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Author: Scott Kelby

Publisher: New Riders

ISBN: 0-321-33062-5

Pages: 457

Price: USA - $39.99 / CAN - $55.99 / UK - £28.99

In his latest book, Scott Kelby presents a "how to" book that is structured like his "Killer Tips" books, but with more focus and better structure. What will strike you first when you open this book is the lack of words. It's not that there are no words, but rather there are lots and lots of photos and screen shots.

In most computer books, one sees paragraph after paragraph of text with interspersed images. The writer says something to the effect of, "In the dialog box click on the button that says 'red' unless it says 'blue,' and you are looking all over your screen for the window that says either "red" or "blue." Under the concept that a picture says a thousand words, Scott has saved himself hundreds of thousands of words and simply shows you the button to press. In fact, this whole book is as if you had a chance to talk to Scott, and said, "Can you just show me?"

For the most part, this approach works very well. What you will not get from this book is depth of understanding that you may get from other books, but you will get the job done. If you combine this book with just about any of the more traditional "how to" books on Photoshop, you will have the opportunity to complete the task and learn all the depth you need. You do not need to know how the eye sees color or how using "unsharp mask" sharpens an image to correct the color or to sharpen an image. However, your ability to use Photoshop will be enhanced if you do know these details.

This book, printed with color throughout, is aimed mostly at beginners and intermediates, but there are also a number of areas where experienced Photoshop users can learn a thing or two. These techniques are pointed out with a warning label at the onset of each technique stating "Advanced Techniques - For Pros Only!"

Not all of these "advanced technique" items are fully for advanced users only, but some require the tools that an advanced Photoshop user is more likely to have. For example, most amateurs are not likely to have a 24 cell color-swatch chart used to help correct color casts (costs about $75), and, more importantly, most amateurs are not likely to be taking photographs in a studio setting where one of these cards can provide the most benefit. On the other hand, Scott does provides a 4-shades-of-grey color-swatch chart in the back of the book that one can tear out to try the technique(s). Scott provides the information on how to use not only both of these swatch tools, but also the grayscale swatch invented by Taz Tally. And finally, Scott also provides a technique by Dave Cross to find a neutral grey in a color photo that's pretty reliable and doesn't require the photographing of a color-swatch card. This latter technique is particularly important because color-swatch cards are best used in controlled environments such as studios. Dave's technique can be used anywhere, albeit with not as reliable results.

One of the curious aspects about the "advanced techniques" was that I was unable to fully understand what the qualifying issue was to generate the "For Pros Only!" designation. That was until I read the introduction. It seems that Scott feels that any technique that requires more than a couple of steps gets this warning. Curiously, he doesn't feel it is a "this is hard" warning, just a "more experience is required" type of warning. This left me no less confused as to what the dividing line is, just corrected as to what the warning means. (Then again, perhaps he thinks that if you start using these "Pro" techniques you'll start feeling like a "Pro.")

The previously mentioned example of multiple techniques of color correction also illustrates one of the other strengths of this book. When presenting a subject like color correction, sharpening or even turning a color image into grayscale, Scott provides a variety of different techniques to show you how to achieve the final results. The strength of Photoshop is that there are multiple ways to achieve anything. Some techniques are better than others in certain situations, but none are wrong. Thus, Scott doesn't show you just one way to do something, he often shows you multiple ways to achieve any particular result.

Like Scott's Killer Tips books, his chapter headings in this book have the same pun-run approach. So, Chapter one is "Love can Build a Bridge (Bridge Essentials)." Chapter two: Give me the Bridge (Advanced Bridge Techniques)." Chapter three: Raw Hide (Mastering Camera Raw)."

I guess it was seeing his Chapter five: "Anger Management (Color Management Step-by-Step)" that my ears really pricked up. The reason for my interest here is that at this year's Photoshop World (in March) I asked a variety of people how to do just this. After all, we are constantly told to calibrate our monitors, scanners, printers, cameras, etc, etc, but seldom do we see how to put it all together. The surprising thing was how varied the responses seemed to be. The good news is that Scott mostly gets it right. This is probably the best "how to put it all together" I've ever seen. Scott clearly takes each part of your system and tells you (for the most part) what to do.

The one part where Scott failed for me was when the user doesn't have what he has. Admittedly, the problem isn't entirely his. Here are the issues of color management:

• Is your monitor showing you the "real" colors. That is, is the red you are looking at the real (same) red the computer thinks it is.
• Likewise, when you scan a red, is that red the same red as you think it is?
• And lastly, when you print a red, is that the same red you intended to print?

There are essentially two ways to set/create the printer's profile: one is to print a "standard sheet" (provided by hardware color management software) and comparing this printout side-by-side with an iT8 calibration card in your scanner (and saving one of these ICC profiles for each paper type you are likely to use), or to download ICC profiles from your printer's company for each specific paper you are using. [It is necessary to have a separate ICC profile for each paper as each paper has a different white as well as different (potential) colorcasts.]

Scott has an Epson 2200 printer, and he shows you exactly where you can download these ICC profiles from the Epson site. Unfortunately, the attitude that Scott presents in this chapter is that all you have to do with any new printer is to go to the company's website. Unfortunately there are two problems here: first Epson (specifically) has not done a very good job of organizing their site to display (or find) all their printers that have these ICC profiles. [I have an Epson R800, and I found the link to the profiles in the R800 product page, not in the Download Drivers page which I assumed was a logical place for such items.] Second, not all people have new printers, and not all printer companies have ICC profiles for their printers and selected papers. Scott refers you to two paper sites to obtain this information: the MOAB Paper Company provides a great site for finding ICC Epson profiles (just look on the bottom of the home page), but the other site, Crane's Museo Fine Art Papers, is a frustrating failure. I could not find them. I also was unable to find any ICC printer profiles for any brand other than Epson.

What this all boils down to is if you don't have an Epson printer (of a limited specific type) and/or the specific type of paper you are using does not have an ICC profile available, you can't print reliable color. Now, the fact is, this is true. But what got me is how Scott in his typically eager "Hey, let me show you what you can do" fashion, can make you feel: "But I want it to be that easy too..." I guess what I would have liked to have seen is a work-flow sheet in the very beginning that said to the effect "If you have these things you can do this, otherwise you will have to do that."

By the way, all of the images used in this book can be downloaded at Scott's website, giving you the opportunity to try the techniques on the same images Scott used. This way, you can see if you get the same results as he was able to achieve.

In short, this is a good, fun book. I guess the main difference between this book and Scott's "Killer Tips" books is that the latter focuses on just one small point for which (typically) a single screen shot or two will suffice; this book takes a subject and shows you each step of the process and how to achieve the desired effect. As much as I did like this book, I cannot give it a 5 rating because it's weak in explaining the full depth of what's taking place. That's why I recommended this book with a second book (any second book) that covers more depth. On the other hand, if all you want is to be shown how to do a very wide range of Photoshop techniques, and you don't care if you do not understand a thing, this is just the book for you.

___________ Gary Coyne has been a scientific glassblower for over 30 years. He's been using Macs since 1985 (his first was a fat Mac) and has been writing reviews of Mac software and hardware since 1995.