A Series of Articles About the Development of a Photography Business
- continued

Since I started out with the detailed planning of my own product line for PhotoArtCanvas, which you may read about in earlier posts here, the O’Reilly computer book juggernaut has published what amounts to a set of three titles which cover the photographic-based art portion of my own interests.

They are easy to find online at Amazon as:

Photoshop Photo Effects Cookbook : 61 Easy-to-Follow Recipes for Digital Photographers, Designers, and Artists,

Photoshop Blending Modes Cookbook for Digital Photographers : 49 Easy-to-Follow Recipes to Fix Problem Photos and Create Amazing Effects (Cookbooks (O’Reilly))

Photoshop Fine Art Effects Cookbook : 62 Easy-to-Follow Recipes for Creating the Classic Styles of Great Artists and Photographers (O’Reilly Digital Studio)

being three “recipe” books with blue and green covers, authored by Messrs. Beardsworth and Shelbourne and published in the U.S. between November 2005 and March of this year.

Taken altogether, as a set, they they have both impressed and infuriated me. It’s easily clear that the authors invested good amounts of effort, research and imagination in assembling the techniques covered in each case. And although it’s easy to look down on the fact that the techniques, as an overall collection, really do resemble a compendium of recipes, this was - in the end - probably the best way to offer them up on a tutorial basis for other photographers and artists to duplicate and experiment with. What is perplexing is the (open) question: just what was all this recipe-building work actually for? If it was just to produce a book, or two, or three, summarizing some clever preparatory work; well, that’s a goal which is probably satisfied at a basic level. For example, a substantial number of pages in each of the books are devoted to producing images which are simply imitations of classical photographic craftsmanship and conventional fine art styles. But accomplishing all this on a computer screen is one thing. Making such a duplication which looks convincing in a printed form is an additional task. And it’s one which is completely ignored in all three of the books. The words “print” and “printer” do not appear in the Index in any one of them. Printing options are covered just one time, in the photo effects volume - in a sidebar.

There might have been, though, an alternative objective. One where the huge image editing resource which is Photoshop was targeted at achieving something entirely new. At the very least as hints, with guidelines, or as a series of exploratory steps, if not a complete “dish”. The book which comes closest to this is the one which covers the Photoshop blending modes. (By the way, what a truly far-sighted innovation they were, from the very beginnings of the program itself.) However, it also happens to be the one which is least comprehensive/comprehensible on a technical level (and which contains also some really unfortunate technical errors and omissions). So then, it’s all still a puzzle. There’s technical proficiency required for sure - along the craftsmanship pathway. And there is vision to develop - the artistic component of the climb. Seems to be though that books which provide thoughtful material on both of these levels are few and far between and, in any event, can only ever be just little stepping stones.