Commercial Photoshop with Bert Monroy

Rating:
Summary: Excellent How-To Book
Review: Bert Monroy is, undoubtedly, one of the most amazing Photoshop artists IÕve ever seen. He can produce images that look like photos, even though no photo was used.

All of the examples in the book are from actual projects. This is a BIG book. The pages are about 10 X 10 and full of color photos of each step in the various projects he shows. The large size is more suitable for sowing the step-by-step examples, but I found it slightly unwieldy.

He is very complete in his explanations, so that even someone with only modest Photoshop skills should be able to follow along easily.

He shows several photo quality images he created from scratch for a magazine. He says he creates realities in Photoshop. I was in awe of the shiny chrome-plated shower handle in a bathroom scene, the reflection in a water puddle on a path he created next to grass and bushes he created, the glow of the light bulb he made and the textures he created for a stucco wall and marble floor.

Monroy also show several projects in which he composited many images together for amazing results. It gave me some inspiration to do some projects on my own. He explains it very well. There is even an explanation of how an alpha channel works.

And there are examples of re-touching and correcting images in order for them to be used in advertisements and magazines. His attention to detail is phenomenal. (Perhaps it is due to his 20 years experience as an art director with a New York City Ad Agency.)