If you have read this blog for a while, or scoured the Vaults religiously you will know that I have used and reviewed GIMP and GIMP books in the past. I have always been a big fan of GIMP, and although I know use Photoshop, I am always interested to see new books on using GIMP.

As such I was interested and appreciative to receive this from regular reader Wayne.

This thorough, self-paced guide to Adobe Photoshop CS3 Classroom in a Book ($54.99)written by the experts at Adobe Systems’ is ideal for beginning users who want to learn key Photoshop concepts and techniques, while readers who already have some experience with Photoshop can use this book to learn Photoshop CS3’s more advanced features and newest tools.

With digital camera usage now established, the demand for easy, affordable photo editing tools has increased. Adobe’s Photoshop Elements leads the way as an affordable image editing tool. 40 Digital Photo Retouching Techniques with Photoshop Elements ($16.99) is an easy-to-follow, full-color guide shows all digital photographers how to make their photos look their best with dozens of well-organized, hands-on techniques. Readers learn how to change or replace a color, enhance faces, fix burred images, correct poor exposures, create a slide show, and more.

Thoughts and Impressions

The first book written specifically with Photoshop Lightroom 1.1 in mind, this beautifully illustrated and eminently practical book offers a complete tour of Adobe’s integrated digital photography workflow application. Augmented by photos and case studies from a demanding road test in Iceland, award-winning photographer Mikkel Aaland explains how Lightroom 1.1 allows you to import, select, develop and showcase large volumes of digital images.

If Adobe’s Lightroom opened my eyes to DSLR photography then Lightroom Adventure ($39.99) opened my eyes to all that could be done with it.

Pioneering computer graphics author Deke McClelland updates his bestselling hands-on tutorial for Adobe Photoshop CS3, the latest version of this industry-standard image editing and production program. You’ll be guided step by step through the program’s features and functionality. Once you read about a particular technique, you can see how it’s done first hand in the video. The combination is uniquely effective. And hugely popular.

Thoughts

“Digital Photography has truly reached the masses, and with this friendly, full-color guide (40 Digital Photography Techniques) new users can immediately start having fun with their digital cameras. It provides dozens of tips for taking better pictures and getting creative with digital photography at a remarkably affordable price. Topics covered include composing good shots, playing with light, close-ups, self-portraits, action shots, and event photography.”

Scanning Negatives and Slides ($44.95) turned out to be a bit of a dark horse. Not only was it a useful guide on importing good quality images to your computer, but it had some great general advice on the Nikon Capture Editor, Photoshop, as well on workflow. I was both surprised and pleased by the whole of this book, and the enclosed DVD was equally as useful.

Digitizing Your Photographic Archives

Windows Seat: The Art of Digital Photography & Creative Thinking from O’Reilly wasn’t so much a surprise as three surprises in one.

I had read the details about the book on the site and as you can see they give a pretty good insight into what to expect:

“Window Seat: The Art of Digital Photography and Creative Thinking is a complete view of a creative project from the artist’s perspective. Julieanne Kost, a Photoshop and creative thinking expert, has taken her own experience shooting images out of commercial airplane windows to create a unique creative seminar.

Podcasting and Blogging with GarageBand and iWeb from Peachpit Press in association with SpiderWorks at $19.99 is targeted at the beginner and intermediate user and it does an excellent job. To be critical the intermediate user may struggle to get enough value out of it if they are been modest in their assessment of their own skills, but it is a well constructed, clearly laid out ad easy to follow book.

What they say:

I am loving GIMP more and more ever since I reviewed GIMP2, and I am sure that I will love it more when I manage to get a DSLR and find the time to take some more challenging pictures. As such I found this an interesting article, and as I so Pro GIMP I thought I would point it out to you.

Touring the GIMP: “An article by Michael J. Hammel that introduces you to the basics of the GIMP, the GNU Image Manipulation Program.”

So, you’d like to take a try at podcasting, but not really sure where to start? Have I got a book for you. It’s called Podcast Solutions. The Complete Guide to Podcasting by Michael W. Geoghegan and Dan Klass, with a Foreword by Adam Curry, a recognised leader of the podcasting movement.

An intriguing concept this surely – hooking up two of the most over rated, over priced elements of the Mac “stable” and trying to turn it into something of interest and value!

I use both iWeb and .Mac and I can’t say that either blow my socks off, nor are they exactly hard to get to grips with. I think iWeb is fun and easy to use, but not exactly difficult. I am seriously thinking of knocking .Mac on the head and either hosting my iWeb site on another server or just stopping it.