Creative-Prose
- the e-news magazines for creative professionals
Books, links, updates, noteworthy news - all that is timeless.
Creative-Prose
- the e-news magazines for creative professionals
CleanSweep and Photoshop
If you have CleansSweep, you're probably having
problems with your Plugins. Go Here
http://www.adobe.com/supportservice/custsupport/SOLUTIONS/6f96.htm for more
information at Adobe.
MMX Plugins and Photoshop
Adobe has upgraded 4.0 to
4.01 with a new set of MMX plugins for MMX enabled computers.
The i/us site
recently added a number of threaded discussion areas on Adobe products,
including one on Photoshop. The site also has a number of Photoshop tips and
tricks areas as well as related free directory listings for positions, user
groups, service bureaus, etc.
Bug Net
where you can get answers for bug reports and find workarounds for many software
applications.
Photoshop
Newsgroup Ask questions, find answers and more (comp.graphics.apps.photoshop)
Carl
Volk has written an informative article about drum scanning, digital imaging
devices, film and cameras titled
"Getting Digital with
Your Images," which can be very useful for photographers. While there, check
out his Photography.
Kodak
Digital Imaging What you need to know from digital cameras to printing
List
of Known Photoshop Plugins for all platforms r
Ventana
Communications has released Photoshop 4 f/x for both the PC and Mac
versions. This book is the first of the PC version which solves typical design
challenges by developing an in-depth understanding of tools. Not just how they
work, but how to use them effectively to create powerful, professional imagery.
Arranged by category for easy reference, it provides dozens of sample projects.
The book Includes a unique Community CD to access the Ventana web site and
provides an interface which allows users to enter chat, post to message boards,
and attend our live online events.
Adobe Photoshop 5.0 for Photographers
By Martin Evening ISBN 0-240-51519-6
Written from the perspecitve of a photographer's digitial editing needs, this
book explains in plain english how to adjust color, do touch-ups, repair images
and more. Also covers how to set up Photoshop on the computer to get the
best performance and explains many of the built-in filters uses and layer FX
controls. Comes with CD with examples used in book.
Photoshop Channel Chops
By David Biedny, Bert Monroy and Nathan Moody, New Riders Publishing ISBN
1-56205-723-5
A must have book covering the mysterious topic of channel usage. "The book
focuses on undocumented techniques and advanced theory for color and alpha
channels, layers, calculations and true professional bluescreening."
Everyone should get this, from novice to the experienced user.
Adobe Web Design & Publishing Unleashed
By Sam's Net Publishing ISBN 1-57521-252-8
This is a very good book covering Photoshop 4, PageMill 2, Acrobat 3, Pagemaker
6.5 and Premiere 4.2, all tied together for publishing on the web. Surprisingly
in depth for the number of apps covered in only 1000+ well written pages. Comes
with a CD-ROM chock full of goodies for both PC and Mac platforms which includes
filters, images and examples from the book. Also has in Acrobat format Photoshop
4 Complete and Web Publishing Unleashed on the CD-ROM.
Official Kai's Power Tools Studio Secrets
By Ted Alspach and Steven Frank, IDG Books, ISBN 0-7645-4002-5
Great book, a must have you use Meta Tools programs at all. Covers Kai's Power
Tools with all its incarnations, Bryce 2, Convolver, Vector Effects, Final
Effects, Power Photos and Goo. The book uses in-depth detail on using each
program, and how to effectively use one program with the another. Reveals hidden
secrets of some of the programs and shows you how to take advantage of them.
Comes with a CD-ROM that's naturally very short on PC stuff, but the book is
still worth the price.
Photoshop Web Magic
By Schulman et al, Hayden Books, ISBN 1-56830-314-9
This book will teach you how to create buttons, animations, backgrounds and some
text FX. I really didn't need this book, but it did have some interesting
graphical ideas which gave me some more ideas and that made it worth buying.
Laid out in a similar format as the Type Magic book, it takes you thru
step-by-step in creating various FX. Comes with a CD-ROM containing clip art,
stock photos, and tryout demos for Alien Skin, MetaTools and more. Overall, a
good selection of stuff on the CD-ROM. It's a good book, a little repetitious in
nature when there are other books out there doing the same thing, so look it
over before buying.
Photoshop 3 Bible for Windows 95
By Deke McClelland and Robert Phillips, IDG Books ISBN 1-56884-882-X
This is a very good book, all encompassing with everything you need to know
about Photoshop on the Windows 95 platform. Learn the ins and outs, tricks, how
to use channels, paths, image modes, a short tutorial on using the Custom Filter
and using Filter Factory that are worth reading. A thick book with much to offer
the beginner to advanced. Included is a CD-ROM with images and examples from the
book. Unfortunately, some Filter Factory plugin example codes were not included
on the CD-ROM even though they're mentioned in the book as such. Don't let that
stop you from buying the book, it's still a valuable resource to have.
Submitted by Steve Fisher, web weaver of these pages.
Photoshop Type Magic
By David Lai and Greg Simsic, Hayden Books ISBN 1-56830-220-7
This book's sole purpose is to show how to get different effects for type. It
has step-by-step procedures for creating these special effects: assemblage,
beveled, bitmap, blurred, chiseled, chrome, credit card, cutout, earthquake,
electric, embossed, embroidered, flaming, gel, glass, glowing, gradient,
halftone, liquid, marquee, melting, moving, neon, overgrown, painted, patterns
and textures, peel-away, perspective, pillow, plastic, pop-up, reflected, rough
edges, rubber stamped, shadows, shattered, smoke, stitched, swirling, three-d,
transparent, underwater, VDT type and wet cement. (Whew!) Many of these effects
depend on having 3rd party software, such as Adobe Streamline, KPT tools, or
Adobe Illustrator. It does come with a CD-ROM, having both PC and Mac software,
but the PC software selection will disappoint the PC version user. The book is
well illustrated in full color, the directions are clear, and even though it's
written from a Mac point of view, the procedures can still be applied to the PC
version. Lots of good ideas and how-to's on the effects. So what's it doing in
my review? Well, for $30 it's not an overpriced book as far as learning books go
in the Photoshop category, (with or without a CD-ROM) and it sticks to the topic
of text effects, and plenty of it.
Submitted by Steve Fisher, web weaver of these pages.
Photoshop NOW!
By Gary Bouton, New Riders Publishing ISBN 1-56205-200-4
CD-ROM contains textures, image files, fonts, shareware, utilities, templates,
plug-ins, drawings and a huge online help file. This book is actually very good
utilizing clear, color examples, easy to follow steps for recreating the
example. It covers masking, channels, retouching, light sources, special
effects. Also good examples of making 2D look 3D. $35.00
Submitted by Steve Fisher, web weaver of these pages.
The Photoshop 3 WOW! Book
By Linnea Dayton & Jack Davis ISBN 0-201-88370-8
CD-ROM contains stock photos, examples from the book, demos of Adobe software,
plug-ins, lighting styles, WOW Widgets to enhance Photoshop effects. This is an
extremely good book, covering Photoshop basics, masks, layers, enhancing photos,
painting, special effects, lighting effects, depth and motion. $45.00
Submitted by Steve Fisher, web weaver of these pages.
Kai's Power Tools Filters and Effects
By Heinz Schuller, New Riders Publishing ISBN 1-56205-480-5
At first I thought this book was a rip-off. Reason I thought this is that the
Kai's Power Tools version 2.0 that it comes with wouldn't work at all with
Photoshop 3.0.4. Come to find out, when I started reading the book and got to
page 17, it mentions that the KPT tools are for 16-bit only, and I'm running
Windows 95 and Photoshop 3.0.4, which of course both are 32-bit. Would've been
nice if they had put that someplace more obvious and listed it. Luckily, when I
got my Photoshop upgrade to 3.0.5, the good people at Adobe saw problems like
this and have tried to get 16 bit apps to work within the new version. It seems
as thought they did their homework well since now the version 2 KPT is read and
loaded by Photoshop. At the same time I got version 3 of KPT that is 32-bit,
which of course works. Naturally, I changed my mind and I now think the book is
very good. The owner's manual that comes with KPT version 3 is in black and
white, while the Filters and Effects book is in color and goes into a bit more
detail as to the mechanics of what does what and why. It does come with a CD-ROM
each for both Windows and Mac, complete with some very beautiful designs to
drool over. After everything got up and running, the book is all it claims to
be. $45.00
Submitted by Steve Fisher, web weaver of these pages.