The Photoshop and Painter Artist Tablet Book: Creative Techniques in Digital Painting at Dominant Systems Book Store

Editors Choice Award 'This is a spectacular work by Cher that will turn your ho-hum computer art into something really special through the use of a digitizing tablet. As much art book as guide, The Photoshop and Painter Artist Tablet Book: Creative Techniques in Digital Painting uses traditional drawing and painting theory exercises, coupled with real-life projects, to show readers how they can use Painter and Photoshop with pressure-sensitive tablets to draw and paint with a computer.' --Fred Showker, Design_bookshelf.com

Customer Reviews & Comments
Books on Photoshop and Painter are usually written to teach you to use all of the program's features. Learning to actually draw and paint with a graphics tablet has barely been covered. If you've been a traditional artist for years, you still need basic exercises to learn how to handle the "digital brush." If you're a beginner, you need not only the basics of using a graphics tablet, but an understanding of how art is created. Cher's book provides you with both. Software instruction is kept to the minimum you need to complete the lessons. Through each lesson, Cher carefully explains how the pen makes different marks depending upon how we hold it, how much pressure we use, and how we modify the "brushes" we use. After a couple of frustrating starts, I found myself fighting the pen less and less, and reading more carefully about tilt, angle, pressure and the speed with which I made my strokes. My traditional `pencil and paper' style needed to change, and the lessons helped me concentrate on making those changes. Strategies for getting from your first stroke to your last are explained in detail. Media can be mixed in ways that are very difficult, if not impossible, with traditional media, and a good portion of the book discusses your digital options. But this is real drawing and painting, no faking it, and the lessons will take some time to finish. The shortcuts and advantages of digital media aren't ignored. Scanning sketches, tracing, using photographic reference, and even direct cloning are covered thoroughly. Whatever digital tricks you use, though, you'll be the one painting the entire image, stroke by stroke, keeping the painting fresh and original. There are two features of Cher's book that I found made the book easy to learn from. The pictures of her work in progress are so clear you can easily follow along with her methods. I would have preferred expensive spiral binding, but the book is bound well enough to stay open fairly easily while you refer to it. My second favorite feature is that all of the lessons are so timeless and useful, you can repeat them with different subjects, choosing different brushes, and never make the same painting twice. This is one computer book that won't be obsolete a year from now. Even as the software, Painter and/or Photoshop, changes with new versions, the lessons in this book remain the backbone of digital painting.

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