Adobe Photoshop CS6 for Photographers: A professional image editor's guide to the creative use of Photoshop for the Macintosh and PC 1st Edition

I waded through Martin Evening's book on Photoshop CS5 and found it excellent. His book on CS6 is just as good. He approaches PS from a photographer's point of view - a good thing as there are many features in this monster program that have little to no relevance to us. He covers theory and practice. My only suggestion is that I would have liked a more thorough treatment of layer blending than is found in the book. I guess I'll just have to experiment more with that feature.There are many tips that he passes along from his vast experience as a fashion photographer, as well as hands-on examples, that make life easier for the work we do. The book is logically organized by program tasks and is easy to read. There are the inevitable quirky differences between the author's British English and our American implementation, but they are never confusing. Study this book and you will know how to make Photoshop sing.There are chapters left out of this version that were in previous editions, but they are downloadable from his website for free. There are also downloadable image files from the examples in the book if you're inclined to practice his techniques. There is no DVD of tutorials either, but the videos are available online for free as well.All in all, a very thorough treatment of one of the most complex applications around.

Photoshop CS6 is powerful but often difficult to use. Evening's book goes through many examples of using different functions and he also provides additional content and pictures that are used in the chapters via an online web site. I also find many videos on Adobe TV for Photoshop to be very useful. [...]In the book there are a few things that can be hard to find, for example a function called "stamp" is not listed in the index. It is buried under Layers > Merged Copy Layer (page 473) which you might never find so I think there are a few things that might be added to the index. The book is available in printed form as well as a downloadable Kindle book. You can get a free Kindle reader app for the PC desktop computer. The book quality is excellent and is well written. If you can own just one book on Photoshop, this would be it.

I have used Classroom in a Book and similar tutorial and reference books for Photoshop and think of myself as being very proficient in using the basic tools Photoshop has to offer but this is by FAR the BEST reference book for Photoshop as applied to working with photographs and feel that reading it has taken my skills to the next level.Mr. Evening explains the "whys" and in many cases the history behind the vast tools and technologies available in Photoshop. He explains the nuances of various approaches available in accomplishing a desired end-result, later allowing me to make much better decisions as to my choice of tools and general approach for my given situation. Very powerful!The book is well-organized so that it's easy to find information on the fly. The screen shots are well-done and very useful.I recommend this comprehensive reference for anyone who takes photo editing in Photoshop seriously. The knowledge will probably save you a lot of time in the long run. It has for me! :-)

The book description states it is “the essential reference for photographers of all levels using Photoshop.” I respectfully disagree. This book is not for people new to Photoshop and newbies will likely get lost and frustrated if this is their first jaunt into figuring out the many amazing facets of PS, and I would hardly call this an essential reference (the crappy index ruins that). Having said that, if you have experience in PS, it offers some great tips and is definitely worth the read. If you are an intermediate (as I am) or advanced user, you likely will find some helpful tools in this large 700+ page book that’s well illustrated.Here is my personal opinion after having just finished reading this book, and why I consider it to be average rather than super good or super bad:• Index is woefully lacking, which renders this less useful as the resource book it purports to be• You MUST have some experience with PS – some concepts are simply mentioned with nothing further, and if you don’t know what they are you will have to look elsewhere to figure out what the author is talking about – it is written as if the reader has at least an operational knowledge of PS (just as one example, the author briefly mentions alpha channels and how they are similar to mask channels, but does not go into detail on either – if you don’t know what channels are, you will not get an in-depth explanation of that here)• The book contains some great information and tips on structuring workflow from capturing the image all the way to print• The writing is concise and in short enough blocks that it is easy to read a while, practice, take a break, then read a little more• The images and many of the examples are great, and some of the images are available online to download and practice yourself• There are many points when the author says “for more information go to the website and read pdf blah blah blah” – so be prepared to have to use supplemental materials from the web that are not included in the book (not my favorite task)• There is a HUGE amount of material and reference for using Camera Raw (in fact a nearly 140-page Chapter 3 is nothing but raw, which is about 20% of the book, and then raw is mentioned sporadically throughout after) – if you only shoot in jpeg or you use some other process and will not use Camera Raw, just know that probably 25% of the book is devoted to raw processing, and the author’s thinking seems to be that much of what needs to be done to an image should happen in Camera Raw before it even gets into PS for further editing (a point with which I happen to agree, but only because I shoot raw and use Camera Raw to process my photos)• Finally, I’m both an intermediate user of PS and a fairly adept photographer, and I don’t believe this is the best that could be created for a photographer – I know in my circle of photographer friends, they are more interested in shooting than photoshopping, and so a book written in the style of a McClelland or Kelby might be more suitable for those individuals who just want to know what settings to use without the why, and without all the history about the evolution of PS and how things came to be as in PS6 this author sprinkles throughout the bookAll in all this is a good book, and a decent read. I’m glad I read it and I learned several things that I now routinely use, and the workflow information and the raw information (for me, since I always shoot raw and use Camera Raw) were the most helpful.