Readers Preference Reviews

This book is an excellent tutorial for people who want to understand the basics of good graphic design.  Written in a clear and easy to understand manner, the author walks the reader through how to use design elements to communicate effectively.  Areas covered include balance, using lines, designs, patterns, textures, color, space, grids, stability, layout, grid systems, color theory, and typography.  The result is a product that is visually appealing and moves the reader's eyes in the direction you want them to go for maximum effect.  If you want to learn the art of vis

A great deal of this art instructional book deals with trying to see things and draw using the artistic side of the brain instead of the analytical left side. Subjects covered include sketching, texture, tone, line art, drawing techniques, design and layout, drawing fur, eyes, and other parts of animals, and botanical drawing. The appendixes include multiple projects, field sketchbook and portfolio creation, and career tips if you want to pursue illustration as a career.

"1000 Symbols" is an extensive compendium of symbols from around the world. What makes this book unique from other books on symbols is the worldwide approach. A specific symbol can mean widely differing things in different cultural contexts and the authors do a wonderful job of examining each interpretation. Each symbol has a number that is cross-referenced to the index at the beginning of the book making them easy to find. In addition, the symbols are categorized into eight general categories for easy browsing.

If you have ever wanted to try your hand at creating panoramic photographs but just didn't know where to start or have had a hard time getting it right then this book is for you. It details the process from how to compose and shoot the pictures, digitize them, assemble, and retouching them to create your final composition. Some of the examples include unique point of view projects like “Urban Sphere” where the 360 degree panorama appears as the surface of a sphere. You should be warned that all the techniques illustrated are done using Adobe Photoshop software.

This book starts with the basics of working with digital photography and a basic guide to digital cameras. The author does a particularly good job of discussing both the similarities and the differences in film and digital camera techniques including dealing with sensor artifact repair and sensor noise. As the leading professional digital photography software most of the examples are detailed using Photoshop. Using this product Stephen Johnson discusses how and why to adjust tone and contrast, color correction and editing, changing hue and saturation, and photographic reproduction.

Like many other open source software products ImageMagick has always suffered from poor documentation. That problem is helped considerably with the publication of The Definitive Guide to ImageMagick. For those who are used to working with fancy graphical interfaces ImageMagick will be quite a shock. It uses a command line interface which makes it easy to use put into your own programs and simply call or build the appropriate command line to produce the desired results.

Finally, there is a book on GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) that I can recommend without reservations. Personally, I love using the GIMP program for image manipulation and find that it has always been able to do everything I have ever needed. However, most of that knowledge has been gained through a long process of trial and error. Beginning GIMP is a treat to read through and explore the different techniques and effects that are possible with the program.