The Digital Renaissance: Classic Painting Techniques in Painter and Photoshop

I love this book. Carlyn Beccia knows her art history, and she explains it in a way that's both easy to understand and entertaining to read.She plainly states that the book does not replace what I've tried to tell myself for years while laying on my futon: I. Need. To. Practice.While so many books are thick with photoshop formula and little reasoning, this book is filled with reasoning and little Photoshop formula.Photographer. Illustrator. Appreciator. If you want knowledge that will stay with you and the history and reasoning behind it, buy this book.

The structure of the book is quite good. Many reviewers are correct. There is very little information about using these techniques in Photoshop. It makes me think the only reason Photoshop is included is because it's a popular program. You will have to know photoshop very well to use the same techniques as Painter. It can be done, but for a beginner it might be frustrating.The way the book is structured is, there are overviews on both programs, Photoshop and Painter. Each tutorial explores the basic techniques of famous painters such as Buonarroti, Van Gogh, Renoir, Picasso and more. There are 12 Renaissance artist, with 5 featured artist who use these techniques. Each tutorial will give you the level the tutorial is based on, 1 - 3. There is an overview of what you will learn, the application used, and a brief bio of the artist before it goes into the tutorial.It's actually a very interesting study on the artist themselves as well. For an art student or art lover who wants to not only paint but learn about the artist, this is an interesting book. This is one of the reasons I am keeping the book. I do not like that it does not offer at least side notes on using Photoshop. I have Painter on my Wacom Hybrid (Android), but I don't want to fork up $430 for Painter. Painter Lite is only for Windows, which doesn't work for me. Luckily, I know Photoshop well enough to figure it out.

If you like Renaissance art, you will love this book. Well written and instructive, it does a good job showing what many of the old masters have done to make such enduring works.

Looks to be a good book, but the author refers the reader to download files for use in the lessons from the "companion website". The website is blank, non-functional and up for sale. Not possible to download the many files to do the lessons as she describes. This is NOT good!!! I emailed her, and also the publisher, to see if there is another way to get the files. If they reply I'll update this review. As it is, I'm going to give the book 2 stars for thoughtlessness.OK. I emailed the publisher, Focal Press, asking about the non-functional "companion website", and how I could get the files needed to do the lessons. The replied within 24 hours with an apology and a link to the correct page. I suggest if you want the files, email Focal Press. They have a webpage - http://www.taylorandfrancis.com/info/contact/ . And I've upped my review to 4 stars. Thanks all.

Still working my way thru this book, but so far it's done a great job translating physical technique into a digital format

As I said regarding her other book, this is a highly entertaining read.

This book purports to explain how to use two image editing programs, Painter and Photoshop, to create images similar to those of the great artists the author chooses to exemplify. It provides step by step methods to achieve results, but offers little, or no information regarding Photoshop. I sent an email to the author using the address she provided in the book asking her for informaition on how to use Photoshop so I might follow along in her book. She never bothered to respond.

First, let me just say that this really is a great read. It's very informative, well written, and overall I am happy I made the purchase. I can apply the *principles* found in this book to my own work.However, don't let the title fool you; there is really very little Photoshop coverage in this book. The vast majority of the book describes Corel Painter processes in great detail and if you are not a Corel Painter user, the book will not serve its intended purpose. I haven't gone through and run the numbers, but if I had to approximate, I would say that the book focuses on Painter about 90% of the time.I am not going to run out and drop another $400 on Painter right now, but I did go out and buy the light version in hopes that I could learn some of the processes in the book. Whether or not this works remains to be seen as I have not actually tried to execute any of the techniques yet in the Lite version of Painter.In short, I recommend the book in general, but if you are like me - strictly a Photoshop user - then you will very likely not be using the tutorials as the author wrote them. Having said that, many of the principles can be applied to your Photoshop work.

The book I needed to learn how to create traditional art with my favourite software. Always knew I was not using Corel Painter to its full potential. The section on how to use Photoshop to create textured backgrounds saved me from lots frustrations.