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Posted on 21/04/06 9:54:14 PM |
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michael sinclair
Off-Topic Opportunist Posts: 1864 Reply  |
New kid on the block
I thought it would be both interesting and useful if I relayed the experience I have acquired most recently: Yesterday I went to Birmingham rather than London as the two massive Watersone bookshops--I think--offer more of a selection of graphic material than any single store in London. I spent the whole afternoon going through a stack of thirty or more books per store (what a choice!); although, this was certainly not the maximum number of CS2 and Elements books available. Yes, you know the ones--about thirty in all--in which you turn the glossy cover only to be accosted by the "Triple Wammy": black and white photographs of poor image quality, which are the size of a large postage stamp, and which are accompanied by acres and acres of text. So from the two stores I had a total of fifty books or so to examine, and again it became apparent of another class of books that were sub-standard. These books comprised three main categories: poor image quality, poorly communicated or disconnected ideas resulting in a lack of interest and lack of eye candy, and lastly a third group of untalented authors who merely duplicated--virtually--Adobe's own basic tutorial of "This is for that, and that is for this...". Anyway, this left me--eventually--with the three big front-runners: Philip Andrews, Scot Kelby, and, of course you. The Irony is that I have more books on the other two authors than from you, because they have "produced" more. Humility and false hyperbole: I have got half way through your Max Pixel book and I appear to have learned more in that little and seemingly insignificant book than I have in all the other books put together. "Hyperbole" I hear you say, but it's true! It's telling me things (the vital and helpful basics in procedure) that other books fail to mention, as they assume a process of mysterious osmosis on the part of the reader who is struggling to "super-assimilate" information that is disconnected and compartmented (I speak from personal experience). In this Max Pixel book you have--in a clever master-stroke of synthesis--have clearly coordinated in such a way that there is a "At-one-moment"; and it's this what you have over the competition: Writing a book because you have been to university and been taught which button to press is not a substitute for real talent. Therefore, Mr Caplin whenever you get told your books are good etc, ask those people to qualify their remarks: for anyone to make any good or bad critical basement, they need the ability of distinction! Mike  |