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Graphics Software The Gimp

A Book on General Image Editing Concepts? 51

Posted by Cliff from the a-firm-grounding-in-the-basic-concepts dept.
halftrack asks: "Someone I know wanted 'Photoshop for Dummies' for Christmas because she wanted to learn how to use it properly (who hasn't struggled trying to draw a simple line?) However, having a strong disliking for any sort of vendor lock-in I went searching for a book that would teach image editing without tying it too strongly to Photoshop (or Gimp for that matter). However, all my searches turned out blank. Thus I was wondering if there exists such a book, or is the field too diverse? The ideal would be a (thick) book that would cover the basic concepts (layers, paths, selections, channels etc.,) before presenting how these concepts are implemented in different applications. Such a book should provide the reader with a portable skill-set and give her/him the ability to objectively choose the right tool for the job, at the right cost. Does this book exist?"
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A Book on General Image Editing Concepts? More

A Book on General Image Editing Concepts?

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  • ...so it would probably be just silly to teach it without teaching to a specific program. If you're going to learn by doing, you have to do it as you go along, and to do that, it has to be taught to the program. You can't teach digital image editing in the abstract any more than you can teach painting without ever picking up a brush. Start off with a book for whatever program you feel comfortable with, and then go from there. It shouldn't be too hard to transtition from one to the other, but it's better to have a solid basis in one program than some abstract ideas with nothing to tie it to.
    • You can't teach digital image editing in the abstract any more than you can teach painting without ever picking up a brush

      But you can. There are basic artistic concepts (Golden mean, rule of thirds, composition, balance, color theory, etc.) that apply just as well to charcoal, pencil, crayons, and finger paints. For that matter, they apply to photography. More specifically, there are basic techniques that apply no matter what image editor you are using.

      What you can't do is a step-by-step guide covering every different way to achieve the same thing with different tools. You couldn't even cover all the different ways to do it with the same tool.

      A book like the submitter suggested would be a valuable resource for learning what tools are available and why you would use them. Then you could refer to the manual to figure out how to do it with your particular tool. Being a Gimp user, that's basically what I do anyway.
    • Agreed.

      Though a good book not for dummies that covers a lot of theory is Computer Graphics Prinicples and Practice [amazon.com] by Foley and Van Dam.

      I think the newer versions have C code instead of abstract code.
  • Image editing isn't like databases, where there's an abstract theory behind the implementations. There's Photoshop and there are clones of Photoshop. The "basic concepts" you mention are mostly things Adobe invented and GIMP, err, "innovated".

    • Re:Seems to me... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Arandir ( 19206 ) on Wednesday November 30, 2005 @03:07PM (#14149427) Homepage Journal
      There are tons of filters for image processing, but I'll be damned if I know what they all mean. Instead of telling us which buttons to push in Photoshop, maybe they could stop and tell us the concepts behind them. What exactly is a convolution matrix? What is an unsharp mask? What's a gaussian blur? What is laplace edge detection? Etc, etc.

      Filters are but one example. I would also like to know how to lighten an underexposed picture without making it look washed out. And other things like that.

      • Re:Seems to me... (Score:3, Informative)

        by Matt Perry ( 793115 )
        The book that you are looking for is called Real World Photoshop. It's not going to teach you how to apply lens flares and things like that. What it does go over is how to get good scans, how to properly apply colour correction, how to adjust the exposure without making it looked washed out, etc. It also explains the hows and whys of the things you were asking about such as blurs and sharpening.

      • Re:Seems to me... (Score:3, Informative)

        by 2nd Post! ( 213333 )
        I wonder if knowing those things help?
        Convolution Matrix: reads a 3x3 or 5x5 area of pixels, 'multiplies' that grid by the convolution matrix, performs a sum of the values, and replaces the central pixel in that 3x3 or 5x5 grid with the cumulative value.

        Does not explain at all HOW this produces sharp filters, but that's a convolution matrix.

        Unsharp mask: Creates a blurred representation of the image, compares it to the original, and any place that is similar in value remains unchanged. Any place that shows
      • If you want to learn the concepts behind the filters, pick up a book on digital image processing. But be prepared to be in waaaay over your head. And having fundamental knowledge of the inner workings of these filters won't make them any easier to understand when it comes to applying them to an image. Play around with them and see what they do, and then use them accordingly.
      • The primary problem here: Improper exposure reduces the amount of information on the negative. Contrast adjustments can help, but only so much.

        If a picture is improperly exposed you aren't using the full range of the film, since everything is moved towards white (overexposed) or black (underexposed) so you lose detail. If you take a low contrast image (dark or light) & adjust it to normal brightness, the low contrast will make it look washed out. Postprocessing of contrast can help, but you still are mi
      • FYI, in case you were being literal:
        to help an image that is a little dark or dull, try one or both of these things:
        control/command-L to bring up levels, then move the middle slider left to lighten overall but not wash out highlights. bring the left slider a bit to the right to punch up the darks.
        control/command-M to bring up curves. Move the cursor to the top-right corner of the grid. now come in and down one segment, so you're in the lower-left corner of the top-right square. grab the line and drag it a b
    • Photoshop didn't *innovate* most of its methods, they were established by other programs first. Otherwise they'd still be under patent. Photoshop is the success it is because Adobe are leaders in carefully applying the theory rather than because there isn't any. The Gimp is a decent image editor, but still lacks the color management tools that would make it useful for professional print work. It's coming on fast though.
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Just buy the damn book (Score:5, Insightful)

    by duffbeer703 ( 177751 ) on Wednesday November 30, 2005 @02:40PM (#14149134)
    You have a friend who wants to learn Photoshop, so instead of finding a good Photoshop book, you're on a quest to find something to find a book that teaches graphics editing without actually teaching it.

    Forget the "lock-in" nonsense. Every editing program rips Photoshop, as it is the gold standard for such programs.
    • Your comment counts double since the friend in question is a "she". Especially if this is your girlfriend, buy the damn book!
    • Amen. Photoshop for Dummies is the book you're looking for. I checked that book out from the library when I was donated a 1992 version of Adobe Photoshop for Mac (because I was the only Mac user known to that person). I haven't used that version since, but I have used Fireworks and GIMP (latest versions), and the editing philosophy is exactly the same. I know how to use those programs because of the Photoshop book.

      There is no image editing program with layers, paths, filters, etc. that does not use an inter

  • Doesn't matter. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by digerata ( 516939 ) on Wednesday November 30, 2005 @02:41PM (#14149138) Homepage
    Just get the book on Photoshop. It is the industry leader. Adobe is the originator of each of those concepts you describe, I believe. Once you know Photoshop, being the complex app that it is, you'll be able to figure out any other app quickly.

    If she is thinking about persuing a professional career in graphical editing, Photoshop is it.

    The only reason I could think of to look at the other apps/books is if and only if this is for personal use only.

  • Photoshop is king (Score:3, Insightful)

    by 2nd Post! ( 213333 ) <gundbear.pacbell@net> on Wednesday November 30, 2005 @02:44PM (#14149166) Homepage
    It's not diverse at all; if you're going to do image editing/manipulation, there are only really four or five programs out there 'worth their salt', depending of course on what your primary motivations are.

    Photoshop, Illustrator, Xara, Paintshop Pro, and a few others.

    Notice GIMP isn't listed; not because it isn't any good, but because it hasn't been vetted, or 'peer reviewed' by an industry for several generations.

    If your friend wants to use Photoshop, then get a book pertinent to Photoshop.

    If later Xara or Illustrator or something else is more pertient, then get that book; the generalities learned in Photoshop will still be relevant, but the specifics will need detailing. It is like you trying to learn Java or Python or Ruby, and a friend saying, "Well, I don't want to get them a language specific tome, so I'll just get them a data structures book and a book on object oriented design and let them figure out the language by themselves."

    You can learn about data structures and OOD/OOP using any language, and if you learn those concepts properly you can transplant them into any other language, so don't worry about your friend learning in Photoshop.

  • Check what she wants with it first (Score:4, Insightful)

    by SillyNickName4me ( 760022 ) <dotslash@bartsplace.net> on Wednesday November 30, 2005 @02:44PM (#14149167) Homepage
    First of all, I think it is more lack of diversity that is causing it being hard to find generic books on the subject.

    Next, while I'd prefer a book like you describe, for many people that is something that they are not even going to start on, they want something practical that allows them to get somewhat direct result. Many people I know who use either Photoshop or the Gimp while not being a graphics professional do so with some very specific purposes in mind (ie, my girlfriend uses it for manipulating and somewhat enhancing pictures of things she makes. While showing the concept behind layers was a kind of revelation to her, and is something she uses when it makes sense now, most things she does is simply following a 'guide' for getting a specific kind of effect or enhancement.

    What did help her a lot more with getting a better result in the end was a semi professional camera and some practical photography experience and explanation, including some general theory of picture composition and lighting. Worked better because well, a better source is a great help in getting a better result (tho you can still mess it up badly later of course), is something of which cause and effect are relatively easy to demonstrate without needing too deep an understanding of the underlying theory, and of course it simply reduces the need to use things like photoshop beyond making a proper cut or maybe some sharpening or softening.

    At any rate, I'd investigate what the intended use of the book is for your friend, your idea may be very good, but could as well end up on a bookshelf without ever serving its real purpose.

  • Since day one... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Arandir ( 19206 ) on Wednesday November 30, 2005 @03:23PM (#14149535) Homepage Journal
    Since day one of the consumer era of computing, the industry has insisted on teaching us which buttons to push instead of what the concepts behind them mean. For the most part this makes sense, because the average consumer could care less about the "why", wanting to know only the immediate "how". But not everyone is this way. Surely there's a small market out there for the "why" of computing.

    Remember back to the 80's. Remember when people used to take classes in WordPerfect, or Lotus 1-2-3? Hell, I know one guy who actually got an A.S. degree in DOS! Ten years later that knowledge is worthless. Ten years from now these current classes in MSOffice will be worthless as well. Tears still come to my eyes whenever I see a 1980's office secretary passed out in the gutter and clutching a decrepit WP5.1 keyboard overlay...
  • It's quite annoying to see people still trying to push Photoshop in some of the other posts. The submitter is asking for something else. If you only know Photoshop, then fine -- you just won't be helpful.

    Personnaly, I've been playing with Corel Draw since version 1 or 2 and I've sticked with Corel since then. At some point, I've started using Photoshop because it was obviously more advanced in photo editing than Corel. But since Corel 7, I got back to Corel Photopaint (that's when they started copying Phot

  • I've wanted a book just like that. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by daviddennis ( 10926 ) <david@amazing.com> on Wednesday November 30, 2005 @03:59PM (#14149830) Homepage
    Not because of vendor lock-in - I really don't care about that and I do own a copy of Photoshop. But because it would be nice to understand the concepts. For instance, I'm told to blur something in step by step directions, but not told why blurring is a good idea and what kind of effects it performs.

    Something that described how to draw or how to paint, but with emphasis on how to do it electronically instead of by hand.

    I really think I'd have an easier time with something that was a blend of conceptual ideas (which are rare in these books) and concrete examples (that are everywhere, of course).

    So if anyone can suggest such a book, I'd love to hear ideas.

    D

  • A sad comment (Score:5, Insightful)

    by DaoudaW ( 533025 ) on Wednesday November 30, 2005 @04:11PM (#14149918)
    This whole thread is a sad comment on the state of computing as a field of study. People confuse "Alt-key trivia" with understanding computers.

    As a longtime photography enthusiast, I understand the concepts of gamma curves and color temperature. I know that I want detail in the shadows and in the highlights. Since I have deep knowledge of photography, it doesn't matter which program I use. I can produce "better" results in 5 minutes on any image editor than than someone who has read a photoshop book, but doesn't understand the concepts involved could in an hour.

    I think the whole "windows vs. linux" problem is the same. I can switch freely between Mac, Windows and Linux without any loss of productivity because I understand conceptually what I'm doing.

    • Re:A sad comment (Score:2, Insightful)

      by R2.0 ( 532027 )
      It sounds like you've acquired the knowledge he is interested in. How about some books that offer a primer in that knowledge? That's what the OP asked for.

  • There is a really simple solution. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by wcb4 ( 75520 ) on Wednesday November 30, 2005 @04:30PM (#14150109)
    find a host, start a wiki and lets write the book. (When its done, we publish and split the profits among those involved ;-), no, not really)

    I know there have to be some folks here on /. who know these programs in and out. I am no GIMP expert, but I spent 12 years in printing doing photo retouching with Photoshop. I think I know it pretty well...Just from having done so much of this, I know the theory behind a lot of it. I would contribute to such a site. I get tired of having people ask me how to do something, or how something can be done, and of course they do not have Photoshop. They may have GIMP, but I can tell you the keystrokes in Photoshop, not GIMP. If I could point them to a place where they can learn the theory, with notes on the implementation by the different programs, it would be great. If you really are interested in this, then do more than just ask slashdot, set upa project and lets get started.
  • You might find some vaguely useful thin books, but a "thick" book? No fucking way. You CAN NOT talk about image editing in detail without getting application-specific. Just like programming: what's the thickest "how to program" book you've ever seen that didn't talk about one language? You can only get so far with generic statements like "Make two arrays, then loop through one, and for each value, loop through all the values in the other array and see if any match."

    Having used Photoshop for a few years (at
    • Just like programming: what's the thickest "how to program" book you've ever seen that didn't talk about one language?

      (Looks up to his bookshelf)
      Design Patterns - Almost 400 pages.
      Code Complete - Almost a THOUSAND pages
  • You're asking wrong questions. You're asking: "here's a list of them shiny tools; what can I do with them?" You should be asking: "here's a list of things I want to do with images; how do I do them?"

    If you want to edit photos, the first item of any answer would be "get Photoshop". No ifs, ands, or buts. Then learn to use it. You probably want to buy Professional Photoshop: The Classic Guide to Color Correction by Dan Margulis.

    If you want to draw stuff, there's probably a different answer.
  • GIIMP-related books can be found at: http://www.gimp.org/books/ [gimp.org]. Better yet, go to its online tutorials at: http://www.gimp.org/tutorials/ [gimp.org], and just print them out on sheets of 3-hole punched paper and bind them into a book, and then download a copy of GIMP (from http://www.gimp.org/ [gimp.org]), burn it into a CD, and gift-wrap all the items and present the package as a Christmas gift for her.

    Without using any dead-tree books, I taught myself how to use GIMP and other free graphic software like Pixia and ArtRage

  • Photoshop channel chops (Score:4, Informative)

    by neves ( 324086 ) on Wednesday November 30, 2005 @07:28PM (#14151958) Homepage
    You asked for a big non-application-specific book. I'll give you a small application specific book that will solve your problem. It's Photoshop Channel Chops [pcreviewonline.com]. It explains to you some of the most important concepts about manipulating images. It packed with info, not a heavy "bible" book with big type and lots of empty space. It has PS in the title, but it really doesn't matter, since it talks about the underlying processing. Let me cite Pumpkin King Amazon reviewer:

    If you aspire to be a hardcore Photoshop user, this book is probably the one you want above all others. It's not a step-by-step tutorial, a mere reference book, or a book that leads you through the tools and various functions of the software. Instead it discusses the fundamental concepts you need to know to use Photoshop to its fullest. ... Most of the book is still applicable since Photoshop today still has channels, alpha channels, paths, layers, and calculations. This book hasn't been updated since it was written in 1998, but it really doesn't need to be. It's not about how to use particular tools and new features. It's about how to think with Photoshop. ...

    Unfortunatelly it is out of print:-(

    • BTW, I used it to learn to use Gimp. Since you kown the underlying processing, you can use any graphic application
    • Amen!

      And can I add, if your friend is the least bit interested in color correction, add any edition of Dan Margulis' Professional Photoshop to the list. It's basically an entire book about the curves command, and written in an engaging style that doesn't read like a computer book.

      The guy's an iconoclast, and lots of people disagree vehemently with him, but his skillz are indisputable, and anyone who taught a colorblind person to color correct, and can use Bob Dylan and Emily Dickinson to explain color se

  • It seems to me that you won't be able to find books that don't deal with specific apps like Photoshop at introductory levels. However, back when I first studied computer graphics in the early1970s, the standard high-level image processing/programming books were all vendor-neutral because there really was no standardization, and the books only standardized on one thing: low level code. The books focused on the image processing algorithms and the specifics of output were left up to you to adapt to your specif
  • It probably won't discuss "layering" etc but it will teach good composition and structure, some of the graphic design books might also say how to do blah in a software program, but given how frequently software programs change, why bother.

    I did a graphic design course that focused on fundamentals - like how a normal person reads a page, and what shapes grab attention, etc that required all drawing ideas to be done with your hands - not your computer.

    I backed this up with a lot of books on airbrushing, which

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