Post Christmas “Lite” News Update

• Scott Kelby


• 26 Dec 2007

I’m back, baby! I had a wonderful, relaxing, fun-filled Christmas, and although I’m still somewhat in Holiday mode, I’ve got a “lite” post-Christmas update for you.

• First, I had a wonderful Christmas Eve surprise; I took a look at Amazon.com’s top selling titles for the entire Computers & Internet category, and saw that I had four of the top five bestselling books (see above), which really made me grateful to all my faithful readers who are kind enough to give my books as Holiday gifts. That’s about the best present you can give a writer like me, so my humble thanks go out to all who passed on my books to family and friends. You guys rock!
• Adobe’s own in-house Photoshop genius, Russell Preston Brown, has announced the location and theme for his 11th annual “ADIM Conference” (Art Directors Invitational Masterclass), held each year in a different location. This coming year it’s being held in sunny San Jose, California on April 30th – May 3rd, and its has a clever “Classic Movie Monsters” theme. It’s really an amazing event (ask anyone who’s been), which includes creative opportunities, events, and classes you simply can’t find anywhere else. Here’s the link to the site (the site design itself is very cool), for all the details.

• Designorati did an in-depth review of my “Photoshop 7-point-system” book and while I did flinch a bit while reading it (the reviewer Jeremy Schultz was very clear about what he didn’t like about my previous books), it’s still one of the most complete and fair reviews out there (in the end, he said “I almost never give a perfect ten, but Scott Kelby's 7-Point System for Adobe Photoshop CS3 deserves it.” Click here to feel my pain (or joy, depending on how you look at things).
• OK, to wrap up this truncated version of the news, how about a little photographic and Photoshop inspiration: check out Motor Image Works site. They specialize in car photography, and putting CGI generated cars into photographic scenes, and they have a section on their site where they show a breakdown of how the images where compositing (showing just the car, just the background, added CGI elements, and the final image. Definitely worth checking out (here’s the link).
• Santa (in the form of my wife and friends), got me lots of cool photo gear for Christmas, and although I haven’t had a chance to take any of it out for a spin yet, I’m heading out with some of it later today, so hopefully I’ll have some field reviews for you by next week.

That’s it for this “Lite” version of the news. See you all tomorrow! :-)