Photoshop Compositing Secrets: Unlocking the Key to Perfect Selections & Amazing Photoshop Effects for Totally Realistic Composites

Matt is a great teacher and there's lots of good stuff in this book, but be warned. If you think it's about pulling folks out of your back yard photos and putting them someplace else, you'll be disappointed. The majority of this book is about how to set up and light your subjects in a studio against a seamless background so they'll look right when you mask them out and put them into another shot. This is all good information for folks with studios and multiple lights, planning in advance to composite the shot.

I was hoping to get a lot more information on masking, and maybe some on color and temperature balance so things looked real. Instead I got "Plan ahead, write down the focal length, f-stop and distance from your subject, then set your camera the same when shooting the background; note the spot where your subject would be if he was actually there, then back your camera off the same distance you shot from in the studio. In my amateur world, it'd be a lot easier to just transport the subject to the location and take one shot.

The book was definitely NOT a waste of money, and I got several good things from it. There were good tips on masking, but masking from a seamless background is not that hard. I'm an amateur with one removable flash, two reflectors, and no studio, I don't get paid for my work, I just wanna have fun in my hobby. I could have got everything of interest to me in far fewer chapters. This book is more for professional photographers and graphic designers.

I love this book. Combining images, and making it look believable is hard, tedious work. In this book Matt Kloskowski lays out exactly how he does it, and actually makes it sound easy, hopefully I'll get to the point where it is.

Some of it was familiar from watching Photoshop User TV, but much of it was new. In one example he explained how he kept track (on his phone) his lens, and focal length, distance from the subject, and how high the camera was from the ground when he photographed his main subject. He then replicated all of this when he photographed the background so the subject would look right when put in that atmosphere.

He covers the shadows (super important to making it look real), the filters, the clipping masks, layer blend modes, and a couple of ways to get rid of that nasty fringe quickly to name just a few of his helpful tips. This is a book that I will keep right next to my computer and refer to any time I am doing a composite.

If you like this book, I also recommend his earlier book [[ASIN:B004E9SUZU Layers: The Complete Guide to Photoshop's Most Powerful Feature (2nd Edition)]] which was absolutely wonderful!

I checked this out from the library to see if I wanted to buy it and I'm glad I did. While I did learn a few tricks, they were really just different ways of doing something I could do another way. To give you my info so you can gauge for yourself if this would help you, I have been using photoshop as a hobby for about 7 years, all self-taught, nothing professional, restoring photos and creating movies/ living scrapbooks. This book shows you a few composite images and walks you through how they were created, giving tips on extracting hair, matching the overall tone of the individual pictures, adding shadows, a lens flare, blending some images together, really basic stuff that you would get from any retouching and restoration book or even one of the bibles. He does a good job of explaining the steps and what plug-ins you can purchase to do the same thing faster. If you are a beginner, this will be great information. He also gives good information on camera and lighting staging if you are taking the pictures yourself but most of us are not. I was disappointed with the quality of a few parts of his work. I'm not saying he didn't do good work and he is certainly creative, I loved the concept and objects in his pictures, but there were still obvious tell-tale photoshopped signs which are easily fixed and should not be published, especially in a book about compositing. For example, not matching lighting sources on the cover picture (hard back light on the man and a side light, almost straight forward light on the background door, the exact opposite of the man) and the basketball in the asphalt is distractingly higher than than the ground right beside it (he should have rotated the picture from a diagonal up the man's torso and then filled in the gap) or the shadows in the last picture in particularly the upside down child and the dog not matching the main light source. These are just the few examples I remember off the top of my head. You can get the same information in this book plus a whole lot more useful tips in any restoration and retouching or the CS4 WOW book (not the CS5, it is just an update of program changes really.) I don't recall him even going into color matching or creating a global light source in photoshop for those times when you don't get the luxury of a studio controlled picture series (like most of the time for many of us) both of which are crucial for realistic composites as is matching time of day. Look at this book in the library or skip it and save the money for a good restoration and retouch or the CS4 WOW book. You will get much more bang for your buck and have a much better arsenal to attack your projects with.

Look at the ratings. There is a reason virtually every reviewer assigned 5 stars to this book. I've worked with Photoshop for a good 20 years and still on a steep learning curve. In my erstwhile quest for competency, I must easily have a good $500 bucks invested in books, videos, etc.

I can say, hands down, this is absolutely the best ever book on Photoshop techniques.

Note this is NOT a beginner's survey, and for that I'm grateful. If I have to ever again struggle through pages and pages telling me how to OPEN a File, or SAVE a File, I'll probably hang myself.

The author wisely assumes that the reader has at least working knowledge of the basics of Photoshop, including working with layers and layer masks (ashamedly, it's only been within the past year or so that I finally bit the bullet and started using layer masks... wow, what a quantum leap in capability!)

Matt approaches the compositing issues (and what else IS Photoshop if not a great compositing tool?), through an extended series of actual image projects, and provides the working images for your own practice via an accessible weblink.

The process to combine several images into one, as might be expected, is pretty similar, regardless of the subject. Yet, amazingly, with each new sample project, Matt introduces a slightly different approach to achieve the same end results.

After you read through the very detailed and well-explained steps of each project, you'll be amazed at all the new techniques and shortcuts you will have learned.

Now that I've finished the book, I plan on starting back on page one and actually working through each project to further cement my new-found knowledge.

I'm rather glad that I bought the Kindle version (you DO know you can buy Kindle books at usually big discount from hardbound? and you do NOT have to own a Kindle.. just download the free Kindle app for your iPhone, iPad, PC, or Mac, and view the whole book in color on your desired device).

I literally keep my PC Kindle app active on my PC for quick reference to this book (it's nicely indexed too).

Although I do own a regular (non-color) Kindle, I wouldn't recommend this book for that medium, since you really need full color to appreciate the incredible work the author has done. However, I've successfully worked through this manual reading it mostly right on my iPhone.

Wish I could give this TEN stars! Without question the best Photoshop book ever!

This book is superlative in every way, and is written by a true master of Photoshop. An important point needs to be made: this book will save you $money$. Compositing photographs necessarily requires that you remove (or mask out) the subject from its background from one or more photos. There are many Photoshop plugins available to help you with this process, and some are quite expensive. Matt uses the Refine Edge Tool already in Photoshop CS5 to accomplish this (even on fly-away hair) and explains its nuances, negating the need for purchasing these plugins.

This book is so well written that one can delve into any page, any where in the book, and not be lost. So, whether or not you are a fan of Joel Grimes, Dave Hill, James Quantz, Jr., Justin Paguia and the like, this tome is destined to become a classic reference - a must have for every Photoshopper.

its a nice big book of photoshop, the print quality is nice, don't expect an photography quality print, but the word "SECRETS" is over rated in this book, althoug what it can teach you is limited, what you learn in one lesson is used all along the book, it's one or two techniques used in several examples, anyway i still recomend this book if you want to learn something about compositing and you don't know anything about it, if you have some knowledge about compositing/photoshop/photomanipulations and stuff like that you really don't want to buy this book.

I just need to start by saying that this book absolutely ROCKS!! If you're a photographer or graphic designer who wants to create compelling composites, this is the book for you. One thing that I really enjoy about Matt's book is that the examples are "real world" examples. When you look at the images, you get inspired, and actually want to sit down and take the time to learn these techniques. With other authors of photoshop and photography books, I've often not made a purchase, simply because the images inside or boring. This is not the case with Photoshop Compositing Secrets. I have some of Matt's other books and this is by far his best work yet! Real compositing is more than making a crappy cutout of someone and pasting them in a background. I've easily got through the first 100 pages upon getting it yesterday.

Breakdown:
Real World Examples: Matt's book offers real world examples of how you can use compositing and how to create realistic looking composites. Also, he doesn't just focus on one style. He incorporates all kinds of compositing methods for different kinds of scenarios. Whether it's an awesome senior portrait, or a corporate commercial image.

Selections: This is a key component of creating composite images. Matt does a great job of explaining the amazing refine edge feature in Photoshop CS5. It's not perfect, but when you combine it with some other techniques, you can't loose. (Buy the book to find out what these techniques are).

Practice Files: Matt did not skim on the files. These files have enough resolution to make great selections, therefore add more value to the book.

Photoshop CS5: Another thing that I really dig about this book is the fact that he shares other Photoshop techniques that you can apply to other real world projects.

Bottom Line: This book Rocks! If you want to know how to create awesome composites, buy this book! It is THE BOOK ON COMPOSITING

-Brian Rodgers Jr.

This is the 3rd book by Matt K I have purchased - This latest is the very best of all and I'm having a blast working my way through the varios projects. I have even purchased a second copy as a gift for a talented photographer friend. Get one before they run out of supply. bernard

In real estate it is all about 'Location, Location, Location' In conveying Photoshop techniques to an audience of novices, amateurs, hobbyist s and professionals it is ALL about COMMUNICATION 3x.
I facilitate workshops on a considerably smaller level than Matt Kloskowski and his NAPP brethren and the hardest feat in the presentation is appealing to all talent levels so as to not talk over the novice while at the same time not boring the professionals.
Matt Kloskowski has mastered the art of Photoshop (yes, and Lightroom) and the importance of communicating it.
That being said, the book, 'Photoshop Compositing Secrets' is masterful in the step-by-step processes of creating a great image. I look back at my earlier composited images and while it is easy enough to just blame early versions of Photoshop for not having the capabilities they have now I know the truth how my talents have been raised from Matt Kloskowski's training's through his book (as well as NAPP podcasts and Kelbytraining.com)
I chose to order this for my iPad2 on the Kindle app so I screwed myself from an autographed copy (You may just have to sign the back of the iPad2 next time) but it is so easy to navigate.

This is a must have book if you want to learn about Photoshop Compositing. Matt takes you trough the whole process from coming up with the idea, shooting it and then working in Photoshop to create some amazing composites. Not for 2 or 3 projects, but for more then 15 completely different ones. You learn new tricks as you do each project until you progress up to an Advanced Commercial Composite. All I can say is this book is a Masterpiece. My compositing skills have already increased dramaticly. It belongs in your library if you are serious about Photoshop Compositing.