Peachpit releases The Adobe Lightroom Book by Martin Evening as a new “Rough Cut” publishing concept-a book available as it’s being written. Which dovetails well with a product like Adobe Lightroom which is being developed as a public preview.

Digital photographers who have relied on Adobe Photoshop to work with their images have a new tool at their disposal: Adobe Lightroom.

As a professional photographer, author Martin Evening knows firsthand what photographers need for a more efficient workflow.

Real World Image Sharpening with Adobe Photoshop CS2 by Bruce Fraser is shipping.

It’s a sad but undeniable fact of life: Whether you scan, shoot, or capture, the process of digitizing images introduces softness, and to get great-looking results, you’ll need to sharpen the great majority of digital images.

The softness introduced during digitizing results from the very nature of the digitizing process. To represent images digitally, we must transform them from continuous gradations of tone and color to points on a grid. In the process details gets “averaged” into the pixels, softening the overall appearance.

Stephen Johnson on Digital Photography
By Stephen Johnson

A master photographer and teacher since 1977, Stephen Johnson is widely recognized as a pioneer of digital photography.

His new book chronicles his ride on the bleeding edge of this medium’s evolution, and provides a practical in-depth introduction to digital photography that includes the latest techniques. Complete with beautiful color photographic examples and illustrations, this book is a unique, passionate, holistic examination for every student of photography.

Source: San Antonio Express-News
Written by Dan R. Goddard

John Picacio shopped at a local hardware store for the parts to assemble his starship — PVC plumbing parts, electrical workboxes and sprinkler heads.

But the clunky contraption appeared sleekly futuristic with rockets blazing against a sea of stars when the San Antonio artist incorporated it into his design for the cover of a science fiction novel, Mike Resnick’s “Starship: Mutiny.”

“I think you can see the influence of the found object collages of Robert Rauschenberg and Joseph Cornell in my work,” he said. “I like working from three-dimensional models, and I think it is important to draw from life. I have friends dress up in costume for my figures. I do my final composition on computer, but nearly all the individual elements are done by hand. It’s old-fashioned drawing and painting.”

Source: Imaging Resource
Written by Mike Pasini

You may know Julieanne Kost from her amusing Photoshop lectures (”How do you pronounce GIF? Get a life!”) or her Classroom in a Book Series for Adobe, for whom she’s worked since 1993. As a Senior Digital Imaging Evangelist, she flies all over the world, lecturing on creativity and Photoshop (and Lightroom, too, now) for Adobe.

As she flies from one city to another, Julieanne shoots photos from her window seat. And, after five years of taking pictures of the sky from the sky, she’s published Window Seat, a down-to-earth book on creativity, photography and digital imaging.

FOUND Magazine editor Jason Bitner has made it a habit of picking up after us, walking down the back alleys of our lives, and accumulating all that we’ve thrown away or mislaid.

 
One afternoon not long ago, after lunch at a small Midwestern diner, he stumbled onto a forgotten archive.

 
In the back of the restaurant were box upon box of studio portraits of the townspeople of LaPorte, Indiana—over 18,000 in total.
 

Source: The Book Standard

Christina Aguilera’s Four Inches
Comments By Patrick J. Eves

What do you get when you cross four inches with Christina Aguilera, Victoria Beckham, Anne Heche and 41 other scantily clad celebrity women? Either disappointment or a bestselling photography book.

Those 44 women model four-inch Jimmy Choo heels in Four Inches, the top-selling photography book in the country last week. Proceeds from the $65 hardcover go to the Elton John AIDS Foundation.

At Photoshop World last week, Scott Kelby announced the release of his new book, The Adobe Lightroom eBook for digital photographers.

Scott says: you can actually buy and download my book right now, today online, because it’s my first eBook (well, it will be an eBook until the product leaves beta and finally ships, but the advantage of the eBook is that it will be updated as Adobe updates each version of Lightroom).

The Photoshop CS2 Speed Clinic:
Automating Photoshop to Get Twice the Work Done
in Half the Time

If you’re looking for an easy way to work fast in Photoshop CS2, congratulations, you’ve found it! Matt Kloskowski, Education and Curriculum Developer for the NAPP.

Matt shows you how to use the power of automation to instantly save time, money, and frustration.

Once you master these powerful tools, you’ll wonder how you ever got along without them.

The Photoshop Channels Book
Written by Scott Kelby

One big advantage Photoshop professionals have always had was the understanding of channels. It was their secret weapon, and it enabled them to do things, and work in an entirely different way than their competitors, and maybe that’s why the secret power of Photoshop’s channels has been such a closely guarded secret.
Until now.

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.

The first section of the book, The Art of Creative Thinking: The Principles, outlines Julieanne’s method for staying creative in an increasingly complicated world. In her personal stories, advice, and philosophies, you’ll find inspiration if you’re stuck or just can’t get started. You may recognize some of your own less-than-productive thought processes as she describes her own struggle to let go of the everyday flotsam of life to find a quiet mental space in which she can think, dream, and create.

Scott Kelby is Recognized as the Top-Selling Computer Book Author in the U.S. for 2005, According to Nielsen BookScan Data

Press Release: TAMPA, Fla.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Feb. 15, 2006–For the second consecutive year, Peachpit and the Pearson Technology Group are recognizing Scott Kelby as the number one, top-selling computer book author in the U.S., according to research based on Nielsen BookScan data for the 2005 calendar year.

Micheal Reichmann of The Luminous Landscape notes that his self published and self produced book Bangladesh-First Impressions is now shipping.

Michael writes: “Nothing ever happens as quickly as one would wish. The books arrived on schedule in early October. The shipment was complete, and the books were as expected – of excellent quality. I am very pleased with the colour reproduction and the printing. There is a slight lack of neutrality to some of the B&W plates, but that’s to be expected. Doing Duotones would have increased the cost of the book substantially. There are a couple of typos in the text, but these are my fault, not the printers.

Overall the book is one that I am very proud of.”

Written by Katrin Eismann, Wayne Palmer, Adobe Photoshop Restoration & Retouching, 3rd Edition fully updates the #1 selling book on using Photoshop for restoring and retouching any photograph.

Learn to remove wrinkles, unwanted backgrounds or color casts, image flaws, or 10 extra pounds so images look better than reality. Features project-based tutorials, full-color illustrations and screenshots, and a companion Web site. Quality and reputation matter in a crowded market: Adobe Photoshop Restoration & Retouching is already well-established as the best of its kind and is highly recommended in Photoshop circles.

Word has come in from Bruce Fraser that he’s recieved his author’s copies of Real World Adobe Photoshop CS2 and the books should be hitting distributors this week.

Book Description:
Fooling around with Photoshop to create interesting composite artwork is all well and good. But if you rely on Photoshop to meet tough production challenges in a fast-paced professional environment, fooling around won’t cut it!

You need results, and you need them now: This book delivers!

Do you spend too much time doing repetitive production tasks such as placing and replacing images, resizing them, dragging them from one document to another, and preparing images for printing instead of being creative? Do you use Adobe Photoshop CS2 and have some experience with scripting? You’re in luck.

Since Adobe Creative Suite 2 was created with built-in support for scripting, virtually every repetitive or time-consuming task that creative professionals have to do in the Adobe Creative Suite can be streamlined with the help of a script.

Written by 20-year photo retouching veteran Glenn Honiball, Commercial Photoshop Retouching: In the Studio is the only book to deliver advice for the photographer and artist working with Photoshop CS 2 in a real world commercial environment.

Honiball offers incomparable technical and artistic guidance for professionals, graphic artists, photographers, and just about anyone involved in creating and manipulating digital images.

Press Release: Sebastopol, CA — Digital cameras have become increasingly accessible — they’re now available with more features, better quality, and at lower prices. Professionals, amateur photographers, and mainstream consumers alike are buying them or upgrading older cameras in record numbers. In fact, sales will surpass 100 million units worldwide in 2008, according to Lyra Research. As a result, the need to alter, enhance, tweak, and manage digital photos continues to grow — sparking a growing generation of digital darkroom enthusiasts.

By Deke McClelland
If you work with Adobe Photoshop, you’ve already tasted how powerful a graphics tool it can be. Universally recognized as the standard for image editing and production, Photoshop is used by close to 20 million people worldwide. But how many can say they’ve fully tapped its vast functionality?

Whether you’re a first-timer looking to learn Photoshop, or a seasoned Photoshopper interested in the cool new features of CS2, Deke McClelland’s Adobe Photoshop CS2 One on One will have you completing rewarding projects in no time at all.

Source: Seattle Times
Written By Linda Knapp

Now that I own an excellent digital SLR camera, it’s time to stop dabbling in Photoshop and actually learn to use this photo-editing software. Adobe Photoshop is the standard among advanced amateur and professional photographers and it’s time for me (and maybe you?) to become a more competent user.

Color Management for Photographers : Hands on Techniques for Photoshop Users. Andrew Rodney reports that he’s recieved his author’s copies and Focal Press is now shipping the book.

This new book addresses the difficult subject of color management in a way that can help you get real work accomplished. Complete with what-button-to-push-when explanations, this guide will help you navigate color management and further solidify comprehension of techniques with self-paced tutorials that enable you to practice what Rodney preaches.

Photoshop LAB Color: The Canyon Conundrum and Other Adventures in the Most Powerful Colorspace

With a mantra like “There are no bad originals, only bad Photoshop operators,” you know best-selling author Dan Margulis is serious about exposing people to the magic of Photoshop.

Nowhere is that magic more apparent than in its Lab color processing capabilities, which can make even the subtle canyon colors of rock, sand, and dirt come to vivid life. However, you may be wary of taming the complex beast.

Scott Kelby, the world’s best selling Photoshop author and Editor of Photoshop User magazine, is back once again with an entirely new collection of Down and Dirty Tricks for Photoshop CS2. The book, Photoshop CS2 Down & Dirty Tricks is due to ship today.

This new edition includes step-by-step tutorials on how to create the same exact effects you see every day in magazines, on TV, at the movies, and on the Web. It’s even more of those eye-popping, jaw-dropping special effects that made Scott’s previous editions award-winning worldwide smash hits!

Producing Your Own Book by Michael Reichmann of Luminous Landscape.

Have you ever thought about publishing a book of your photographs? Not just an inkjet portfolio, but a book – hardcover, 4 colour, offset printed, about 100 pages?

After years of fielding questions at seminars from Photoshop users, Dave Cross realized there was a lot of common ground: there were many questions that were indeed “frequently asked.” In addition, most questions seemed to start with “How come I can’t….” “How do I….” or “Why won’t the (fill in the blank) tool work?”

This book addresses the most common problems and questions in Photoshop by both providing answers to the most frequently asked questions, and outlining strategies that can help you avoid problems in the first place.