By John Lund and Pamela Pfiffner. Photoshop compositing starts off giving some interesting perspectives and ideas on how to build (including tips on taking the photos) maintain a library of photographs that could turn out invaluable in future compositing projects. The book talks about John Lund’s work style, technique and computer setup, and has some interesting insight on what works for him and even on what he could do better if he was so inclined.
Once the book gets into the actual details of retouching, the real fun (and work) begins. Lund’s attention to detail is spectacular. He notices everything, and in turn points out how to fix it. Don’t expect to jump in and have a great composited image in an hour or two, his techniques are very precise, professional and more often than not, time consuming.
The final chapter goes through several images he created in the past and gives some useful insight on how they were created and what inspired them.
Most of the book is written in 3rd person, I’m guessing Pamela Pfiffner sat down and had some detailed interviews with Lund and wrote it from what she gathered. While this doesn’t really detract from the content of the book, in my opinion, it doesn’t flow as well as it might if it had been written in first person.
This book is geared toward the professional Photoshop user who has a decent amount experience and would like to avoid some trial and error and get straight to results in the area of compositing.