Topic: Professional Photoshop 5th Edition

[mdavis]

The latest (and sadly probably the last) edition of Dan Margulis' bible on color correction is now shipping.  I pre-ordered a copy from Amazon and paid full price ($59.95 US) but I hear you can obtain cheaper prices from Borders or directly from PeachPit Press.

I don't intend for this to be an advertisement for the book.  I am a big fan of Dan Margulis and his color correction knowledge is way above any other writers that I have found.  Curvemeister is also acknowledged in PP5 as a great tool for color correction (according to Dan's forum), but I haven't received my copy yet.

If you really want to dig to the roots of Photoshop channels and color correction, this book will be a frequent reference for years to come.  If you aren't into some serious study and hands-on self training, save your $60.  This is what Curvemeister is all about, ultimately.

[Barry Pettinger]

Thanks for the heads up Mike. Do you know if there is very much new info in it?  I found it available at Chapters for $49.49 Canadian.
  http://www.chapters.indigo.ca/books/search?keywords=Dan%20margulis&pageSize=10

[RonBoyd]

The latest (and sadly probably the last) edition of Dan Margulis' bible

Why do you believe it will be the last? I hope you don't suspect it will be his last book. I, too, am a big fan of his.

Ron

[curvemeister]

Hi Ron,

Dan Margulis has said that this will be his last book.  I, as do you and many others, hope that this is not the case. - Mike

[BBushe]

hi guys,

dropped by again. I'm sure Dan is too ornery to stop writing books. He just needs another colour revelation, as per LABspace. I think there may be a fair difference in 5th edition compared to 4th, considering his 'conversion' (evolution?) to LAB.

I guess the principles remain though.

cheers,

bb

[curvemeister]

hi guys,

dropped by again. I'm sure Dan is too ornery to stop writing books. He just needs another colour revelation, as per LABspace.
...

There you go.  Maybe if I add another color space to Curvemeister, maybe Dan will write a book about it :-) - Mike

[mdavis]

Dan has a "Color Theory" forum in which he answers questions and provides a sounding board for other (mainly) professional printers.  Mike and I are both lurkers, although we occasionally post a comment or two.  Dan has stated that this is his last update to Professional Photoshop, so I would think that, coming on the highly successful heels of his LAB book, he may be just worn out.  I also suspect he is getting worn out defending his stance on certain topics (see below).

Professional Photoshop 5th Edition (PP5) was stated by Dan to be 90% new material.  Dan has perhaps nearly exhausted the topic of color correction theory.  His PP4 requires multiple readings and a lot of hands-on practice to soak it all up.  I am through 3 chapters in PP5 which are similar to PP4 because the basics upon which Dan builds his complicated channel blending and theory remain the same.  The first 10 chapters, although different, may not shed much "new" light on Dan's techniques to readers of PP4.  But for those who are REALLY serious about learning color correction from the master, one of the PP books is a must for your library, and the first 10 chapters will be different from anything you've read before.

What is totally new in PP5 is the last half of the book.  This is no beginners book on how to use the brush tool and what's in the menus.  As in the LAB book, the last chapters are HEAVY stuff.  A lot of it is playing games with Photoshop to get a better grip on color control.  Curvemeister is mentioned in passing in 2 places.  I suspect it would play a much more prominent part if Macs were supported since many printers and Dan himself use them.  A lot of what Dan does is throw out his techniques during his classes and then let other professionals try to find fault.  When they do (which is seldom), he revises his techniques.

Of late, the forum has become a sniping ground from advocates of 16-bit vs. 8-bit color, and ProPhoto RGB vs. Adobe RGB and sRGB gamuts which are at odds with Dan's personal preferences.  Dan travels a lot and has defended his choices multiple times against online claims to the contrary, but with no concrete examples.

The value of Dan's books and techniques is that they don't need any particular color space in RGB.  Dan sees each color image as composed of ten channels (R, G, B; C, M, Y, K; L, A and B). Those of us with PCs have 13 if you add Curvemeister's H, S and L.  Much of his technique relies on the power of Photoshop's channels, curves and masks, but a lot of it can be done in other editors as well.  Dan teaches you how to evaluate an image and then what to do about making desired changes.  It is a thinking, theory book, not a receipe book as so many others are.

I bought my copy on pre-order from Amazon for $59.95 US.  Today, I received an e-mail from Amazon offering the book at a discount for $37.95 US.  Thanks a lot, Amazon!  But worth every penny.

[curvemeister]

Well said, Mike.  Dan's books are solid gold.  I would add that there is no way I would have waited an extra several months before getting my copy of the Lab book.

[BBushe]

certainly I have read pp4, and tried to re-read it. Work of course intrudes, and I'm looking at a very hectic schedule for the next 12 months too. It's perhaps ironic I took pp4 as some 'relaxation' reading on a week long course earlier this year.

as for Price, Amazon.co.uk  have pp5 knocked down from £43 to £29 , or about $57 US...

[Barry Pettinger]

Well, I received edition 5 from my wife.  I am only at the third chapter, interesting, informative, very challenging, but much like pp4 so far. It is not for beginners and makes you work at it. Will see what else there is to offer. Also, for those interested, I received Spyder2express. Have not used it yet but will let you know.
    Happy holidays.
            Barry

[Greg Groess]

Are there ideas and items in the book that a lowly PSE5 user could take advantage of? 
Most of the stuff I have seen in articles was directed at CS users.

Greg

[curvemeister]

Absolutely.  The operations involving layer blending modes, curving in Lab or CMYK, and some of the general discussions involving color. - Mike

[Barry Pettinger]

I purchased my first copy of Dan's book when I had PSE3 and curvemeister and I could relate, not necessarily understand, most of the book. I believe one can learn from it.

Just looking at the 3 books I have and the series numbers are confusing. The first I got was Professional Photoshop -the classic guide to color correction  6 (pub July2001), then Photoshop LAB Color (pub 2006) and now Professional Photoshop 5th edition (pub2007) How did we get from 6 to 5 ?

[curvemeister]

I purchased my first copy of Dan's book when I had PSE3 and curvemeister and I could relate, not necessarily understand, most of the book. I believe one can learn from it.

I would hope so - I've been referring ptoplt to the Professional Photoshop as a logical place to go after the beginners Curvemeister 101 class. Perhaps this is too big a jump?

Just looking at the 3 books I have and the series numbers are confusing. The first I got was Professional Photoshop -the classic guide to color correction  6 (pub July2001), then Photoshop LAB Color (pub 2006) and now Professional Photoshop 5th edition (pub2007) How did we get from 6 to 5 ?

The numbers are confusing  Here's how it stand as of today, when there are four editions of Professional Photoshop out there, and a fifth on the way:

Edition 1, "Professional Photoshop", 1995
MakeReady, 1996
Edition 2, "Professional Photoshop 5", 1998
Edition 3, "Professional Photoshop 6", 2001
Edition 4, "Professional Photoshop (now updated for Photoshop 7)", 2002
"Photoshop LAB Color", 2005
Edition 5, "Professional Photoshop", 2007 (I have not seen this yet)

Here's an interesting discussion of the latest book:
http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=42993

[BBushe]

those dgrin discussions are great!

I got some amazon vouchers so ordered pp5. unfortunately I didn't realise that taken the free delivery option meant they won't even get off their butts to mail it to me until 2nd Jan. so I'll have it eventually, I have a bit of time to read this week before back to work. Sweden next week and stateside for a change the week after