Looking for good books on post-processing

[TonalFreedom]

I've worked mostly with film in the past but recently i've gotten more serious about digital black and white and have been trying to teach myself photoshop. I have CS3 currently and am looking for some good literature to help me use photoshop more to my advantage, specifically for b&w photos.

I have a couple of books from "Lark Books" on digital b&w but if anyone knows of any good books on CS3 or just on b&w digital in general I'd love to hear about them. My use of photoshop at this point is fairly basic, and I mostly have been just using the channel mixer to convert my color photos to b&w. I haven't done much at all with layers, which is probably where my skills are most lacking, so i would really appreciate any suggestions.

Thanks!

 

[radhak]

Me Too ! Same boat as you, trying to learn post-processing.

Without going too much tangential, a question to add :
I have seen a bunch of sites that offer for purchase software programs or macros ('Actions' in PS) that do specific things to pictures - like clean up skin texture, or convert to black-and-white. Anybody have a review/comment about the relative merits about those offerings? I am talking about sites like http://www.gettotallyrad.com or software like Portrait Professional. (I may not even know what others are out there).

I am trying to gauge if doing all that myself by learning PS (or whatever) would be better, or will any of these provide most of the functionality. The age-old question of build vs buy .

 

[PeteB]

a good place to start might be to look for some books by Scott Kelby. They're usually clear and easy to follow. You'll learn lots - or enough to start digging deeper.

 

[valdore]

You'd be surprised....

if you have a cheap discount used book store within reasonable distance, check it out. They almost always have books pertaining to stuff like this.

I've picked up a few at Half Price Books on the cheap. Never got around to reading them of course, but they look nice sitting in my book case.