Takes a funny yet educational look at photographic humor, such as taking still images and making the characters in them invisible while leaving the clothes untouched and combining images of animals to produce unrealistic characters. Original. (Beginner).

If you’ve ever found yourself looking at funny images and thinking "Hey, how’d they do that?", this is the book that will give you the answer! Learn how to have fun with photos-swapping pictures of historical inventions with modern-day appliances or combining images of animals to produce unrealistic characters. "When Pancakes Go Bad" is infused with humor and behind-the-scenes tutorials that impart useful, easy-to-understand tips in a lighthearted manner. Organized into chapters by the general theme of the images, this book is packed with fun and interesting photos that will keep you entertained until the end.

If you’ve ever found yourself looking at funny images and thinking "Hey, how?d they do that?", this is the book that will give you the answer! Learn how to have fun with photos?swapping pictures of historical inventions with modern-day appliances or combining images of animals to produce unrealistic characters. "When Pancakes Go Bad" is infused with humor and behind-the-scenes tutorials that impart useful, easy-to-understand tips in a lighthearted manner. Organized into chapters by the general theme of the images, this book is packed with fun and interesting photos that will keep you entertained until the end.

Photoshopping your head on a supermodel...
While this book doesn’t quite go into making pictures of yourself look like the ideal person, it does go a long way towards giving you the know-how and showing you the tools to make it happen. I was surprised with how easy some of the more difficult looking pictures were to duplicate.

I recommend this book for anyone who is familiar with Photoshop and wants to learn how to do more the program.

Not for beginners, but a good book.
This book is not for beginners, if you want to learn how to use Photoshop by books from the Friends Of Ed series (also on Amazon.com)

The author covers how to perform various acts of digital trickery and photo editing in this book. Just glancing at the book and fooling with Photoshop for an hour so, I was able to create some pretty disturbingly funny images.

I’d say this book is for people with intermediate to advanced photoshop knowledge.

Highly NOT Recommended
In my work as a Photoshop "Master," I am asked by people all over the country for recommendations on books. While I am much more likely to push a good book than drag a bad one back, in this case some of the things written in other reviews bothers me to the point of saying something.

I have taught workshops and classes to beginners and experts in Photoshop, and look at nearly everything that comes out. While many volumes dig into processes that produce finished, professional results, this particular book is only acceptable for an individual who wants examples of how to get into an image quickly, hack a change that is amusing at best, and close the file. Finely tuned, printable images are next to impossible to achieve through the examples and processes included.

It is cute to cut an image from one source and place it on another, or to put teeth on a pancake, but plain and simple... these methods are simply not believable, largely in part to poor methodology. Blurring and distorting creates soft pixelization, which is then dropped into sharp images and hacked together. Parts of images are roughly isolated and the colors changed through simple methods, leaving the image looking clearly as what it is... a color piece with an isolated image with a color shift (ooooo).

If I brought this book into a classroom it would be used as an example of what people THINK they can get away with, but in fact is a recipe to be always one of those frustrated people who wonder how the pros really do it.

Clearly written, but didn’t reveal all.
This book is a very fascinating read for an ameture photoshop user. The techniques explained in this book are more for a person who wants to make "modern" art. The tutorials are clearly written and understandable.
The only disappointing thing was that the author didn’t show how to do all of the pictures presented in the book.

not much into graphics books
this is my first (graphics) book, I got attracted by the cover, and I must say, this book have many tricks for you to learn...
and it was a bit funny

What You Can Do With Photos
I only checked out this book because the official Weird Al website told me about it and the funny altered photographs of Weird Al it contained but there’s more to this great book than just a laugh for Weird Al fans. There’s altered road signs, wildlife, famous historic paintings, food and a heap of other stuff. There is also an explanation in the form of a step by step do it yourself guide along with original images showing how every altered photo in this book was done. If you’ve got Photoshop this is an excellent helpful instruction book. If you don’t this book is still enjoyable. It’s like funny e-mail photographs people send as attachments all in the one hard copy book. Very impressive!

not much into graphics books
this is my first (graphics) book, I got attracted by the cover, and I must say, this book have many tricks for you to learn...
and it was a bit funny

Dissappointed
I purchased this book (used - thankfully!) because I enjoy the Worth1000 site and thought it might give me some help learning to manipulate images but as others stated, there are no files to actually work with other than the already finished images on the site which is useless. I attempted to find similiar images to try and do some tutorials myself but it’s very difficult finding ones to produce the effects the book accomplishes and so the "tutorials" are basically useless.

Also, they don’t really explain things well....it’s like they assume we have already created similiar images so we don’t need "all" the steps.....lol

If you love looking at these type of images and getting a "tiny" idea of how they are done and just want to copy these exact images...then this book is for you....but if you want to learn something about photo manipulation, there are MUCH MUCH MUCH BETTER resources out there. As a matter of fact, the tutorial section that is FREE on Worth1000 is much more informative than this book.
It seems like Avi Muchnick just wanted to grab some cash and make him/herself feel important by having a book out. I hope he/she got it outta thier system now and spares us from a sequel.

p.s. this seems to be floating around the p2p networks free in pdf format too. I’m almost sad that I paid for it.

So close... Yet so far... Another Teacher’s thoughts...
After reading the review titled "Teacher’s Perspective" , looking at the cover and the Worth 1000 website - I thought I should review it for use in my class.

I also teach computer graphics at a public high school and I also am also on the look out for books that could motivate a couch. - Boy was I disappointed. Yes students are motivated by the cover - but I can’t let them look inside - nor would I want to...

I’m not sure what liberal area the other reviewer is from - but I’d likely lose my job if I even began to request this book be adopted for classroom use. I counted more than 10 instances in the text that students at my high school would receive punishment for creating. Every thing from the image of an international hand gesture on a stop light to 2 dogs in a sexual position on road sign - and these are mild compared to the ones I can’t write about in this review. While the inappropriate content in this book is less than the "Surreal Photography" an other reviewer mentions - it is still not an appropriate book for a high school classroom.(IMHO)

As far as the books tutorials go...
Not having a CD with the pictures included is a big draw back for beginners. The publisher claims to have the pictures for download - but not all the photos are on the site and those that are there are only the same `finished’ files printed in the book - NOT the photos used to create the finished tutorial photos.
Without the `sample’ files it would be impossible for a reader to follow each step in the tutorial. The book also assumes a reader will have a great deal of Photoshop knowledge.

Also - don’t be fooled by the cover or the examples before each chapter - the most compelling examples are not used for the `tutorials’. Only one or 2 of the images on cover are explained in the book.

All in all I guess if you want less detailed tutorials than the ones for free on the Worth1000 website and are more than 18 years old... the education value of the book is good.

If you like the neat pictures and - want full color gloss copies of them - then you are in luck - because this book is a great buy.

Too good for words
I’ve learned so much from this book. I now own 2 copies! I wasn’t a beginner, more intermediate, photoshop user. There are tips and techniques I wouldn’t have thought of before, or tried, had it not been for this book.

I’m pretty much a layperson when it comes to the copyright laws but after searching the internet I discovered that museums can’t hold a copyright and if the artist is no longer alive the copyright doesn’t necessarily pass on. In any event, I found most every image to recreate some of the ideas in the book on the sites that are listed in the book. A good review of the copyright laws of the US and the fair use/guidelines listed on any site will give you all the information you need. Besides, many images can be done using a digital camera and some imagination and that is what this book is really all about.

When Pancakes Go Bad has inspired me to try new things, see things differently, play with ideas and images. It’s a great learning tool for even more experienced photoshoppers.

I’ve shown this book to friends and they thought it was great, and funny. I know many of them got inspired too, now they understand how and what I am doing with all those hours on the computer!

Bravo, Mr. Muchnick, I can’t wait for the next volume.

FLAT AS A PANCAKE
IF YOU THINK THIS BOOK WILL MAKE YOU A BETTER PHOTOSHOP ARTIST YOU ARE SADLY MISTAKEN. THE AUTHOR IS IN DANGER OF BREAKING HIS OWN ARM TRYING TO PAT HIMSELF ON THE BACK. THE BOOK TELLS HOW HE CREATED THE PICTURES SHOWN INSIDE AND VERY LITTLE ELSE. IF YOU LIKE THE PICTURES YOU’LL GET YOUR FUNNY BONE TICKLED BUT IF YOU DON’T CARE FOR WHAT YOU SEE, YOU WON’T CARE HOW HE DID IT. EITHER WAY YOU WILL LEARN VERY LITTLE FROM THIS BOOK.