Book Bytes: The Two Books I Took On Summer Vacation

Book Bytes: The Two Books I Took On Summer Vacation

Real World Scanning & Halftones, Third Edition:
Industrial Strength Production Techniques
by David Blatner, Conrad Chavez, Glenn Fleishman, and Steve Roth
Peachpit Press
ISBN 0-321-24132-0, 334 pages
$39.99 US, $57.99 CN, £29.99 UK

Glenn Fleishman told me last January, during a conversation in the Media Center at San Francisco’s Macworld Expo 2004, that he had to re-learn his portion of this topic before he was able to revise it for the third edition. If he’s speaking for the entire team of authors, the results are well worth their efforts.

In spite of its dry and geeky title, Real World Scanning & Halftones should be required reading for all serious print and web digital artists. So many of us take scanning and photo editing for granted, without the tiniest understanding of how and why our images can be made to excel time after time.

The text, sidebars, illustrations, screen shots, and glossary in this collaborative volume combine to establish a reference work that pays dividends with each successive reading. Yes, I did take the book on vacation. I glanced through it every day or two, slowly absorbing material that helps me, months later, in my professional tutoring, personal digital photography, and MyMac.com writing.

From Photoshop’s Curves to data backup strategies to “what makes a halftone” to color management and gamut mapping — there is so much good stuff within Real World Scanning & Halftones that I’m having trouble stopping to write for all the reading I’m doing while trying to type. Do you know “the rule of sixteen” or the “pixel aspect ration for video” or the definitions of PNG and LZW? You will, soon.

A dedicated web site: http://www.rwsh.com, can provide you a better sense of what’s between the covers. If you are serious about your digital input and output, this third edition is an important anchor on your bookshelf, and it receives our highest rating of 5 out of 5.

Photoshop CS Artistry: A Master Class for Photographers and Digital Artists
by Barry Haynes and Wendy Crumpler
New Riders Press
ISBN 0-7357-1374-X, 478 pages plus CD
$55.00 US, $80.00 CN, £42.99 UK

“Mastering the Digital Image” is a straightforward sub-heading on the cover page, and it describes the authors’ comprehensive approach to their tutorial methods used in this powerhouse book + CD combo. Barry and Wendy spend every waking moment and most sleeping hours refining and defining itemized lessons, to take readers and workshop students from beginner to intermediate to advanced Photoshop user.

They succeed because each page is carefully crafted and designed to include exhaustive (but not exhausting) detailed textual material plus abundant screen shots and sample photos, on highest quality paper stock. Given the wealth of information accumulated over years of practical study and teaching, the price of Photoshop CS Artistry is a fraction of its value.

With carefully detailed, itemized, numbered steps, each one having its own image sample or screen shot, this seventh edition “stands taller and stronger than the rest,” they claim, and is geared “for the perfectionist” Photoshop professional or student. The included CD is loaded with all working images, so that classroom or individual students can learn either at the pace of their college instructor, or at their own speed.

Zillions of keyboard commands are provided, all in MacSpeak. Writing is plain, straightforward English, as if the authors are speaking to intelligent readers who are endowed with common sense. Chapters 14 and 15 combine for a book-within-book on color: how it works, and how best to use it in your specific situation.

Once again I’m getting delayed in my typing by spending too much time on pages that intrigue me. The http://www.barryhaynes.com URL has additional info on this book and its authors. On vacation this summer I worked through entire lessons, and with Photoshop CS Artistry in front of me again, I’ll need to set aside more time in 2005 to explore the wealth and depth of this highly praised, 5 out of 5 rated book.