Scott Kelby's 7-Point System for Adobe Photoshop CS3 (Voices) | List Price: $49.99
Discount Price: $28.49
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Binding: Paperback
Scott Kelby's 7 point system [Posted on 2008-05-29]
Scott Kelby is an awesome teacher, by reading and following his books I know my way around Photoshop inside and out. I have tried other tutorial books but they do not compare to the ease of Scott Kelby and his associates of the way of learning.
Simply worthwhile [Posted on 2008-06-10]
I'll keep it short and sweet. I learned a little in this book. But the little that I learned was:
1.) What I really need to make my photos pop.
2.) Easy to retain
3.) Valuable for everyday, no, make that every PHOTO use in photoshop.
Great book for people who want results. Not a great book for someone who wants every command and pallet in PS CS3 explained.
Nice work, Scott!
Excellent book from Scott Kelby [Posted on 2008-06-28]
Scott Kelby is a prolific author, but his output is often little more than collections of recycled hints and tips. And all too often it is delivered in a style that Kelby obviously considers as humorous - and I find grating and annoying.
In the 7-Point System, however, Kelby is a reformed man. (Reshaped as well, it seems, since he mentions that he lost 100 pounds in a year and trekked 3 miles in 112 degree heat to capture what becomes a spectacular photograph.)
The 7-Points actually refers to seven very broad capabilities of Photoshop CS3 that permit an infinite range of adjustment, manipulation and alteration. In 21 lessons, using downloadable images, Kelby walks the user through many of the adjustments. Kelby provides only moderate explanation of the "why" of what reader is doing, but focuses on the "how" and "what". It is a quite acceptable approach: the reader gains insight and familiarity with the 7 broad capabilities.
It is, in the final analysis, a "learn by doing" approach and a good one.
All in all, this is an excellent book for the Photoshop beginning through mid-level user.
Jerry
Easy to follow instruction and a fun read as well [Posted on 2008-07-11]
Scot Kelby's books have done more to teach me concepts of digital photograpy than any other source I have tried. His style puts the reader at ease as he authoritatively disects the complex world of digital photography.
A Fun, Hands-on Toolkit Assembled by an Expert [Posted on 2008-07-17]
I went to the bookstore a few weeks ago to buy a book, as my girlfriend was working on her Dreamweaver CS3 course daily, and I really wanted to move my own Photoshop work forward, being an amateur photographer. I've been shooting for decades, picking up bits and pieces of knowledge about using the camera, and using only those pieces of Photoshop that I needed to at the time.
I knew from experience that many other books teach you one thing at a time, so you end up not learning workflow, just a disjointed series of neat little tricks.... If you do them once, you probably won't remember them. So, for example, because I white-balance 100% of my RAW images, I know that by heart...but some of the other stuff, I don't.
I bought this book after reading the introduction, and really connecting with the writing style (something that's very important to me - if it's hard to read, I won't read it, no matter how much I've spent). The humor was what sold me in the end (we all need a laugh!) but the way the book is laid out has been actually helping me to USE it. I don't know how many computer books I have on my desk and shelf that were only used once or twice...and at $50+ a piece, that's not good.
This book really works, and you learn a truly valuable workflow, which is exactly what I was looking for (and didn't even know it!) I process images every day, and I see this System peeking its way into my own work...even though I've only been immersed in it for a short period of time (when I have the time to work on it), and need to perfect some of the "artistic" sides of it (how far to tweak things in my own images, which way to set certain settings, etc.) I know that these things come with time...and the book makes this process fun - and easy to remember because you perform the important steps over and over again in different ways.
In reading some of the Amazon reviews that show this book in a less than spectacular light (Two stars? Whoa!), I'd like to address some of the points from my own perspective:
1) 7-Points versus 70-Points - Okay, yes, what Scott's teaching you isn't really seven easy clicks of the mouse, he's teaching you a workflow - his own workflow to be exact. This guy owns a Photoshop magazine, has been working with photography and Adobe for years, and has a lot of friends. So he's pulled in some really great concepts, and placed them in a specific order which seems logical to me, as a photographer. Do I necessarily want to know why we sharpen last, or why you want to adjust white balance first? I mean, that might be nice to know at some point, but when I just want to improve my images overall, it's a really sweet book. He doesn't just say "here's how you improve the sharpness of an image" because you don't really LEARN the technique by having someone tell it to you once. By the time you're finished with the book, you've done it many MANY times, and should be comfortable with all the techniques he's outlined. Having said all that, not all of the lessons are super long, and you don't have to apply each and every technique to all of your images. As one of the two star reviewers mentioned, some of the steps can be eliminated by improved camera handling - but when you've got limited time, or just like to shoot a lot, maybe you're not going to be like Ansel Adams and wait a few hours to release the shutter, you know? "OOh, there's a duck!" *Click* So maybe my white balance is off...*tweak*, and my exposure wasn't perfect (I was looking at the moving duck, not the exposure meter, sorry!) *drag* *Happy sigh*. Get the picture? It may seem like "70 steps" is a lot, but it's really not, after you've mastered the techniques most of them just take a few seconds until you're happy with the way things look. *click* *drag* *click* Another nice thing about using Scott's images is that he's helping you (through all the lessons) to train your eye...to see what an "eh" photo looks like compared to a winner. When you take his images from so-so to exceptional, you want to immediately do the same thing with your own images, which leads you to learning more quickly. Personally, I like the fact that he shows you all 70 steps, rather than just say "okay, let's increase the sharpness," leaving you to remember all the steps after a week or two of being away from the book. With as busy as folks get, it's awesome to be able to step away from the book (out of necessity) and come back to it later to work the next lesson, without having to relearn all the previous steps.
2) Consistency - In some of the other books I've used in the past, they show you how to do something once, one way, and expect you to learn it. That's not the way everyone learns. Our brains need variety, and some folks are wired differently than others. If Scott showed us how to do a specific process one way, and one way only, throughout the entire book, your brain would get bored with it (as it would lack that novelty the 20th time you saw it described the same way), and you wouldn't want to continue...or you'd just not remember the steps. I find that the method used in this book actually helps me to retain the information long enough that I can practice it in my own work without having to go back to the book - aside from the more complex procedures I haven't mastered yet. If someone writes a book without realizing that they have a diverse audience, the book will only appeal to a small group of individuals. In order for a book to be popular, and to reach as many people as possible, it has to include diversity, and I think this book does a pretty good job of that. I don't get confused when he shows me how to do the same thing using a different technique, because I can see on-screen in the preview exactly what each click and drag does. So, yes, he's guiding me step-by-step, but I'm also having my own experience within the lesson, which aids in the final outcome of learning the basic concepts being taught. I don't think this book needs to be more systematized, although I do hope for an intermediate and advanced sequel which WOULD rely on previous books in order to understand the material. In the case of an intermediate or advanced version of this book, if you don't know how to pre- and post-sharpen, you might want to go back to the original book. In the context of THIS book, however, there are very few assumptions made, aside from a general understanding of computers and Photoshop. I feel like, if I sat my mother down in front of Photoshop CS3 with a decent set of her snapshots, she could improve her pictures using this book.
3) What to apply the system to your own photographs - Okay, so this is like telling Bob Ross that you can't paint, because he has to tell you exactly where to put that happy little bush. Seriously, folks...this is art. Scott is giving you TOOLS (and the more you practice using them, the stronger they become for you) to use in your own images. He's not going to be there to handhold you when you took a decent shot that you want to make fantastic - and that's not the intended point of the book. Once you've seen what one of the points does, you should be training yourself to always ask yourself the question: "How could I improve this image?" and more specifically "Does this image need any or all of these 'points'?" and "If so, to what degree? In what manner? How should I apply it?" and finally "Does it look better or worse than when I started?" Each step is an incremental movement from one end of the spectrum (hopefully a decent image) to the other end (the ARTIST'S vision of the perfect image). The reason why YOU are taking the photograph and posting/printing/eating it, and not Scott, is because it's your art. It all comes back to the fact that you, as the photographer, are the artist and have to learn how to make certain choices about your art. I am personally inspired by seeing each of the images in Scott's book go from somewhat drab to spectacular (or at least nicer-looking), knowing that I did it, step-by-step, and can just as easily do that with my own images.
I guess three bullet-points is enough, but I just want to say that this book contains a great set of tools that any digital artist can use to help improve their images in Photoshop CS3. Plus, at the price, its a LOT less expensive than an in-person course, you can certainly get a lot more out the book and when you're done with it, you can loan it to a friend.
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