Book Review: Photoshop CS3 Photo Effects Cookbook

Photoshop CS3 Photo Effects Cookbook: 53 Easy-to-Follow Recipes for Digital Photographers, Designers, and Artists

What's Good: Very useful and utilitzarian effects. Nice "Tip" boxes scattered throughout

What's Bad: Busy layout, some examples aren't very inspiring

Verdict: While the book doesn't show off the effects like you might expect, there are some really useful tips and tutorials

Full Text Review

While you can spend a ton of time looking online for the latest photoshop tutorial, sometimes it's nice to have a few cool ones on hand. So something like the Photoshop CS3 Photo Effects Cookbook sounds like a good idea. The book starts with an introduction which covers many of the improvements added in CS3 as well as an overview of the Photoshop tools you'll need to be familiar with throughout the book. It's broken up into "Tonal and Color", "Graphic Art Effects", "Lighting Effects", "Natural World Effects, "Traditional Photographic Effects", "Distortion Effects", "Texture Effections" "Presentation Effects" plus a Glossary

The book is a collection of tutuorials all of which are useful, even if some of the examples aren't pretty to look at. Don't you want to look at the final product and think, "I want to do THAT!" (like on abduzeedo.com which has some stunning tutorials, in my humble opinion) The halftone effect is often used to really cool effects, but the "psychedlic poster effect" tutorial has a pretty silly looking final result that is more like a powerpoint presentation. The books cover shows some of the mediocre examples. Still, the effects are useful and in the right hands would be pretty spectacular.

The tutorial for converting color into black and white is a pretty simple tutorial. The author stresses the importance of not losing the dynamic range. Many pages have a "tip" box related to the "recipe". These are the kind of thoughtful ideas that make the book worth it. Overall, you have a collection of useful concepts and the examples are just ways of teaching the techniques. Your imagination will be required to make them actually useful. They are explained in a detailed step by step fashion. Most importantly, they tell you why you're using these. So you can improve or change the idea presented with that understanding. These aren't just techniques that you would have to always reproduce exactly as shown in the book to ever even use.

The graphic arts section has some really nice end products, some of the best in the book, including Warholing and watercolor. These are very convincing as are many of the lighting effects. The neon sign effect is one of the coolest ones. If you visit the Amazon link and look at the back cover and excerpts you can see more examples.

The nature and world effects will show you how to change the seasons: make leaves change to autumn, rainfall on a sunny day, rainbows, waterdroplets, lightning, snow in the summer. Many of these are really well executed and all are easy enough to follow.

The traditional photographic effects have very interesting introductory paragraphs for each "recipe" explaining how film grain, tinting or whatever it may be would have been done in traditional equipment. This really sets you up to understand what you are trying to reproduce.

The distortion effects will help you do things like clone with perspective, turn a photo into a caricature or add a tattoo. These aren't tutorials that I would use too often, but there aren't many of them anyway. The texture effects are a bit flat. I would have expected more distortion maps which are so easy to use and add a lot of depth and realism. I don't think there were any used however. Flat layer effects seemed to be more favored. That's kind of weird.

If many of these effects sound like ones you might use, then it isn't a bad book to keep hand. I know that there are a lot of really great tutorials on the web, but sometimes it's nice to have a book compiled with consistent quality. This book might fit that need for many readers.

You can visit the author's website at TimShelbourne.co.uk.

This post is part of an ongoing series of book reviews. To suggest a book for review, send a message via twitter @sketchee

Book Review: Thinking with Type

Thinking with Type: A Critical Guide for Designers, Writers, Editors, & Students (Design Briefs)

What's Good: History and practical information weaved together seamlessly, nice design and layout, entertaining

What's Bad: A bit short

Verdict: A great primer for learning how to look at type and how to choose and format typography. Not definitive, but a worthy handbook of the larger typographic discussion.

Full Text Review

Design isn't just about how things look, the answer to a design challenge is more about discovering why certain things work. In steering projects toward visual solutions that deliver clear messages, we have to look at the very building blocks of design. Thinking with Type: A Critical Guide for Designers, Writers, Editors, & Students aims to get at the heart of this issue. If the cover seems familiar it might be because I mentioned this book before in my article Gifts for Graphic Designers: A Wish List, but it's time for a more thorough review. The book's aim is to be as practical as possible while providing a logical and historical foundation. It's a field guide for professionals to deal with type. This book comes from Ellen Lupton, a professor at my home state's Maryland Institute College of Art.

Choosing type isn't just about whim or feeling. This book deconstructs type into basic elements helping you make informed design decisions. The book is divided into three sections: Letter, Text and Grid plus an appendix of definitions, hints and warnings. History is weaved between practical information in a way that is more narrative and entertaining than the typically dry text book lesson. In one moment you're reading about the purpose of body text; the author switches abruptly into the history of written manuscripts. In a short few paragraphs we're in the digital age of dynamic text. In talking about spacing, the history of written type translated onto evenly made printing blocks is transformed into the modern purpose of controlling visual space in body copy. The sections might be considered essays more than a longer narrative, which makes for an easy read.

The examples are as integral to the book's narrative as the history itself. The design of the pages often split the text liberally with examples. The layout of the book has great play with type itself. When is justified text good or bad? The answers are stated with justified text. Makes sense. Many of the other examples are just fun type tricks and explainations on when and why they work or don't.

Effectively conveyed is type styles' effectiveness in different mediums. Helvetica is a font designed for print, Verdana works well for web. The writer doesn't just force you to memorize this kind of information, but instead she explains why. So you can look at type with fresh eyes and see that Verdana's large x-height and simple curves work well for the pixel display of the computer system. The layout grid is discussed like most things, with it's origin with printing press. The focus is clearly intended to steer the reader into the uses of the modern grid in magazine, book and web design.

There are some negatives. Purposefully functional,the history isn't fully explored. It's the backdrop for basing modern uses of type. The essay format drives the points forward and then simply moves on. This is possibly ideal for the busy modern pros that the book must be aimed to, but for those looking for a long form and in-depth view you'll have to go elsewhere. The modern model of dynamic typography that changes with context is in full effect and some readers might not like some of the more magazine styled layouts.

I suspect that the average reader will learn a lot from this text. It can serve as a good guide during the design process. The short page count of the book can be seen as a much appreciated conciseness. The format is almost web-like in it's sections and pieces which appeals to a young and tech-savvy designer such as myself. Will the average writer or editor appreciate this information as much? Perhaps not. It may not be what everyone is looking for, but it will appeal to many design professionals who need a quick reference and crash course.

Excerpts of Thinking with Type are available online at thinkingwithtype.com

This post is part of an ongoing series of book reviews. To suggest a book for review, send a message via twitter @sketchee

Drawing: Space, Form, & Expression

Thought I'd put up another book recommendation entry. Drawing: Space, Form, & Expression is a really good book that helps to expand your artis's creativity. It quickly runs through the basics but doesn't babysit you. It just tells you simply to draw and the general approaches and then let's you explore.

Too many drawing books are overly simplified tutorials that want to break down every stuff of drawing every object. While those books have their place, this one gives you the approach to being the one to discover how to create these things on your own. Learn how to view the world and you can pretty much draw everything. There are lots of excercises to help you explore the space on your paper and it's really just fun to go through. There are some great excercises about drawing from your imagination and turning it into something tangible

The book ends with a portfolio of contemporary and student drawings that explore the principles that you've learned throughout the text. Definitely one to check out, read through and follow.

Graphic Artists Guild Handbook

Here's a great book for all of you illustrators, designers and/or artists. Graphic Artists Guild Handbook: Pricing & Ethical Guidelines. The book is geared toward all visual arts professionals It has sample contracts and invoices for illustrators, designers, digital artwork, graphic design, etc. It has salary information and current industry rates as well. The prose deals with practical and legal advice for working as a professional in the graphic arts field. There's an interesting chapter with step by step processes on handeling an individual illustration/design job. Then we have detailed chapters on each of the specifics for print desginers, web/digital designers, illustrators, cartoonists, animators and surface design (textiles). It's really comprehensive and if you're working in this field, it's worth taking a look at. It's especially valuable if you've ever considered taking on freelance work—full time or in addition to current job.

Real World InDesign CS2

I've been reading Real World InDesign CS2 trying to expand my knowledge of Adobe's Creative Suiite. InDesign is pretty powerful in it's ability to handle layouts design. This book shows how to use the programs robust features to their fullest potential and tackle design problems you may encounter in the real world, as the title aptly suggests. The writing isn't dry at all, either. It's written pretty lightly and concisely with lots of diagrams that visually explain what they're talking about. You're often given a few options to do each task and while they don't push any one way on you, they'll give you tips.

Co-author David Blatner is also co-host of the InDesignSecrets Podcast which is a really fun way to learn more about the program's ins and outs. I also love and religiously watch TheInDesigner, a video podcast which has merged into InDesignSecrets.

If you missed my last two book recommendations, check out Design Basics and Artist’s & Graphic Designer’s Market.