Illustrations with Photoshop : A Designer's Notebook

Rating:
Summary: something that expresses the artist's creativity
Review: Another book in O'Reilly's series on Photoshop, by a group of French artists. Directed at a user already proficient with Photoshop basics. The emphasis is on serious artwork. In this sense, it differs from standard Photoshop texts which tend to describe Photoshop usage in very mechanistic terms. Quite understandable, as it's the obvious way to explain a computer program's use.

But what this book aspires to is to suggest that you can rise above merely using Photoshop as a craftsman. Instead, it elevates Photostop to the tool of an artist. As an example, there is a chapter, Voyage to Porto. The author describes making traditional pencil sketches of Porto. Complemented by digital photos of the town. Then the bulk of the chapter goes into how these two media are integrated with Photoshop into something that is far more than just a digital photo. Something that expresses the artist's creativity.

Rating:
Summary: Great Inspirational book
Review: This book has great examples of illustrations. It goes over several different approaches to illustrating in Photoshop. It is not a 'step-by-step how to' book. It's more like here are several great illustrations and some general steps on how they were done.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting, but talent required
Review: This is a short, but impressive set of example illustrations using Photoshop. There are nine in all. Each is shown with about ten pages of very detail exposition from the start of the project to the finish. There are a variety of styles used, from anime, to photo realistic, to pen.

The use of photoshop is well explained, though I think in the end this is more a demonstration of talent than it is a road map for how to use photoshop to build images.

Rating:
Summary: Many ideas inside to feed the creative genius in you
Review: Well written, this book provides insight into the tricks used by several artists used in Photoshop. The book is laid out in a quasi magazine format which make it easy to read. The book contains lots of visual examples including examples of the toolbars and menu items. This book does require you to know a certain amount about how Photoshop works and I would not reccommend it for a beginning Photoshop user unless they had a good Photoshop basics book to refer to. Most people that have used Photoshop and that are famillar with the most of the tools, how to use layers and masks, can get a lot out of this book.

There are many different styles used in this book from scanned sketches, digital tablet works of art, to modified digital photos. Some problems can be solved in different ways and the each individual artists each bring different ideas and methods that many graphic artists will appreciate.

I would reccommend this book for anyone who is looking to expand their knowledge of how to use Photoshop in an artistic manner. People looking for a "learning to use Photoshop" book, should look elsewhere, and pick this book up after they have had some experience.