Necessary Roughness

The cover of Creative Photoshop Lighting Techniques by Barry Huggins prompted me to pluck it off the shelves of Barnes & Noble. While making my banner for the first time in Photoshop, I had some difficulty creating some fog and some realistic stadium lighting.

Techniques is a full-color, letter-sized paperback that starts out with a chapter on basic color principles. I liked the treatment on warm & cool colors and how color histograms are used to show “warmth” numerically. Following chapters include “Quality of Light”, “Lighting and Weather”, “Shadows and Projections”, “Reflections”, “Special Effects with Light”, and an appendix with Photoshop keyboard shortcuts and online resources.

Huggins uses Photoshop CS as his software of choice, using examples from both Macintosh and Windows versions. In the examples he provides both platforms’ Cmd- and Ctrl-key sequences. I am using Photoshop 5.5, so some features were recognizable and some weren’t. Some familiarity with the program is required, such as how to create and use layers, how to use selection methods (such as marquee and the magic wand), and invert selections. I found my adjustment layers knowledge deficient.

The book is focused on how to perform tasks, rather than overall usage of Photoshop itself. There is only enough general instruction as to explain what the author is doing with the tools; he never dovetails into hypothetical deviations from his instructions. His style is direct and easy-to-follow. At times I wanted to see a side-by-side of the original photo and the completed art. Some users will want to take his original photos and follow his instructions step-by-step, but I didn’t see where those pictures were available online, even for a small fee.

If someone picks this book up, and they are looking to do exactly or nearly exactly the 43 things covered in this book, they will find it worthwhile. I found some things that might be useful in adding the effects that I wanted, but I’ll need to spend some time experimenting.