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Issue link: https://digital.macdirectory.com/i/867
MacDirectory 47 BOOK REVIEWS incredibly entertaining teaching style. Brown started out at Adobe as its art director in 1985, back when the primary focus of the company was developing fonts and printing software that made use of its groundbreaking PostScript page description language at the dawn of the desktop publishing era. In fact, one of his tasks during those pre-Illustrator days was to coerce that arcane language into graphics that would help build interest in the company and its products. As Illustrator became a hit and, a short time later, Photoshop literally changed the face of computer graphics, Russell hit the road as Adobe's most visible evangelist. He had no real formal training for this role and he'll even admit that his success was far from immediate. But being in front of a live audience, he quickly learned how to get people's attention and hold their interest. At the same time, he was spending a huge amount of time with Photoshop and pushing the program into places where not even its developers knew where it could go. For example, he came up with techniques to give users greater control over how color images are rendered into black and white that, when refined and enhanced by the programmers, evolved into a powerful set of new features in Photoshop and Adobe Camera Raw. Often, he served as the conduit between Adobe's customers and its engineers, feeding back ideas that would help fuel the program's remarkable success. One of the reasons why he's such a great teacher is that he never forgets that he's primarily a user. He understands what can be confusing about some of the program's darker corners and leads his audience gently through some of the more slippery spots in the software. At his popular open workshops at Macworld, it's not uncommon to see him sideling up to a perplexed-looking student and walking him or her though the sequence of steps to achieve some unique effect he's discovered. This shines though in his online video tutorials as well. First off, even though they're well drafted and rehearsed, his innate enthusiasm is always at the forefront and it can be highly contagious. Now holding the title of "Senior Creative Director" at Adobe, Russell still refuses to take himself too seriously. He can often be seen lecturing in his "Dr. Brown" persona adorned in a white lab coat, gray fright wig (found in a Hollywood Blvd. costume shop) and Bermuda shorts (he still has okay legs) helping Photoshop users find their "inner mad scientist." As seen in his newest tutorials and presentations, Brown's latest love affair is in the world of lenticular imaging. In essence, it's a way to exploit Photoshop's 3-D features and a special kind of frame that lets anyone create the impression of looking into a three-dimensional scene. So check out Dr. Brown on the Web. You'll discover that he's one of Photoshop's most useful features. The Russell Brown Show, (RussellBrown.com) Russell Brown on Adobe TV (tv.adobe.com) Price: Absolutely free!