Review by Travis Schaaf posted 06/01/06

    When I first got the Photo Effects Cookbook I decided to stray from the recipes and use my own photos instead of the ones provided in the tutorials. The results were disastrous and the final product didn't even look close to what they were able to achieve with their photos. Frustrated with my many attempts at different tutorials I decided to give up and use the photos included in the tutorials by downloading them off their website.
    I once again attempted the tutorials with the use of their photos this time and was able to at least get the end product to look some what similar to what they show in the book. After playing with the tutorials for a for a few weeks I decided it was time to once again attempt to use the recipes with my photos. Yet again I got the same result that I had when I first tried it. I had to spend many days on one tutorial just to get it to resemble the final product.
    The main problem with this book is that the tutorials only work with the photos included. They give no instruction on what to do if you want to use your own photos. The best you can do is spend days playing around with the concepts in the tutorial to make your photo resemble what the tutorial accomplished with it's photos. If you have a lot of patience then it's worth your time to take a look at this book to see what they and hopefully you could do with photo effects.

Review by Marijke Branderhorst posted 04/18/06

    I borrowed the book after skimming through it and finding a section on turning a photograph into a watercolor effect. I took it home and tried the procedure: unfortunately I have not had the time it follow through it the end. The instructions were well explained and easy to follow. I am thinking about purchasing this book for our own reference at home. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in learning new printing effects.