If you remember, I posted earlier about Kelby Training’s recent seminar stop in Toronto and how much I enjoyed the day. Ben’s presentation is just awesome and if you get a chance to go and see Ben speak, I would highly recommend. I decided after listening to Ben that I would pick up his Mastering Color DVD to hopefully augment my new mastery of colour! After all, since everyone seems to have a photoblog nowadays you need to find a way to stand out from the crowd. Adding photoshops skills to your toolbox cannot hurt.
To be honest, I was a little disappointed by this two DVD set. Much of the content was covered in the seminar and what wasn’t Ben prefaced with “I don’t use this technique often”. My favourite sections were,
- Hue/Saturation, and
- Levels & Curves
If I was to recommend any Kelby DVD training materials, it would have to be Layer Essentials by Matt Kloskowsi. In fact, I have an extra copy and would like to offer it up to my readers. Entering is simple, in the next post on your photoblog add a link to Blog on Photoblogs with the following text The Photoblog Resource and then send me an email letting me now where the link is, that’s it - super simple.
I will pick the winner (randomly) at the end of September 2008. Which reminds me, I have a copy of Seth Godin’s Purple Cow sitting with Brendan O’Shea down under. If you want to read the book, let me know and I will send it your way.
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1 response so far ↓
I have some advice for your readers, in general, about learning Photoshop and the confusing and expensive world of choices available to them.
I’ve been a Photoshop user since its inception; since before it was Photoshop and was called ImagePro bundled with the BarneyScan slide scanner, almost 20 years ago. Over the years I’ve accumulated several thousand dollars worth of related books, CD-ROMs, DVDs, and have cumulatively spent much more than that amount with NAPP memberships, in-person trainings, workshops, online subscriptions, etc.
It seems that the more you learn, the more it becomes apparent that the program is so vast that no one will ever learn all there is to know. That’s no failing, because most users have neither the desire nor the time to learn all there is to know; only what they need to know in order to produce great looking images. The holy grail, therefore, is determining just how much one needs to know to reach that goal, and simply ignore (at least for a long while) the myriad of extra features that will never be used.
Scott Kelby, who you mention here, is one of the earliest of the Photoshop authors and founder of both NAPP (National Association of Photoshop Users) and the formidable Kelby Training organization. One of the Kelby authors have covered just about every specialty aspect of Photoshop, and so it becomes increasingly difficult with each new product to create something truly different in the field. Other than the comprehensive “bible” type books, which touch a bit more on the (rarely used) esoteric features, most authors are rehashing (essential) material that’s been covered a million times before by others before them.
So, here’s my advice to anyone wanting to learn Photoshop, especially for those just starting out, but even for those who are frustrated that their investment in books, etc. hasn’t yet translated into great looking images…
Forget every product out there and simply pick up “Scott Kelby’s 7-Point System for Adobe Photoshop CS3.” It’s the Espresso of Photoshop books, in that Scott has condensed into a powerful brew the “essential” workflow steps (features) you need to know about Photoshop to make great images fall effortlessly from the process.
You know how some books give you an abbreviated view of how to accomplish a particular task, but your resulting version never quite looks the same as theirs, or the instructions were frustratingly vague at crucial places? You know how you read something about curves, or masks, or whatever a month ago and the next time you go to apply that knowledge you can’t quite remember exactly how?
Well, each of the 21 chapters in 7-Point are complete projects, each starting with a lifeless “bad” image and ending with a great one. Some are images you might be tempted to trash if they were yours. The project images can be downloaded for free from the Kelby Training web site, so you can follow along each step of the way.
This is the most perfect step-by-step book ever, lavishly illustrated with intermediate examples of each image and every single dialog and all the settings applied that are used in each project. By the time you’ve completed all of the twenty one (short) chapter projects you will have repeated each essential step enough to have etched them into your brain, having effectively mastered Scott’s 7-Point System. The book is only about 230 pages, excluding preface, index, and glossary, which means that each chapter project is only a bit more than 10 pages. Upon completing this 7-Point crash course, whenever you open a similarly lifeless image (nearly always), you’ll be able to quickly size it up and determine exactly what’s wrong with it, where to start, and which of the discrete (seven) chronological steps need applying to end up with a winner.
Because there’s a new version of Photoshop due soon (CS4?) 7-Point is selling at a discount most places. If you’re a member of NAPP (which is a great resource for serious Photoshop users) it’s even cheaper.
Ever since this book was first published, when anyone has asked me for a recommendation about learning or improving their Photoshop skills, this is where I point them. I wish Corel Painter, another of my passions, had such a blueprint for success.
Peace and Cheers!