I find that for my tastes, after a while, Kelby's attempts at humor get
in the way of getting on with the business at hand. For working on
photos I recommend Katrin Eismann's "PhotoShop Restoration &
Retouching". This is my bible. This book assumes you are a
photographer and not a graphics artist. It's very direct and to the
point and is intended to teach you specific techniques, usually in a
half dozen pages or less. Highly recommended. The third edition is
just now coming out and will be available soon. I have the second.
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0321316274/qid=1131381832/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/102-7391642-2729728?v=glance&s=books>
If you only have Elements you'll have to figure out something different
when curves come into play but I think the vast majority of what's in
Eismann's book can probably be done with Elements 3.
Chuck Norcutt
ScottGee1 wrote:
> Right place, right time, right product! Cool!
>
> If you haven't already done so, you might want to consider getting one
> of Scott Kelby's books on Elements. He consciously takes a somewhat
> different and, IMO, refreshing approach than other books. There's
> even a bit of that humor stuff sprinkled throughout.
>
> Also, Wacom has a LOT of educational material both at their site and
> via by request CD/DVD. You might want to give 'em a call -- nice
> folks!
>
> Enjoy!
>
> ScottGee1
>
>
> On 11/7/05, AG Schnozz <agschnozz@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>>The other thing that happened this weekend was the purchase of a
>>new computer. Ended up getting one of those nifty (but large)
>>laptops that are classified as "workstations". Definitely a lot
>>of horsepower and a bigger, higher-quality. Also picked up a
>>WACOM tablet while I was at it.
>>
>>I went with a Gateway (7330GZ). I know, I know, but these days
>>no choice is safe. I've got Compaq and HP laptops here at work
>>and their failure rate is pretty brisk. Dell was probably my
>>first choice, but I wanted to do a little comparison shopping.
>>First went to C*mpUSA and they tried to jam a $2300 beast down
>>my neck. Like that was going to happen. Next, went over to
>>B*stBuy and looked at the shmuck that they had there. But
>>lo-and-behold, here sat one lonely beast of a laptop that was
>>priced really well. Oh, and that screen was sooooo bright and
>>contrasty and sharp! (it also displayed the test images from
>>dpreview the best too) No other laptop (except for a high-end
>>Mac) had a screen anywhere as good and the screen was much
>>better than nearly all of the desktop LCDs. Spec-wise, the
>>thing just blew away the T*shibas and H*Ps laying there.
>>Something's wrong here with the price. I checked it over and
>>saw that it had a built-in Compact-Flash slot as well as
>>FireWire.
>>
>>Ended up snagging one. We took the unopened box over to the Geek
>>Squad (really!) and had the guy with the broken glasses,
>>misbuttoned shirt and greezy hair do the system checkout.
>>(seriously, I'm not kidding). My major concern was that I
>>wanted a screen with ZERO dead pixels. That seems to be a
>>rarity these days. Every LCD in my department has multiple dead
>>spots as well as my wife's laptop. So, I really wanted to make
>>sure that mine was as good as possible. Nadda, not a single
>>dead pixel. I didn't use a magnifying glass, but came pretty
>>close to it.
>>
>>Got home and looked at the receipt. Bummer. The WACOM was
>>supposed to have a $25 instant rebate. I didn't catch that at
>>the store. Well, the next day I went back to the store and got
>>that taken care of. Just out of curiosity, I walked over to the
>>laptop displays and did a double take. The price changed on the
>>laptop. Overnight it went up $150. Talk about timing!
>>
>>Anyway, to the important stuff...
>>
>>The new laptop is a real dream for working with images. The
>>screen's extremely-wide viewing angle has very little gamma
>>change when moving your head around. The colors are quite
>>accurate and the depth of detail is uncanny. I'll do some
>>additional profiling on the screen, but from what I've seen so
>>far, my onscreen test images are very close to the printed
>>output. I only had to do very minor tweeking of the gamma. I
>>could stand to put in some more RAM, but this thing is easily 10
>>times faster than my desktop it replaces and for processor
>>intensive things, it's probably 20-30 times faster. Never had a
>>computer with 1GB of processor cache before. (Pentium P4 mobile
>>3GHZ something). RAW file conversion went as fast as three
>>seconds per file, but averaged about five seconds each. I can
>>live with that. This computer processor is a power-hog and I
>>can see that cranking through a few hundred RAW file conversions
>>could really toast the battery in a hurry. Probably should get
>>a couple more batteries...
>>
>>The WACOM will take quite a bit of getting used to, but I've
>>wanted one of these for a long time. It also came with
>>Ph*toshop Elements 3.0 (I know, 4.0 is now coming out). I
>>didn't know that 3.0 could convert both Minolta RAW files and
>>Olympus RAW files. Doesn't do too bad of a job except the
>>colors look a little pasty in comparison to Olympus
>>Viewer/Studio. They are a bit sharper, though. That
>>shadow/highlight and noise-reduction aspect isn't bad either. I
>>just need to figure out how to get the colors a little snappier
>>and skintones back where I want them. No biggy either way as
>>I'm pleased with Viewer, except for the fact it won't process
>>Minolta files and I typically shoot events with the cameras
>>interchangeably.
>>
>>Speaking of the Minolta A1 files, I did try Elements 3.0 at
>>converting a couple of my Grand Canyon shots. Very impressive!
>>The noise level (even with the noise-reduction turned off) is
>>about half that of the Minolta converter. When pixel-peeping, it
>>looks like the alignment of the bayer pattern is more accurate
>>with Adobe's converter. The colors are yucky, but the sharpness
>>(at least a full step on an USAF lens res chart) increase and
>>noise reduction are definitely a nice offset. Talk about
>>breathing new life into an old camera--this might delay a new
>>camera purchase by another year which by itself would pay for
>>the laptop.
>>
>>Ok. I don't want to ramble and this definitely isn't a "brag"
>>post. I just wanted to pass on some info on a purchase that I'm
>>very pleased with for photographic applications. I thought it
>>represented an acceptable "bang for the buck". It met and
>>exceeded my expectations and requirements. My only beef with it
>>is the rather whimpy feeling case. Must be a little more
>>careful than with one of my old bricks.
>>
>>AG
>>
>>
>>
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