How to Wow: Photoshop for Photography

Wouldn't it be great if you could have two of the world’s most sought-after Photoshop teachers sitting next to you at your computer as you navigate through the infinite possibilities of your digital photographic darkroom? How to Wow: Photoshop for Photography, second edition, is the next best thing. It’s the brainchild of two Photoshop powerhouses---Jack Davis and Ben Willmore, both world-renowned authors and educators, who have developed an effective way to help you reach your full creative potential.

Jack and Ben guide you step-by-step through real-world projects, with an emphasis on uncompromising quality, last-minute flexibility, and go-home-at-night speed! You'll receive tips and techniques on everything from streamlining your workflow to solarizing without chemicals to balancing out skin tones. Whether it’s optimizing the color and tone of your image, retouching cosmetic undesirables, reconstructing priceless heirlooms, or creating sepia color treatments, you'll be given the tools at every stage of the creative process in order to learn How to Wow!

The book begins with the essentials of workflow (including color management, the new Adobe Bridge, and Camera Raw 3), and then moves on to adjusting and optimizing and retouching and repairing. Next comes the fun stuff, with projects focusing on enhancing and exaggerating aspects of your photos for maximum impact, followed by projects on color and black-and-white treatments and artistic effects and overlays. Finally, there is a chapter devoted to combining your images and creating custom photo collages using instant Wow Tools Presets, available on the CD-ROM accompanying the book.

A senior engineer from NASA once said that this man gave the best technical seminar he ever attended. That same year a computer-phobic who had been struggling with Photoshop for years proclaimed that “He takes the Boogie Man out of Photoshop!” This seems to be Ben Willmore's special gift; he has an uncanny ability to connect with users of every level and mindset; whether it’s first-timers taking their first sniff of Photoshop, or razor-sharp nerds and nerdettes who are on the fast track to technical illumination. The common echo that Ben leaves in his wake seems to be “Aha! I finally GET Photoshop!”

To date, Ben has personally taught over 45,000 Photoshop users on three continents. His descriptions of Curves and Channels are thought to be the best in the industry and his breakthrough teaching style of “not-just-how-but-why,” has made him the in-house instructor of choice for companies such as Mercedes Benz, Adobe Systems, America Online, the U.S. Airforce, Lexis Nexis and Fisher-Price Toys. His award-winning, best-selling book, Adobe Photoshop Studio Techniques is said to be “Arguably, one of the best Photoshop books ever written.” by Photoshop User’s publisher, Jim Workman. His latest book 'Photoshop CS2: Up to Speed' is a new concept in books and is the only book focused exclusively on the new features in Photoshop CS2. He is also co-author (with Jack Davis) of “How to Wow: Photoshop for Photographers”, and creator of the best-selling Master Series videos.

He continues to be a featured speaker at publishing conferences and events worldwide, including Photoshop World, American Society of Media Photographers (ASMP), Professional Photographers of America (PPA) and the Royal Photographic Society of England. He's a member of the Dream Team for NAPP and writes for numerous digital imaging and photography publications, including a monthly column for Photoshop User magazine. In 2004 he was inducted into the Photoshop Hall of Fame. His reputation as the “expert's expert” prompted NAPP's president, Scott Kelby, to say, “When we get stuck, we call Ben!”

Ben sold his house in the mountains of Colorado in early 2006 and started to live a mobile lifestyle. His home is a 1997 40' Prevost bus (often referred to as a Rock Star Bus) that was converted by Liberty coach into a motorhome. The bus is pretty much a one bedroom apartment on wheels. Ben spends his time driving to speaking events and photographing National Parks and small town America.