Rating: 
Summary: Excellent illustrations and examples
Review: Bunks has done a magnificent job of explaining the basics, with constant illustrations of his meaning, and a text that, while very understandable, was never condescending. But what really made this book appeal to me was his very impressive and cogent explanation of colorspaces and excellent tutorial on the curves, levels, and threshold tools. Without a clear understanding, these tools seem mere playthings. Pull the lines up and down in the curves tool, and you get a colorful solarized image. What fun. I used it once, and put it away. Bunks showed me how to use these tools to quickly, easily, and precisely perform color corrections. He elucidates a clear series of steps for maximizing the image's use of the available color range, removing any resulting or preexisting color casts with remarkable precision, and enhance the visibilty and impact of foreground elements. I followed this procedure on a number of images I had scanned, and some that were stills captured through a video camera, and the before and after differences were remarkable, for about five minutes an image. The whole book is a great reference, but to me, the chapters on colors and the curves tool were worth the price by themselves.
Rating:
Summary: One of the best GIMP books
Review: Grokking the GIMP is one of the best manuals around for The Gimp. There are easy to read illustrated examples of all of GIMP options and techniques. This is the book you need at your side when using the program.
Rating:
Summary: Simply the best
Review: I bought this to fulfill my need for a "real" graphic-manipulations-program, and boy was it a good buy!
Now I'm the one ruling the show (concerning pics), and make my collegues that use the latest-and-greates Photoshop look rather bleak... BUY IT.
Rating:
Summary: Great for the GIMP, and much more
Review: I had "used" Adobe Photoshop for about 4 years, but could never figure anything out - even after going through their provided tutorials, something was missing. In the past year I'd been using the GIMP more and more, but still never really understood what I was doing or why things worked when I finally got something to look good. But this book has changed all of that. This book contains just the right mix of topics, stepping from fundamentals of GIMP to a very approachable understanding of color spaces to some compound operations to very illustrative "projects" that pull everything together. The flow of the book is great, and for me there was a great balance between answering the questions of "How do I do this?" and "Why/When do I do this?". The sections on how selections and masks are complimentary and when to use them appropriately was especially useful and now photo editing has gone from an occasional chore to a fulfilling and productive activity. Although the specific examples are for the GIMP, the author always gives you enough of the "Why?" to be much more generally applicable. The bottom line is - no matter what photo manuipulation program you use, this book is undoubtedly useful!
Rating:
Summary: Great for the GIMP, and much more
Review: I had "used" Adobe Photoshop for about 4 years, but could never figure anything out - even after going through their provided tutorials, something was missing. In the past year I'd been using the GIMP more and more, but still never really understood what I was doing or why things worked when I finally got something to look good. But this book has changed all of that. This book contains just the right mix of topics, stepping from fundamentals of GIMP to a very approachable understanding of color spaces to some compound operations to very illustrative "projects" that pull everything together. The flow of the book is great, and for me there was a great balance between answering the questions of "How do I do this?" and "Why/When do I do this?". The sections on how selections and masks are complimentary and when to use them appropriately was especially useful and now photo editing has gone from an occasional chore to a fulfilling and productive activity. Although the specific examples are for the GIMP, the author always gives you enough of the "Why?" to be much more generally applicable. The bottom line is - no matter what photo manuipulation program you use, this book is undoubtedly useful!
Rating:
Summary: Great for the GIMP, and much more
Review: I had "used" Adobe Photoshop for about 4 years, but could never figure anything out - even after going through their provided tutorials, something was missing. In the past year I'd been using the GIMP more and more, but still never really understood what I was doing or why things worked when I finally got something to look good. But this book has changed all of that. This book contains just the right mix of topics, stepping from fundamentals of GIMP to a very approachable understanding of color spaces to some compound operations to very illustrative "projects" that pull everything together. The flow of the book is great, and for me there was a great balance between answering the questions of "How do I do this?" and "Why/When do I do this?". The sections on how selections and masks are complimentary and when to use them appropriately was especially useful and now photo editing has gone from an occasional chore to a fulfilling and productive activity. Although the specific examples are for the GIMP, the author always gives you enough of the "Why?" to be much more generally applicable. The bottom line is - no matter what photo manuipulation program you use, this book is undoubtedly useful!
Rating:
Summary: Outstanding book for those new to creating graphics
Review: I have read through a lot of this book and it has helped me tremendously in understanding the basic concepts and techniques for creating and manipulating digital images and graphics using the GIMP. Although it does not cover plug-ins in any great detail, it does lay a solid foundation for learning and using them in the future. Aside from that, almost every other conceivable topic is covered. After I finish reading this book, I am confident that I will be able to read through (and understand) the many GIMP tutorials available online without difficulty. If you are looking for a good introduction to image manipulation and the GIMP, this book does not fail to deliver in any regard.
Rating:
Summary: Outstanding book for those new to creating graphics
Review: I have read through a lot of this book and it has helped me tremendously in understanding the basic concepts and techniques for creating and manipulating digital images and graphics using the GIMP. Although it does not cover plug-ins in any great detail, it does lay a solid foundation for learning and using them in the future. Aside from that, almost every other conceivable topic is covered. After I finish reading this book, I am confident that I will be able to read through (and understand) the many GIMP tutorials available online without difficulty. If you are looking for a good introduction to image manipulation and the GIMP, this book does not fail to deliver in any regard.
Rating: 
Summary: Very good examples
Review: I have referenced the on-line version of this book several times and found several useful ideas and techniques out of it---especially those dealing with color correction and enhancement. However, there is no comparison to actually haveing physical pages to flip through and seeing the photos "in person". After reading through this book, several other Photoshop tutorials available make much more sense as well. My only complaint is that there is not much attention paid to any use of plugins or "advanced" clone tool techniques for repairing marred photographs without destroying the natural film grain etc. Also, some of the keybinding shortcust appear to have changed, and his examples using Layer masks did not always work for me as described in the book. Overall, though, purchasing this book is a great way to support open-source projects and learn a good deal about the Gimp as well.
Rating:
Summary: Most Current, to date,that I've discovered, on the Gimp
Review: I have searched high and low for a decent book on the Gimp. There are a several, good references ("Learning the Gimp in 24 Hours", "Essential Gimp for Web Developers", etc.) though many are out dated due to the rapid progress progress the developers. The Gimp, an excellent example of what open source cooperation produces, is well represented in this book. The author illustrates the use of the Gimp with clear diagrams, concise descriptions, and excellent examples of the Gimp's functionality. Apart from the official Gimp documentation, this book has served me well.
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