Photoshop 5 3D Textures F/X

This book provides plenty of hands-on guidance for creating and working with a variety of image maps in Adobe Photoshop 5. First, you get an overview of basic and advanced painting techniques. Next, you learn about acquiring good materials for maps by using scanned images and images from digital cameras. The book also discusses how to choose a scanner and fine-tune scanned images. Then the author covers image-map creation by explaining the importance of color-image, bump, specularity, diffusion, transparency, and luminosity maps; by teaching planar, cubic, cylindrical, and spherical image-mapping methods; and by showing you the utility of layered image maps. He gives you a lot of hands-on help in creating industrial, science fiction, organic-creature, natural, and displacement-map textures. You also learn how to create character accessories and light gels. A full-color section features images from the book's projects, and the companion CD-ROM contains images for working along with those projects. --Kathleen Caster