Product Description

"Vincent Versace is a Renaissance man who has produced the best how-to book of the year! With its subtitle of “A Cinematic Approach to Digital Still Photography with Photoshop” Versace introduces a system for creating images that owes as much to the traditional darkroom as the digital one. Don’t just read the book; study it. The first chapter isn’t called “The Tao of Dynamic Workflow” for nothing and, like the rest of the book, contains Versace’s charm, wit, and wisdom. It’s copiously illustrated with detailed step-by-step examples of techniques that when applied to your own work will turn you from zero to hero. The fact that he’s a heck of a photographer means the book is stunningly illustrated, but it’s also been well designed. It has become a cliché to say that a book could change your life, but this one could." -- Joe Farace, December, 2007 , Shutterbug,  Top Digital Books Of 2007; More & Better Digital Imaging Books

Creating memorable photographs is a process that starts before you edit an image in Photoshop, before you capture the image, even before you pick up the camera. You must first approach the subject with the proper sense of perception, with the ability to visualize the finished print before you commit a scene to pixels, but still be flexible and spontaneous. Master Fine Art photographer Vincent Versace has spent his career learning and teaching the art of perception and how to translate it into stunning images. In Welcome to Oz,  he delves into what it means to approach digital photography cinematically, to use your perception, your camera, and Photoshop to capture the movement of life in a still image.

•  Adapt your workflow to the image so you always know how best to use your tools
•  Turn a seemingly impossible photographic scenario into a successful image
•  Practice “image harvesting” to combine the best parts of  many captures to create an optimum final result
•  Create black and white prints that have the look, feel and “richness” of traditional silver prints without ever leaving the RGB color space

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #25327 in Books
• Published on: 2006-12-23
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Perfect Paperback
• 224 pages

Review
"Vincent Versace is a Renaissance man who has produced the best how-to book of the year! With its subtitle of “A Cinematic Approach to Digital Still Photography with Photoshop” Versace introduces a system for creating images that owes as much to the traditional darkroom as the digital one. Don’t just read the book; study it. The first chapter isn’t called “The Tao of Dynamic Workflow” for nothing and, like the rest of the book, contains Versace’s charm, wit, and wisdom. It’s copiously illustrated with detailed step-by-step examples of techniques that when applied to your own work will turn you from zero to hero. The fact that he’s a heck of a photographer means the book is stunningly illustrated, but it’s also been well designed. It has become a cliché to say that a book could change your life, but this one could." -- Joe Farace, December, 2007 , Shutterbug,  Top Digital Books Of 2007; More & Better Digital Imaging Books

About the Author
Vincent Versace has received the Computerworld Smithsonian Award in Media Arts & Entertainment and the Shellenberg fine art award and has been nominated three times to the Photoshop Hall of Fame. Vincent produces art for entities as various as Eco-Challenge and the San Francisco Presidio National Park; he teaches at the Santa Fe and Palm Beach Photographic Workshops, and hosts the Epson Print Academy. Articles about his work have appeared in over two dozen photography magazines. You can see his work on the Web at  www.versacephotography.com.Vincent Versace has received the Computerworld Smithsonian Award in Media Arts & Entertainment and the Shellenberg fine art award and has been nominated three times to the Photoshop Hall of Fame. Vincent produces art for entities as various as Eco-Challenge and the San Francisco Presidio National Park; he teaches at the Santa Fe and Palm Beach Photographic Workshops, the Digital Landscape Workshop Series, and hosts the Epson Print Academy. Articles about his work have appeared in over two dozen photography magazines. You can see his work on the Web at www.versacephotography.com.

Customer Reviews

Worth The Journey
This book is not your everyday Photoshop book and not a book for casual reading. It is a journey that provokes thought and requires the reader to often take his steps over again to fully appreciate what is being taught. As Vincent Versace has said many times, his purpose in writing this book was not to do a step by step answer book, it was to write a book which would inspire the reader to ask questions and look at things in a different way.

As an example, after reading about image harvesting I created an image composited from 20+ separate photographs to achieve enough depth of field using a 180 macro lens. By working through the lesson, I finally understood how to do the compositing it would require and I was surprised how well it worked. That the warp tool was required to get the leaf the way he wanted it only serves to reinforce the concept of interpretation.

For those who may be disappointed to find out Kismet is a composite, I have to wonder why. Are Jerry Uelsmann's images less photographic because he composites them in the darkroom? Are landscape images by Ansel Adams less iconic because they were manipulated in the darkroom? Photography has always been created from what the photographer saw and felt and how he wants to interpret that onto the print.

I recommend this book to anyone who has the patience to take the time required to understand what Vincent is sharing and I am hoping he will add more books to my library in the future.

A Method Actor's How To Book
I call this a Method actor's how to book because invariably Versace starts with the artistic motivations and aims before getting into the techniques to satisfy them. This approach really works for me.

I have spent most of my time with his B&W conversion techniques, trying out some alternatives not included in the book, but that derive from its motivations. I've found the techniques are extremely adaptable and customizable to one's own vision. This I think is rare for a book such as this, and therefore it receives my highest esteem.

An introduction to advanced photgraphic editing in Photoshop
The book is useful for those who want to move up from basic use of Photoshops image enhancment tools to a more advanced level. The use of various layer masks and how to develop an efficient workflow is described. The book is laid out as a course and the reader should do the exercises using the images from the included CD. The style of the results is of course a reflection of Versaces own style, however by learning the described teqnique the reader can gain a platform to develop his own style. The example images are portraits and close-up nature. There is also a small collection of the Versaces images nicely presented which shows that the author has achieved his goals.
This is not a general encyclopedia on Photoshop rather it is an introduction on how to use the toools in Photoshop to achieve a specific photografic result and to get inspiration from a master.