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A Book on General Image Editing Concepts?
halftrack asks: "Someone I know wanted 'Photoshop for Dummies' for Christmas because she wanted to learn how to use it properly (who hasn't struggled trying to draw a simple line?) However, having a strong disliking for any sort of vendor lock-in I went searching for a book that would teach image editing without tying it too strongly to Photoshop (or Gimp for that matter). However, all my searches turned out blank. Thus I was wondering if there exists such a book, or is the field too diverse? The ideal would be a (thick) book that would cover the basic concepts (layers, paths, selections, channels etc.,) before presenting how these concepts are implemented in different applications. Such a book should provide the reader with a portable skill-set and give her/him the ability to objectively choose the right tool for the job, at the right cost. Does this book exist?"
This whole thread is a sad comment on the state of computing as a field of study. People confuse "Alt-key trivia" with understanding computers.
As a longtime photography enthusiast, I understand the concepts of gamma curves and color temperature. I know that I want detail in the shadows and in the highlights. Since I have deep knowledge of photography, it doesn't matter which program I use. I can produce "better" results in 5 minutes on any image editor than than someone who has read a photoshop book, but doesn't understand the concepts involved could in an hour.
I think the whole "windows vs. linux" problem is the same. I can switch freely between Mac, Windows and Linux without any loss of productivity because I understand conceptually what I'm doing.