AAUG Reviews

by David Carter, AAUG Member

Having just purchased an iPhone and having just activated service, I was interested in seeing what this manual had to offer. It is appropriately titled, because Apple does not supply a written manual with the iPhone. And because there are so many features available on the iPhone, review of a user’s guide or manual is essential to an understanding of the product.

The iPhone Missing Manual is part of a series of Missing Manuals authored by David Pogue, who is identified in the credits of the book as a weekly tech columnist for the New York Times. He is also noted to be the author or co-author of 42 books, including 17 in the Missing Manual series and 6 in the “For Dummies” line. On page 2, the book acknowledges that Apple can update and improve the iPhone by sending it new software bits. These updates necessarily cannot be covered in a previously published book. Accordingly, the book advises that it will be updated by free, periodic email newsletters as developments unfold. To get them, one is to register the book at www.oreilly.com.

The contents pages were well laid out. The book begins with a guided tour of the phone. It then moves into a discussion of how to use the phone as a phone. Chapter 4 covers the music and video features of the iPhone. I did have one minor gripe with this section of the book. While the book tells how to start music, and how to create and use playlists, and while the index has a number of topics under the music playback heading, there is no reference to how one stops music playback. (more…)

by Joan Nunn, AAUG Member

As the title states, this is a reference book on how to “set up your Photoshop workspace” to more efficiently get your work done in an uncluttered and more efficient manner.

The section of the book on getting familiar with palettes, layers, channels, tools and brushes gave a lot of detail about where these are located on the screen pull-down menus, but it left me wondering just what their function would be on an actual photograph or image. There were some wonderful photographs with graphics at the beginning of each chapter and some throughout, such as “Tonya” on Page 74, but no clear or detailed instruction as to how that was created. There seemed to be a bit of a gap between setting up your workflow and how to work with it after it’s set up. However, this may be covered well in other Eddie Tapp books.

The section in the book on “Setting Important Preferences” seemed fairly clear and understandable, as well as the chapter on customizing Keyboard Shortcuts.

I felt that “Working and Navigating in Bridge” was one of the best descriptions in the book and the final chapter on use of tools gave good explanations of each tool and what they do.

This book is definitely for digital photographers who have a prior working knowledge of Photoshop CS2. Even though it would be a good reference book to have, I felt that the correlation between the graphics and the text was not well presented in a lot of cases.

by Richard Geiger, AAUG Member

Dynamic Learning Photoshop CS3 is a good Introduction to Photoshop CS3 for people that are starting to use Photoshop. If you are middle to an advanced level user you might find the book too basic. The book covers new features of Photoshop CS3 and Photoshop CS3 Extended. It provides information for graphics professionals and photographers so it does have some what of spilt personality but I did not find that a problem because I do photography and web design.
I am making the transition from Abode Photoshop Elements to the Photoshop CS3 Extended so some of the features are new to me. I found the book to be at the right level for someone who is new to Photoshop.

The book gives you three different ways to learn with each chapter in the book. You can read the book, you can read the book and follow the projects that come on the DVD, or you can watch the Adobe Flash videos on the DVD. I found reading the book hard to follow without being in front of the computer and following the project steps. The video does give you enough detail to do the project but the chapter videos are fast paced compared to Training video from Lynda.com, Studio Works, or Total Training. The nice thing is you can look back at the instructions in the book without having to re-watch the video. A nice feature is you can copy the video to your hard drive so you do not have to carry are around the DVD or with Lynda.com online training you have to have an internet connection. I like in the video because there are certain items that are hard to describe on paper which make it so much easy to explain visually. One of the items that is a lot easier to understand by video is the vanishing point filter. The author shows how to put a picture on a white product box.

The book also gives some small demos on how the Photoshop works with other Adobe software such as Adobe Illustrator and shows you how Photoshop work together.
I find when I launch the Flash video for each chapter it does not seem to go anywhere. It takes time to load the video so be patient. When I picked up the book to review it did not realize how extensive the video tutorial was. The book seems expensive at $44.99 because of the size of the book for that price but if you realize how much effort the author has but into the video on the DVD the book is a good value. You get a book, project files, and videos for that price. I think O’Reailly the books publisher should emphasize the how extensive the videos are on the front cover of the book.

I found the book a good learning tool as long as you what a book that covers information for graphic professionals and photographers. As some one that is use to Adobe Photoshop Elements and moving to the full version of Photoshop I found the book helpful for me to understand Photoshop CS3.

by Theresa Geiger, AAUG Member

Windows for Intel Macs describes how to use Windows XP on an Intel Mac when you have installed Parallels to run it. Many other programs are available and described besides Parallels and the Pros and Cons are listed with each and why you may want to use them. This book helps you understand how the systems work and what you may or may not want to use. This was very interesting to me because I never knew there were so many items out there.

The book goes on to explain all the different Windows XP versions and why you may want each one depending on what you want to use it for. Anti-virus programs are described also with the strengths of each one. The rest of the book contains short-cut detailed directions on how to run Windows XP on a Mac. Similarities and differences are shown along with directions on how to operate them.

Basically this is a real short-cut book on “how to” which any person installing these programs will find very handy. I would pre-read the book before doing any installations as you need to make decisions which you may want to consider If you want to use Boot Camp you need to buy another e-Book from the company and it gives detailed explanations and pitfalls on installing it.

by Gerrit H. Dalman, AAUG Member

While most tech gadgets come with thousand-page manuals just like they did twenty years ago, Apple has become known for avoiding shelf-bending tomes as testament to their intuitive products. That’s all well and good, but sometimes you’ve just got questions that can’t be answered by a leaflet. Sometimes you need a checklist, a field manual, or a little OJT!

Enter O’Reilly’s missing manuals. The how-to series covers everything from PowerPoint to eBay in great detail. The most recent volume, penned by prominent technology journalist David Pogue, is a thorough exploration of Apple’s newest device, the much-acclaimed iPhone.

Pogue is no newcomer to Apple or to writing. He has been covering the company from his seats at MacWorld and then the New York Times for years. He even blends media with humorous videos from time to time - who can forget his comparison of Mac OS X to Windows Vista last year?! He’s definitely a fan - but an honest and critical one - and what he has to say about the iPhone is pure gold.

iPhone: The Missing Manual is as thorough and organized as you would expect from a book with “manual” in the title, but it’s an easier read than most publications you’d unpack along with your accessories. It’s even humorous at times and thanks to the light tone, you can get from cover to cover or through a relevant chapter pretty quick.

The book is well organized and takes the reader through each of the iPhones features one-by-one. Convenient chapter names like “Editing the Contacts List” or “Syncing Podcasts” allow you to jump straight to the content you need with ease.

Of course The Missing Manual wasn’t written by Apple, but this is to your benefit because it also contains a lot of extras that you wouldn’t expect to get straight from the manufacturer. (more…)

by Chuck Maas, AAUG Member

One of the major hurdles of the digital imaging revolution has been learning a whole new set of concepts and their associated language. Itís a very different science from the analog, silver-based photography of the last hundred years or so and it takes a certain amount of serious concentration and persistence to master. One of the core threads running through all of it is the concept of color management ñ the control of color data from start to finish so what you end up with is as close as possible to what your eyes saw in the first place.

This is no small order as it includes multiple input, editing, and output devices along with completely different methods of gathering and displaying color information. In addition, thereís as much art as science in the process, and agreement on standards has been slow to evolve. Fortunately, weíve reached a point in the technology stream where a serious photographer or graphic artist can now do a very credible job of keeping colors on track with a modicum of specialized tools and the purposeful discipline to use them.

For the average digital photographer, color management theory can be mind-numbingly arcane, even though it is crucial to setting up an efficient and effective overall workflow. If you want to color manage properly, you have to assimilate a certain amount of theory or the whole process will fail to make any sense. This is where Eddie Tapp does an excellent job of simplifying the information as much as possible, presenting it in a logical order, and is able to pack a very thorough discussion of the topic in less than 150 pages ñ a real feat.

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by Steve Nigl, AAUG Member

Julieanne Kost is best known as a evangelist for Adobe Inc, doing a lecture circuit on Photoshop technique. Her book, “Window Seat - The Art of Digital Photography & Creative Thinking,” showcases over five years of photos taken though airliner windows.

The book is billed as a art philosophy and technique book. It opens with 18 guidelines to sharpening the creative process. They are heavily anecdotal, and seem more biographical than tutorial. The meat of the book is dominated with Julianne’s stunning photos. Photography is an art of exclusion - of confining the frame to the subject while trimming away the distractions. Julianne has mastered this. The book’s last 25 pages are devoted to showing how she used Photoshop to rescue images that all but ruined by the glare and scratches of the airliner’s plexiglass window. The side-by-side before and after comparisons are impressive, but I found little that I didn’t already know. A complete Photoshop novice would have a hard time recreating her results, as the author assumes a basic working knowledge of Photoshop.

All in all, a mediocre how-to book, but a stunning addition to the coffee table. Her photos alone warrant a four moose rating!

by Leila Wise, AAUG Member

InDesign is a great program, with many design gems. It’s also very complex. InDesign Production Cookbook helps clear up some of those complexities. Organized into broad topics - Text, Pictures, Drawing, Color, Transparency, Pages and Documents, Interactivity, Output, and InDesign for QuarkXPress Users - the Cookbook presents clear, step by step instructions and fabulous illustrations.

Power users of InDesign may still benefit from the cookbook, but the book’s glory rests with users new to InDesign, especially those who prefer learning by trial and error and those who find InDesign’s help files to be confusing and incomplete. The illustrations are particularly helpful, showing menus and identifying and explaining the options. Calling the book a cookbook, complete with recipes, is no misnomer. It tells users how to perform basic InDesign functions and, moreover, sometimes tells users why those features are handy - not only how but why a user would complete certain steps and why certain techniques are better than others.

The illustrations are key to the book’s success. For instance, while Adobe Help Center uses words to describe the blend mode options for creating Transparent images (the ways InDesign mixes color when images are stacked on top of each other), the Cookbook verbally and visually describes the options, illustrating an example of each. Certainly nothing beats applying each of the blend modes to an image to see the result (or years of experience applying these tools), but the illustrations give new users a head start. (more…)

by Chuck Maas, AAUG Member

With the huge popularity of digital imaging, authors and publishers continue to flood bookstore shelves with answers to every conceivable question. Of course the questions themselves keep evolving, which leaves the door open for new approaches to old topics, and for new editions with updated data.

This Second Edition uses both angles. It’s clear this is not intended as a book for beginners (hence the reference to “Expert Techniques”), but is aimed at photographers already fairly high on the digital learning curve. In that regard, Adobe Photoshop, the uncontested industry standard of image editing programs, is presumed to occupy the core of the reader’s operational workflow. While treatises on Photoshop abound, this one takes a considerably boarder view. Intended for serious hobbyists or working professional photographers, the author lays out a strategy for overall efficiency and effectiveness from photo shoot to finished product, underscoring the need to work quickly, without wasted steps, to create high quality image files that are easy to access and deliver. (more…)

by Steve Nigl, AAUG Member

Stephen Johnson is known as a sourdough pioneer on the frontier of digital photography technology. He’s an award winning photographer and has helped chart the course of digital imaging development as a consultant for Apple, Kodak, Epson, and others. “Stephen Johnson on Digital Photography” Takes a unique approach by blending history and anecdotal tales with tips that he has developed over the years. The book speaks in terms of theory and does not get bogged down with the current crop of cameras, printers, and computers.

After bringing the reader up to speed by reviewing electronic imaging technology dating back to the mid 19th century, Stephen covers some basic photography skills, speaks about importing and restoring scanned images, color management and fine-art printing, workflow, digital photography in journalism and documentary work, ethics and philosophy of the edited digital image, and speaks about his vision of the future of the medium. Stephen believes that we are in the midst of the biggest renaissance since the birth of photography, and at the same time, are in digital photography’s infancy.

Where this might not be the best beginner’s reference to Photoshop or the use of your new Canon 5D, “Stephen Johnson on Digital Photography” is bound to be a timeless photo-interest book, and may do well as a class text. 285 pages, printed in full-color (except where B&W is being depicted).

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