I’ve seen several books on Photoshop effects over the years (Scott Kelby’s Down and Dirty Tricks books are some of the best and most memorable) but [1] Photoshop CS3 Photo Effects Cookbook by Tim Shelbourne ranks right up there among the best. What I like about it is its grounding in old-school techniques such as painting and film photography, knowledge of various scientific and historical facts that help the lessons achieve true realism, and a mastery of Photoshop tricks that are unexpected but very effective.

First, the book design

For me, the design is the first major impression a book can make and it needs to be a good one. This is especially important when the book is an instructional or step-by-step book like this one. I think the Cookbook’s design is good but not great, mostly because there is so much material stuffed in its pages. The type size is 7- or 8-point type and there’s a lot of figures and photos (I’d estimate about five per page; in contrast, Kelby’s step-by-step books often have only two per page). The amount of material is not the problem (the lessons are expansive and need that much material) but the book could have been more than 175 pages to give the type room to expand and allow larger photos. That being said, there’s such a thing as having too little material too and this book does a good enough job presenting what it has that you won’t notice the small type and images too much. The keyboard commands are set in bold type and stand out fairly well, and the photos of Photoshop panels and menu items are clear even at their small sizes.

Absolutely excellent recipes

Any great chef will tell you a cookbook is as good as its recipes, and if that’s the case this Cookbook is exceptional. Here’s a breakdown of the general categories with some examples:

• Tonal and color effects: black and white, tone separations, selective colorizing, high-key and low-key effects
• Graphic art effects: Art Nouveau, screenprinting, pencil, oil, watercolor, woodcut and linocut
• Lighting effects: rays of light, neon, fire, candlelight, stage lighting, studio lighting
• Natural effects: seasonal colors, rain and water, snow, reflections, sunsets, changing day to night
• Photography effects: Sabbatier and solarization effects, film grain, infrared, hand tinting
• Distortion effects: caricatures, soft focus, depth of field, cloning with perspective, panoramas and tattoos
• Texture effects: overlays, stone, wood, metal, glass and plastic
• Presentation effects: frames, vignettes, painterly borders and “breaking the frame”

Almost all recipes achieve the effect perfectly; there are very few that don’t seem to get it quite right in my opinion, but it’s subjective and the cool thing is the step-by-step instructions make it easy to tweak effects to your liking. I am also glad to see a wide variety of techniques being used over the course of the book, everything from Color Range and duotone curves to the Lighting Effects and High Pass filters. If you are new to Photoshop, this book will not only teach you some great effects but also put you well on your way to being a Photoshop master. The first few pages of the book are a primer on Photoshop in general and give a good overview of the application, despite the long passages of tiny text.

One of my absolute favorite recipes from the Cookbook is for creating snow. I’ve made snow a couple times in my Photoshop work and did it with a little custom brushwork, but Shelbourne has this neat trick with the Add Noise filter, Levels and Motion Blur to create an excellent illusion of snow. The key to Photoshop effects is knowing how to combine filters and adjustments to create new images that aren’t possible otherwise—and this book is one of the best I’ve seen for stringing long combinations of effects to create amazing illusions and effects. If this kind of alchemy excites you then buy this book and enjoy.

The other recipes that really excite me are for artistic effects. The recipes for watercolor, oil and pencil are much more involved than Photoshop’s standard filters but create images that look just like the real thing. If you use a Wacom tablet, you’ll have a lot of fun with these as you get in touch with the old techniques. Keep in mind that these recipes have multiple steps and involve a lot of work, so if you want to simply convert some images quickly to look like paintings (as this [2] Suites of 800 Locust website does) then use something quick and easy like Corel Painter or Photoshop’s filters.

Is this book for me?

In terms of skill level, I see this book being useful for both beginners and experts. As I said before, the book has an introduction that will help anyone get on track to use the recipes. If you’re an expert user, you can skip the introduction and learn some useful techniques from the recipes. Photoshop is used by a variety of professionals: designers, artists, photographers and more, so you might ask if the Photoshop CS3 Photo Effects Cookbook is for you. I think this book is great for artists: many techniques in this book recreate artistic materials such as pencil, paint and ink in a far superior way than Photoshop’s pre-packaged filters. This book is also a great choice for old-school photographers who enjoy (enjoyed?) the development process and want to learn how to apply old effects to digital photography. Digital photographers who spend most of their time in Camera Raw probably won’t use most of these artistic effects. Designers would benefit from some recipes (creating reflections, lighting and some color effects) but unless making artistic images is a part of their work they will get limited use out of the book. However, if you’re a designer who dabbles or works with images and illustration too then by all means buy this book—it will spark your creativity!

[1] Photoshop CS3 Photo Effects Cookbook
Tim Shelbourne
Rating: 9/10
[4] Published by O’Reilly
$29.99