Digital Painting in Photoshop
by Susan Ruddick Bloom
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Book Summary Information
Author: Susan Ruddick BloomEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2009-02-16
ISBN: 0240811143
Number of pages: 256
Publisher: Focal Press
Book Reviews of Digital Painting in Photoshop
Book Review: Precise Introduction to Digital Painting
Summary: 5 Stars
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
I've had a lot of fun with this book. The book starts out with a chapter on the basic tools for painting: brushes, textures, patterns. As a photographer, I only use brushes for enhancing my images via layer masks, and sometimes brushing some colors. I have a set of defined brushes I use. The author reviews all the standard brushes included in Photoshop (I use CS2, and it appears that was the author's version too). Screenshots of all the brushes are shown in Stroke Thumbnail view, and gives a quick reference of all the brush types. It is sort of like seeing samples of all the fonts on your system, without having to try each one out. Directions are given for creating your own brushes, but I haven't had need of this feature yet.
Textures are explained in detail. Again this was all new to me. The author shows how to create textures from your own photos of grass, walls, wood, hair, etc. I haven't done this yet, but when the need arises, the instructions are easy to follow.
My greatest excitement came when she covered Patterns. She explains how patterns help define the texture of the surface of the 'painting'. She mentions the variety of papers and materials available for inkjet printing, and also inkjet coatings which you can apply to the paper of your choice. I never knew these existed, and am anxious to try this on certain card stocks I use, that don't retain the detail of inkjet printing. Instead, I cut images from inkjet prints, and paste them onto the card stock, which is laborious. (see [...])
The author shows two ways to apply Patterns to images: using the Pattern Stamp tool (under the Clone Stamp tool), or creating an adjustment layer using Pattern...
I spent hours going through these pattern. Again, the author gives samples of all the patterns in Photoshop for reference. She also mentions the ones that are most used for digital painting. This was very helpful, since the list of patterns is quite lengthy. Instructions for creating your own pattern from photos is given. Again, I haven't tried this yet, but plan to.
The fun part is when the author shows how to apply the patterns by changing the Blending Mode from Normal, to various other settings. Blending modes are such a mystery to me, but I am now understanding from this book, and other references, how valuable they can be for image enhancement and manipulations.
She concludes, 'The power of an arsenal of brushes of various sizes and textures, coupled with the ability to apply textures through the use of patterns, cannot be underestimated.'
The remainder of the book (the major portion), is split into separate chapters covering the use of digital painting using these various effects (media): Charcoal, Pastel, Watercolor, and Oil. One of the final chapters covers Illustration Techniques. I followed her instructions on Watercolor painting, and was amazed at my beginner's results. This is fun stuff for intermediate users of Photoshop!
The final chapter looks at 3rd party plugins like Nik Color Efex Pro 3.0 and Alien Skin's Snap Art. I have neither of these so I have put off going into them. I do use some plugins from Akvis, namely Sketch. I use it to take architectural photo images and create sketches from them. This is fun to do with houses and businesses, and I have made money selling them on notecards. However, this 'black box' approach was mainly hit or miss, and not much fun to do. Susan's book gives me an option to start from scratch and control the effect of the alterations to achieve the effect I want. For this, I give the book high marks. Also, Susan gives a lot of historical information about the different art techniques and what differentiates them, and what makes them so appealing....all photographers know something about this. This gives the book more depth than you get from mere 'instruction manual'.
My only criticism, is that I need to use a magnifying glass to read some of the illustrations (screenshots) as the print is very small. This will be on my reference shelf within easy reach, for a long time to come!
Summary of Digital Painting in Photoshop
Have you ever considered using Photoshop to create fine art?Photoshop is usually used for enhancing photos, but this extremely powerful software package is capable of so much more. Every feature, from brushes to background, can be customised and optimised for artistic effect. With a little guidance from a pro, your photoshop results can go from competent retouching of images to visually stunning re-interpretations of them, turning everyday pictures into breathtaking works of art.
In this beautiful and inspiring book, acclaimed artist, author and lecturer Susan Bloom shows you how to do just that. Starting with the fundamentals: creating your own artistic brushes and textured papers virtually, she goes on to demonstrate how to create a variety of classic artistic styles in Photoshop, with chapters on watercolours, pastels, charcoal and oil. Further chapters cover illustration techniques in photoshop, and using third-party software to create painterly effects.
While the results are highly polished and realistic, this is not a book written specifically for artists. The techniques are aimed squarely at the Photoshop user looking to broaden their pallette, with emphasis on altering photographs to create artwork, rather than creating artwork from scratch.
Beautifully written, clearly laid out, and guaranteeing inspiring results, this book is a must-have for every Photoshop user.
* Guide to using Photoshop to create fine art from photographs, covering many different artistic styles
* Highly visual, inspiring content with clear step-by-step instructions and hundreds of screenshots
* Backwards compatible approach: author has taken care to ensure that this fully up-to-date title also applies to previous editions of Photoshop
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