Bert Monroy: Photorealistic Techniques with Photoshop and Illustrator

by Bert Monroy

Book Overview

Bert Monroy: Photorealistic & Illustrator celebrates the reunion of art and science, along with individual artistic accomplishment. This book provides a forum for Monroy to speak directly with his... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0735709696
• ISBN13: 9780735709690
• Release Date: January 2000
• Publisher: New Riders Publishing
• Length: 255 Pages
• Weight: 2.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 10.0" x 10.1"

Customer Reviews

Photoshop Studio with Bert Monroy is latest edition of this

This is a truly great book but Monroy has made a new book called "Photoshop Studio with Bert Monroy" which is essentially an updated version of this book. I bet it would be a better buy.

PhotoShop Tips and Tricks

Are you a designer who swears by Photoshop? If so, Photorealist Techniques gives you an in-depth, step-by-step guide on taking 2-D images and making them into wonderful 3D Photorealistic pictures.Each example has screen shots as well as step-by-step instructions on how to create the various objects discussed. You will be able to create objects like wooden boxes, metal handles such as those found on a filing cabinet and even RAIN! You are also given help on light, distortion and perspective.The pages are oversized for easier reading - 9.5" wide by 10" high. There is a nine-page index. But the best part is there is NO CD included with this book. I said the best part is no CD. Why? Because this makes you walk through the steps to learn the techniques. No copying from a CD someone else made. For $50.00, this would be an easy to use guide to have on your library shelf.

"Must" reading for all Adobe users.

Perusing the pages of this elegant book is a doublepleasure. First you find yourself browsing through a paper gallery filled with the extraordinary work of author-artist Bert Monroy. Secondly, you get a hands-on seminar about how to use Adobe's superb software, Photoshop and Illustrator, to create dazzling digital art.Monroy's vivid images grab you with bright colors, sharp details, and realistic scenes of storefronts, city intersections, deep blue nightscapes, and everyday objects like fruit, marbles, pencils, locks. It seems remarkable that these could be made without scanning a photograph. Monroy's art is the computer-generated equivalent of an international movement called photorealism (or superrealism) which began around the time of the counterculture (late 1960s and early 1970s) and featured paintings with precise rendering of their subjects, all created with photographic clarity.Monroy explains the philosophy behind this trompe l'oeil:"This is a book of techniques for tricking the eye. That's what photorealism is all about: making the viewer believe that the image is -- or has its genesis -- in a photograph even though the subject (the image) never existed until you conceived it."The final section of the book is a sampling of Monroy's work, from the present time to the thrilling moments when he first discovered the Macintosh computer back in 1984 -- pioneer days when the computer could generate no colors, only black, white, and grays. With images as gorgeous as these -- in this section and throughout the book -- it's easy to get carried away and simply enjoy the pictures. Of course, the book has been written not only to visually engage us, but to teach us how to create scores of exquisite effects that simulate real photographs.In each chapter, Monroy shows us an example of his art then describes how he makes the imaginary look so real. Monroy begins by reviewing some basics of Photoshop and Illustrator. Soon he reveals his methods of going from idea to sketch to shapes. Then he treats us to a lucid chapter about the theory and practice of perspective. In following chapters he demonstrates how to use the Adobe software to create lighting effects, shading, textures, and images that resemble wood, metal, leaves, stone, beans, glass. There's magic here, the kind of magic that keeps us in a state of wonder even after we lean how the tricks are done.Bert Monroy: Photorealistic Techniques with Photoshop & Illustrator is about the place where the slickest splendors of Technology converge with the most venerable principles of Art. Artists and art students will find here a dazzling cornucopia of techniques, hard-won secrets, and crafty wisdom. For those of us, less talented, who draw cows like Mondrian rectangles, this book won't transform us into artists with a capital A. Yet its scores of ingenious techniques, its personal revelations by the author, and its inspiring examples -- all will add panache to our productions, and help to make us the be

Photoshop at its best

Among so many how-to books, this book excels and stands alone. It will not only teach you unique Photoshop techniques, but also what Photoshop is all about. Rarely an artist will let you penetrate his/her thinking process like this. Specially a great artist like Bert Monroy. It may change the whole way you see computer art.