Adobe Photoshop has become the tool of choice for professional photographers, designers, and amateur enthusiasts. But it's a complex application with many features-and scant information on how to use them to best advantage. A case in point: there are 100 built-in filters in Photoshop, designed to enable the user to easily make subtle or dramatic image adjustments, and there is very little online help available with the application, and no printed manual. Users can spend hours trying to use filters effectively-an inefficient and often frustrating way to work.

In Photoshop Filter Effects Encyclopedia, author and educator Roger Pring explains and decodes the settings of every filter that Photoshop CS2 has to offer, from Artistic filters such as Colored Pencil, Cutout, and Watercolor to Stylize filters like Bevel, Emboss, and Extrude. And, unlike many reference books that give you a lot of information you'll never need, it is filled with easy-to-follow, step-by-step, practical recipes for creating truly amazing effects, such as:

• Creating selective focus

• Simulating motion blur

• Adding special lens and filter effects

• Working with tone and color

• Creating dramatic solarized and posterized images

• Working with artificial lighting

• Simulating textures

• Creating multi-layered images and photomontages

• Reproducing graphic arts effects

The best part is that you don't have to be a Photoshop expert to create sophisticated, professional-looking results-the recipes take the guesswork out of the process, so you can work quickly and efficiently. Packed with hundreds of full-color photographs, clearly written instructions, and practical tips, this book is the ultimate, no-nonsense Photoshop CS2 Filters reference for creative photographers, designers, and artists.

and much more.

Amazon.com® Reader Reviews (Ranked by Helpfulness)

Average Amazon.com® Rating:  Based on 10 Ratings

So You Want to Learn About Photoshop's Filters - 2007-01-18
Reviewer Rating:
To be frank, I bought this book because to get free shipping, I had to add one more book to my order of "Photoshop Cosmetic Surgery, by Barry Huggins. It was one of many that I could have chosen for this purpose, but I chose it because it appeared that it could illuminate in detail an area of Photoshop that I was interested in exploring in greater depth than I had previously been able to do. In general, I am satisfied with my choice, although there were some areas where I would have liked greater detail and explanation. This book is not for a newbie to Photoshop. It assumes a reasonable degree of familiarity with the program, and simply proceeds, without fanfare, to describe how to use the many filters and their settings. I recommend this book for a reasonably competent Photoshop user who wants to continue to increase his/her mastery over this wonderful and hugely flexible program.

This is a great book! - 2009-03-02
Reviewer Rating:
While this book is not really thick like some Photoshop books are. That doesn't mean it lacks anything when it comes to the filter menu. Mr Pring has not only managed to cover every filter but give us the lowdown on them too.

He explains the basics of each filter. When he is done with the summary of a filter, he moves on to the next section for that filter, which is called "How It Works".

In "How It Works" Mr Pring takes an image and applies the filter at different settings. There could be anywhere from three to 28 different images per filter. What is really impressive about this section is that he supplies us with the settings that were applied to every image to achieve each of those effects. Thank you Mr Pring!

The next section is called "Using the filter", and of course this is my favorite part for each filter. Here Mr Pring has provided us with a MINI tutorial for each filter. Notice I said MINI. Don't expect a tutorial that will walk you though how to make a movie poster from start to finish or you will be sorely disappointed. The tutorials are only about applying a filter to your image. Period. However, they are very detailed for what they are meant for.

Some filters do not have a Using the Filter section. That's because the How it Works section will also be your tutorial. For example, the Extract and Liquify filters will fall in this category. Don't worry though he still gives you a lot of information to help you understand how they work. The Liquify filter has 28 examples explaining how they were achieved.

One of the things that I really like about this book is the layout. They have kept the filters in their proper groups with the same layout as Photoshop. This makes it extremely easy to find the information you seek in not only the contents, but the index area as well. The chapters are created around each filter group. Artistic, Blur, and so on.

Well, all that is left is my finishing thoughts about this book.

I know I have a lot of readers who are Corey Barker junkies like me. We can't wait for him to upload that weekly tutorial at Planet Photoshop. So what is the one major thing you notice about Corey? That he is a filter freak? DING! DING! DING! You just hit the nail on the head. What does he always tell us all the time? Get in there, play and experiment with those filters! He has ended up with a certain look more then once by experimenting. Well, this is the book you want to help you play around with those filters. Furthermore, this book was written based on the Photoshop CS2 Filters Menu. I went though the book and the filter menu in Photoshop CS3, which is the version that I own. It appears that no changes have been made from one version to the next in the filter menu. The only change that has been made that I am aware of in CS4 is the removal of the extract filter. (Thanks AJ). So with that said. Even though this book was written four years ago, it is still up to date and can hold its own with Photoshop CS3 & 4 too. This and all the goodies contained within it have earned it a place on my desk right between Katarina Eismann Restoration and Matt Kloskowski Layers book. This book will not be hitting my bookshelf anytime soon...

A Must Have For Every Photoshop User - 2007-11-15
Reviewer Rating:
For anyone who uses Photoshop in graphic design and or to correct or edit their precious photos, this book is a must have in your library of reference materials. It takes the mystery out of all those scary, misused, underused and never used filters in Photoshop by clearly showing and explaining how to use them and when to use them. This is one fantastic book.

One of a great series - 2007-06-12
Reviewer Rating:
The O'Reilly Studio put their thinking caps on for all ages and levels of expertise at Photoshop. The step by step instructions with options made this, as well as all their other Cookbooks, a delight to learn from and practice with, in an easy-to-understand format. I would love to see them come out with CD's for their books included.

Not Heavy on the Tech, but Informative - 2009-09-26
Reviewer Rating:
This is a book where you get exactly what you think it'd be based on the title. It goes into the stock filters included in modern versions of PhotoShop (CS) their variants and adjustments. Similar tools exist in filters vended by third party sellers so this book is extensible more or less to other than stock filters.

The value of this book is in its examples of how to use the rather large array of filters to enhance your work. Although I've been using PhotoShop for years now, I rarely bother with filters (aside from the common ones like Unsharp Mask) because I wasn't interested in turning my photos into a weird freak show. This book demonstrates how one may use these filters to truly enhance the photos rather than distort them in an effort to make startling an otherwise indifferent photo.

A good example of how this book can assist your productivity is the Diffuse Glow filter. This is one I never even bothered with before but I plan on experimenting with it for both landscapes and portraits - all from seeing the examples and settings of how it was used for the making of this book.

My only quibble is that the filters' tech isn't explained which may help the reader in getting more from these filters. Frex, it gives an explanation of the High Pass filter but no mention of what is passed or not passed by this filter. What is 'high' and 'low' in a photograph? What is passed or not passed then? Yes the examples show images of before and after but not the why. I would have liked some more 'why' and 'how', but that's me.

The bottom line is that in learning more about a few filters, I feel sure that I have gotten more than my money's worth from this book.

Browse Similar Topics

Top Level Categories:
Graphics

Sub-Categories:
Graphics > Photoshop