Dan Margulis' Modern Photoshop Color Workflow book

[jonreid]

Regarding this book:
http://www.amazon.com/Modern-Photoshop-Color-Workflow-Quartertone/dp/0988280809/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top
Does anyone have this book?
I am interested in developing my Photoshop skills beyond where they are now but am wondering if the information in this book is able to be applied outside of the panel of actions that Dan Margulis developed to go with it.

I'm happy to hear of other suggestion regarding resources to take my understanding of this program to a professional level.

Jon

[Daniel Stone]

Hey Jon,
I've learned most of what I do/know from simply watching YOUTUBE videos :)
they're free, and there's LOTS of options and a wide variety of instructors/tutors who make them simply to help others improve their craft
check some out, you might be impressed!

cheers,
Dan

[jonreid]

Thanks Daniel,
I do watch some tutorial videos on YouTube, Linda.com is also supposed to be good but is expensive.
I was hoping for an authoritative voice to describe best practise.
BTW, did you see my APUG response re 5x7 boxes?

J

[Daniel Stone]

Hey Jon,
Ya, I watched some Linda videos before, but was grossed out by the price. Definitely nicely done videos, that's for sure. But I'd prefer to not shell out serious coin when there's still room in the freezer for more film, and Kami fluid, and mounting acetate, and gas for the trips ;)...

Yup, saw your message; just sent you a response back.
Thx,
Dan

[bob carnie]

I have this book and the LAB book
I have also taken his three day courses (four times)
It has really helped me in my work, but I must admit that the books, the videos and the courses Dan offers are pretty heavy, and frankly he moves through the stuff so fast and furious that
for me it was very hard to keep up.
If you want to learn about curves and colour correction techniques I suggest he is the Man.
If you are more interested in selections and plugins, don't even bother jumping in.

I find working in LAB extremely usefull... Many here slam it use, and basically I feel its lack of understanding of the power of this colour space and applications , and they feel more comfortable in RGB.
Dan likes working in CMYK as well and if you start doing advance colour work where you need to see all the channels to use in your work then I whole-heartly recommend both his books and his videos which are on Kelby Training.



Regarding this book:
http://www.amazon.com/Modern-Photoshop-Color-Workflow-Quartertone/dp/0988280809/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top
Does anyone have this book?
I am interested in developing my Photoshop skills beyond where they are now but am wondering if the information in this book is able to be applied outside of the panel of actions that Dan Margulis developed to go with it.

I'm happy to hear of other suggestion regarding resources to take my understanding of this program to a professional level.

Jon

[Brian Ellis]

Thanks Daniel,
I do watch some tutorial videos on YouTube, Linda.com is also supposed to be good but is expensive.
I was hoping for an authoritative voice to describe best practise.
BTW, did you see my APUG response re 5x7 boxes?

J

I guess "expensive" is a relative term but IIRC the non-premium monthly charge is $25, and that's after a 7 day free trial. So you have about 37 days of excellent tutorials for $25. I thought it was a huge bargain.

[Otto Seaman]

Dan was the man for real pre-press work with PS in the 90s so I bet this would be good for photographers doing quality 4C ad and magazine work. Does that still happen anymore?

[bob carnie]

Here in Toronto the bulk of the people taking Dans course are from the Police Forensic Labs. These people would not know a good print if they saw it but can walk circles around me using curves , channel blending and noise reduction techniques... It was kind of creepy being beat on every assignment.
Dan also forces you to colour correct by using numbers only **screen is set to greyscale** and you need to correct a photo without seeing colour .
This was very cool assignment and its a good way to learn colour and your system. after four courses I finally got that one.

Lots of people here are concerned about monitors and their quality, Dan is concerned with the numbers and I have to agree before I send anything to the printers, I do a number check on key areas to see how they will print. Dan still is the Man in my books, and will be for as long as I work on these keyboards.




Dan was the man for real pre-press work with PS in the 90s so I bet this would be good for photographers doing quality 4C ad and magazine work. Does that still happen anymore?

[Lenny Eiger]

I'd say the best thing to do is find someone with skills, pay them for an afternoon of their time. That way you can emulate the skillset of someone who is successful at what you are trying to do and you can get your questions answered directly. I've read a lot of the books, and I find most of them lacking, with a few exceptions. It took only an hour or two to have some say, here try this and it all became clear. Then I could use the info in books to add to it.

I say that you want to focus on doing things the long way around to start. Learn how to use curve adjustment layers, stay away from most of the others (levels) and learn how to create masks. Masks are the key to most of it, for me. The more you understand how to make a mask, the quicker you can do so. Once I got to the point of adding and subtracting them from each other, I finally got to where I could create one quickly instead of spending hours.... Then I was in control....

Lenny

[jonreid]

Lenny,
I do know a guru but no longer live in the same city as him, and he's flat out. He pretty much prints every photo exhibition shown in Sydney and printed Murray Fredericks' Lake Eyre project (magnificent). It was he who suggested Dan's books.

Bob,
Can you answer one specific question relating to the book I mentioned? In the book's blurb a lot is made of the fact that there is a corresponding Photoshop panel developed by Margulis and his team. Is the books content solely concerned with using that panel and its associated actions or does he explain the ideas and techniques in a way that they could be applied 'manually'?
I hope you get what I mean.

Thanks for your responses everyone.

Jon

[bob carnie]

Jon

not sure I understand you specific question so I will ramble a bit and hope it helps.

Dan uses teaches curves and channel use in all four modes.. RGB , Greyscale, LAB and CMYK.

I do not remember him using actions. He was all manual ... one little piece of irritation, he uses his curves upside down. ie when he wants to brighten a highlight he drops the 1/4 point.. That may work well for you down under as every thing is backwards or reverse from what I hear :). I found this very irritating as he is good enough to work the other way but forced us students to try to figure this out as well everything he threw at us over a three day period.

Joking aside, try the Kelby online training first its around $20 bucks a month, you will get a handle of whether you like his teaching style. He has at least three installments there.
If you find the online ok then buy the book.
He gets a kick of being over his students heads and IMO is one of his big drawbacks, you either get what he is showing or you don't and he will not patiently wait for you to grasp catch up.
FWIW I use his methods manually and do not use plugins or actions.
Also I am not so keen on selections. I make a layer , do something and flatten, I do not keep a history of levels active.. This goes against a lot of teaching, but I am pretty confident in the numbers **INFO PALLETTE** and know my materials and how they react to them.
Also , all my understanding of PS is geared toward the single image and how to make it look like a darkroom print I therefore am not interested in some of the more complicated features of PS to blend images, montage, stitch or retouch.

Every year I go north to our bunky and take all the Photoshop books I own and re read them, its funny how each year the books start making more sense..
Kelby himself has a pretty good book about the 7 steps to a good image, I kind of agree that there are fundamental steps to making a good image and sometimes less is more.
Learning how to sharpen properly and when is very important.




Lenny,
I do know a guru but no longer live in the same city as him, and he's flat out. He pretty much prints every photo exhibition shown in Sydney and printed Murray Fredericks' Lake Eyre project (magnificent). It was he who suggested Dan's books.

Bob,
Can you answer one specific question relating to the book I mentioned? In the book's blurb a lot is made of the fact that there is a corresponding Photoshop panel developed by Margulis and his team. Is the books content solely concerned with using that panel and its associated actions or does he explain the ideas and techniques in a way that they could be applied 'manually'?
I hope you get what I mean.

Thanks for your responses everyone.

Jon

[jonreid]

Hi Bob,
Thanks for your answer and advice. I was referring to the part of the book's description where it says "His solutions are often highly automated, and the automation is made available for free, including a powerful PPW panel that serves as command central."
I'll look at the Kelby training and see how I go.

Jon

[Peter De Smidt]

I suggest springing for one month of Kelby Training. Dan has a bunch of videos on there, including one on LAB and also the Post Card Workflow. That would give you a good taste of what he's like.

For many years, his Professional Photoshop was a standard text. You're library might have one. Hell, I could send you mine.

I like Dan's stuff. It's helpful. But it can be a bit intimidating. It does take awhile to digest.

[Daniel Moore]

I would like to echo Brian's comment about Lynda.com. The price is immaterial compared to what you get for a month's worth of excellent instruction on targeted areas of weakness. Using their exercise files is not the least bit a requirement so spare that expense. It's the first place I check when I need to learn a new program.