and achieve the same result, without the frustration. By clicking the eyedropper on the shadows and highlights he said this made them "neutral" and I have no idea what that means or why it is important, but it must be important in PS.
In order to correct shadows further he then introduces the reader to the Shadow/Highlight feature of PS. Luckily, I have had some experience with this, so this was easier for me to follow, but not entirely without problems. The background color was changed to white and then to black, without a word of explanation as to why? So, I lamely follow a process without understanding why I am doing it!
In step 13 he says we are to click on the "layer mask thumbnail" in the Layers panel. I didn't know what to expect when I clicked on it-whether an image would come up or what. As it turned out, nothing happened visually on the screen. I finally figured out this was a necessary step before converting to black, but I don't know why.
In step 15, he instructs the reader to click on the "gradient thumbnail" in the dialog and that will bring up the Gradient Editor. I think of a thumbnail as an image, so I expected the image I was working on to be in a gradient box. No such luck, so now what do I do? If he would have simply said double click on the gradient bar, that will bring up the Editor it would have been much simpler. I searched high and low in both the menu and the panel for a thumbnail, and clicked on the boxes where there were or should have been thumbnails. Nothing. After the lesson, while trying it out on one of my own pictures, I tried clicking on the gradient and behold up came the Editor. And it was just like the one in his book. The one I found in the menu was different, but I suppose it did the same thing. I don't really know.
The layers needed to be blended, and for some inexplicable reason, among the options, I was told to select Soft Light. It worked, but I don't know why. At this point I might make the observation that the labels PS uses aren't exactly intuitive to the new user. Maybe after 5 years of experience with the product I will understand why "luminosity" is the choice when fading curves, shadow/highlight, and the like. I would never have guessed it on my own or figured it out rationally. Without help books, these things are unfathomable!
It was fun to set up what I would call a "macro" to repeat the sharpening process, but I don't know why he selected 85% as the medium sharpening 120% for the High and 100% for the Low level of sharpening! Shouldn't 100% be in the middle? But he did have us change one other number in the Low option, which I suspect made it lower than the other two, but there was no explanation as to why or what it accomplished.
Well, I am a retired teacher, and so I expected a little better job of anticipating and answering such basic questions. Mr. Kelby gets a C grade as a teacher.
Still, I'm glad I have the book, and I will study each lesson and learn much, but I don't look forward to the frustrations I experienced in the first lesson. Knowing is part of conquering, so forewarned, I can now make better use of a product that could have been even better than its fans have led us to believe.
Learning on your own - a good place to start August 3, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I recently purchased this book after doing what I always do and searching other peoples reviews and trying to guess what would be good or not. I live in country Australia and there aren't a lot of stores to buy these types of books from so I depend on the reviews quite a lot.
I am thoughly enjoying working through the book. Previously I had Photoshop 7 and the difference to CS3 is huge. Although it is more of a do what I say type of book, when you don't have a clue what you are doing it is a good place to start. Further in the book you are required to start thinking for yourself. Great idea and there is even a refresher chapter for those who have gone through the book before and just need a quick reminder.
And as for Scotts humour and the way he writes his books, love it, just love it. It is meant to be tongue in cheek. but since I already own quite a few of his books and have rarely been disappointed I already knew what I was getting.
A Fun, Hands-on Toolkit Assembled by an Expert July 17, 2008
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
I went to the bookstore a few weeks ago to buy a book, as my girlfriend was working on her Dreamweaver CS3 course daily, and I really wanted to move my own Photoshop work forward, being an amateur photographer. I've been shooting for decades, picking up bits and pieces of knowledge about using the camera, and using only those pieces of Photoshop that I needed to at the time.
I knew from experience that many other books teach you one thing at a time, so you end up not learning workflow, just a disjointed series of neat little tricks.... If you do them once, you probably won't remember them. So, for example, because I white-balance 100% of my RAW images, I know that by heart...but some of the other stuff, I don't.
I bought this book after reading the introduction, and really connecting with the writing style (something that's very important to me - if it's hard to read, I won't read it, no matter how much I've spent). The humor was what sold me in the end (we all need a laugh!) but the way the book is laid out has been actually helping me to USE it. I don't know how many computer books I have on my desk and shelf that were only used once or twice...and at $50+ a piece, that's not good.
This book really works, and you learn a truly valuable workflow, which is exactly what I was looking for (and didn't even know it!) I process images every day, and I see this System peeking its way into my own work...even though I've only been immersed in it for a short period of time (when I have the time to work on it), and need to perfect some of the "artistic" sides of it (how far to tweak things in my own images, which way to set certain settings, etc.) I know that these things come with time...and the book makes this process fun - and easy to remember because you perform the important steps over and over again in different ways.
In reading some of the Amazon reviews that show this book in a less than spectacular light (Two stars? Whoa!), I'd like to address some of the points from my own perspective:
1) 7-Points versus 70-Points - Okay, yes, what Scott's teaching you isn't really seven easy clicks of the mouse, he's teaching you a workflow - his own workflow to be exact. This guy owns a Photoshop magazine, has been working with photography and Adobe for years, and has a lot of friends. So he's pulled in some really great concepts, and placed them in a specific order which seems logical to me, as a photographer. Do I necessarily want to know why we sharpen last, or why you want to adjust white balance first? I mean, that might be nice to know at some point, but when I just want to improve my images overall, it's a really sweet book. He doesn't just say "here's how you improve the sharpness of an image" because you don't really LEARN the technique by having someone tell it to you once. By the time you're finished with the book, you've done it many MANY times, and should be comfortable with all the techniques he's outlined. Having said all that, not all of the lessons are super long, and you don't have to apply each and every technique to all of your images. As one of the two star reviewers mentioned, some of the steps can be eliminated by improved camera handling - but when you've got limited time, or just like to shoot a lot, maybe you're not going to be like Ansel Adams and wait a few hours to release the shutter, you know? "OOh, there's a duck!" *Click* So maybe my white balance is off...*tweak*, and my exposure wasn't perfect (I was looking at the moving duck, not the exposure meter, sorry!) *drag* *Happy sigh*. Get the picture? It may seem like "70 steps" is a lot, but it's really not, after you've mastered the techniques most of them just take a few seconds until you're happy with the way things look. *click* *drag* *click* Another nice thing about using Scott's images is that he's helping you (through all the lessons) to train your eye...to see what an "eh" photo looks like compared to a winner. When you take his images from so-so to exceptional, you want to immediately do the same thing with your own images, which leads you to learning more quickly. Personally, I like the fact that he shows you all 70 steps, rather than just say "okay, let's increase the sharpness," leaving you to remember all the steps after a week or two of being away from the book. With as busy as folks get, it's awesome to be able to step away from the book (out of necessity) and come back to it later to work the next lesson, without having to relearn all the previous steps.
2) Consistency - In some of the other books I've used in the past, they show you how to do something once, one way, and expect you to learn it. That's not the way everyone learns. Our brains need variety, and some folks are wired differently than others. If Scott showed us how to do a specific process one way, and one way only, throughout the entire book, your brain would get bored with it (as it would lack that novelty the 20th time you saw it described the same way), and you wouldn't want to continue...or you'd just not remember the steps. I find that the method used in this book actually helps me to retain the information long enough that I can practice it in my own work without having to go back to the book - aside from the more complex procedures I haven't mastered yet. If someone writes a book without realizing that they have a diverse audience, the book will only appeal to a small group of individuals. In order for a book to be popular, and to reach as many people as possible, it has to include diversity, and I think this book does a pretty good job of that. I don't get confused when he shows me how to do the same thing using a different technique, because I can see on-screen in the preview exactly what each click and drag does. So, yes, he's guiding me step-by-step, but I'm also having my own experience within the lesson, which aids in the final outcome of learning the basic concepts being taught. I don't think this book needs to be more systematized, although I do hope for an intermediate and advanced sequel which WOULD rely on previous books in order to understand the material. In the case of an intermediate or advanced version of this book, if you don't know how to pre- and post-sharpen, you might want to go back to the original book. In the context of THIS book, however, there are very few assumptions made, aside from a general understanding of computers and Photoshop. I feel like, if I sat my mother down in front of Photoshop CS3 with a decent set of her snapshots, she could improve her pictures using this book.
3) What to apply the system to your own photographs - Okay, so this is like telling Bob Ross that you can't paint, because he has to tell you exactly where to put that happy little bush. Seriously, folks...this is art. Scott is giving you TOOLS (and the more you practice using them, the stronger they become for you) to use in your own images. He's not going to be there to handhold you when you took a decent shot that you want to make fantastic - and that's not the intended point of the book. Once you've seen what one of the points does, you should be training yourself to always ask yourself the question: "How could I improve this image?" and more specifically "Does this image need any or all of these 'points'?" and "If so, to what degree? In what manner? How should I apply it?" and finally "Does it look better or worse than when I started?" Each step is an incremental movement from one end of the spectrum (hopefully a decent image) to the other end (the ARTIST'S vision of the perfect image). The reason why YOU are taking the photograph and posting/printing/eating it, and not Scott, is because it's your art. It all comes back to the fact that you, as the photographer, are the artist and have to learn how to make certain choices about your art. I am personally inspired by seeing each of the images in Scott's book go from somewhat drab to spectacular (or at least nicer-looking), knowing that I did it, step-by-step, and can just as easily do that with my own images.
I guess three bullet-points is enough, but I just want to say that this book contains a great set of tools that any digital artist can use to help improve their images in Photoshop CS3. Plus, at the price, its a LOT less expensive than an in-person course, you can certainly get a lot more out the book and when you're done with it, you can loan it to a friend.
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