Art History Textbooks ReviewsArt History Textbooks Reviews

This book covers PSCS 3 in an easy-to-understand fashion
Photoshop CS3 is a very "deep" application, and I think that this book can be an excellent resource for virtually any CS3 user (especially those who classify themselves as intermediate users of Photoshop). The author does not assume that you have already read a user manual or other book. He covers in detail many of the tools in detail that are frequently used to color correct, mask and composite images, and do many other common tasks. "Hints" and "Notes" can be found throughout the book in small green boxes, and I found them very helpful. For example, in Chapter 10, the author explains in a Hint box how to apply sharpening settings from one image to a batch of images in Bridge.

Weinrebe supports his lessons with good screen shots throughout the book. Just a small selection of the tools that he covers very well (in a step-by-step fashion) are the Healing Brush, Lens Correction tool, History Brush, the Bridge and Camera Raw (including a suggested Bridge/Camera Raw Workflow), tinting with a color layer, batch renaming, converting to DNG, creating contact sheets, creating panoramas with Photomerge, and actions.

One of the most interesting parts of the book are the artist interviews. These Q&A sessions with such luminaries as John Paul Caponigro, R. Mac Holbert, Pedro Meyer, Graham Nash, Maggie Taylor and Joyce Tenneson generally run from about 4-7 pages and include fantastic imagery and insight about the artists' background, their art, what motivates them, and how they approach and use various technologies. I believe that this series of essays could easily be a very strong coffee table book on their own. They are a really special.

I also like the Chapter Reviews questions and Exercises at the end of each chapter, which can definitely help people to learn more about the Photoshop techniques that were covered in the chapter. Having all the exercise files on a CD in the book is also a nice feature. Also, it really helps that Weinrebe is a professional photographer who has been preparing files for clients for years. His work really shines throughout the book.

A helpful guide for an old time film photographer
As a long time film photographer making the move to digital this book was a life saver. The step by step approach took the mystery out of photoshop.
The language was clear and the examples relevant.

buy it!
the book is well worth the cost: it is well organized and presents all of the capabilities of Photoshop in a pseudo-textbook fashion that are easily understood. At the end of each of the 12 chapters, the author presents a review: questions that the reader should be able to answer and exercises covering the CS3 capabilities that had been explained in that specific chapter. Also, the author includes interviews with 12 noted creative photographers such as Maggie Taylor and Lois Greenfield.

Clear and concise
Photoshop is incredibly feature-rich software, and frequently perceived as overwhelming. Weinrebe breaks it down into easily understandable bits while still providing useful tips for very experienced users.

And the interviews with renowned photographers add a unique element, opening - at least a little a bit - a window on their varying perspectives and workflows.

Well done. This book is a valuable addition to every photographer's reference library.

Simple but Comprehensive
Jones manages to focus in on the most basic parts of 18th Cent. art, from its light-hearted Rococo beginnings to its more serious-minded and sometimes political NeoClassicism. What he lacks in detail he more than makes up for by writing in an accessible, straight-forward prose that doesn't require a Master's Degree in Art History to be understood. He provides numerous illustrations, many of which (unfortunately) are not in color, and he also touches on major accomplishments in architecture and landscape design. This book is a great introduction for anyone interested in a study of 18th cent. art or even for the curious layman, but it is probably too general for serious researchers.

Much ado about nothing
Some good things come in small packages but in this case the quantity reflects the quality. Readers would be well advised to look at Herbert Gans, Peter Swirski, Lawrence Levine, and Noel Carroll for illuminating books about contemporary art.

Young artists beware!
This is an excellent little book! Not much of an introduction as it assumes quite a lot of previous knowledge of the field; but an eye-opening Marxist analysis of the mechanics and machinations of the art world and of its myriad connections with the larger economic and political structures within which it thrives or dies.

For example the paragraph that should be carved on the lintels of all art schools doors: "...the overall nature of the arts economy is generally disavowed by its participants, particularly artists, who overlook or deny their orientation toward financial reward. Artists are singularly ill-informed about their prospects for success, are prone to taking risks, are poor but come from wealthy backgrounds... and tend to subsidize their art-making out of other earnings. These features... cause the art world to be permanently over-crowded, making the poverty of artists a structural feature."

Stallabrass discusses how the multi-cultural fashion in the arts serves (apart from a few third-world artists) the ideological campaign of the Neo-Liberal economy and the multi-national corporations. He touches on how academe creates one kind of artist while the market creates another. Both types are adapted to their niches in the economic structure and neither enjoys the freedom artists are generally assumed to gain in exchange for their frustration and poverty.

A fascinating and eye-opening read.