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| A Creative COW Book Review |
Article Focus:
In this article, CreativeCOW leader George Loch reviews Photoshop for Digital Video: Creative Solutions for Professional Results by Mike Gondek, Archie Cocke, and published by Focal Press, 272 pages, September 2004, ISBN: 0240806336, and begins with "Wherever you are in videography food chain, chances are that you are dealing with graphics, text and pictures to some degree. If you have had any experience with these items in production you are most likely aware of the potential traps and snares they can create. Photoshop for digital video is a great resource for instruction in dealing with these issues. Read on to find out why."
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 Addressing graphic manipulation for video production is an important topic and is filled with many sub-topics that are often overlooked. Issues dealing with the challenges of working with NTSC or PAL are many times forgotten because of the extremely accessible tools available to us. Many times, videographers new to the industry simply don't know any different and have not seen the potential of well-crafted images.
This book goes a long way into educating the reader in the simplicities and complexities of the world of graphics destined for video. Many of the important topics are covered in a hands on approach to producing pleasing yet compatible artwork that will lift the quality of a production. It also is a great resource for a videographer who is mostly new to Photoshop as it will show you the potential impact of Photoshop in your work.
See -vs- Do
Without a doubt, Photoshop for Digital Video is a book that encourages you to actually explore the concepts it discusses. Every topic area if filled with guided procedures that illustrate the ideas and approaches. If you feel you are a hands-on kind of a person this book will work very well for you. Every topic and every section provides a plethora of "get your hands dirty" opportunities to apply the concepts.
The book also includes a great resource DVD that has everything needed to follow along with the various topics is provided on the companion DVD. It even provides bonus demo plugins, useful templates and pictures to play around with. As a bonus, the book also provides some information on Illustrator and some of it's application to video. Very useful for you Creative Suite owners.
Topics of interest
The general topics covered in Photoshop for digital video are mainly focused around these areas:
- Creating and preparing imagery for video.
- Correcting/enhancing existing imagery for use in video.
- Expanding your creativity with a solid understanding of the tool sets found in Photoshop.
- Enhancing your productivity through optimization of Photoshop itself.
Essentially, these topic areas provide a solid foundation in the fundamentals of working with pixels and video. While this book provides a good cover to cover read, it also is flexible enough to allow you to address the above topics in a more "as needed" basis. If you are specifically looking for guidance on creating masks or titles you can easily jump into that section and get some good instruction there.
©Copyright 2003 / 2004 George Loch | Creative Cow
All Rights Reserved
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