Jo, much as I like this book I have to agree with your comments on the color reproduction. Unfortunately this seems to be a problem in most books on color analysis – so ironic since the reason we are buying these books is to get more detailed information on color! I really like the information in the 12 Season book “Color Me Beautiful’s Looking Your Best” but the color palettes are a joke – as reviewer after reviewer complains on Amazon.com, they look like they were drawn with crayons.

Kathy – I don’t own the book because of the shipping fees to Canada, almost as much as the book itself. I’ve heard many good things. Lora and I are friends and I am proud of her achievement. I know that Jo will be fair and has enough background in this topic to be a good comparison judge.

I bought this book about a month ago. I enjoyed reading it, and found that it succinctly communicated most of the principles of colour analysis that I have found in other books and on the web. I wouldn’t say it took me to any new and startling revelations. I think it would make an excellent gift to someone who wanted to learn about colour analysis from scratch.

The best parts (IMO) are where each season’s basic swatch is shown, with a brief description of the seasonal characteristics, on successive pages. You can take in the essential nature of the season at a glance, and compare seasons by simply flicking over the page. This would be invaluable if you were trying to self-diagnose between light and true Summer, or clear and deep Winter…

The worst part (IMO) is the colour reproduction. The book has obviously been self-edited by the author, and the range of colours shown on the seasonal palettes are limited by either the printer used, or the colour selection of the monitor, during editing. Several of the colours in the swatches are indistinguishable. For example, in my copy, on p44, in the Cool Summer palette, the shades True Green and Blue Green have printed out EXACTLY the same colour. On p51, in the Clear Spring palette, Icy Pink and Icy Violet are also EXACTLY the same.

Overall, I found the explanations clear and the information accessible, and consider the book a useful addition to my bookshelf. I have already used it to try and explain the subtle differences in seasonal palettes to a friend.

I can’t do Colour Analysis by photo. I only do it in person. Lora at http://www.prettyyourworld.com was doing online analyses, probably still is. You might check with her. She’s very good.
Not sure where the emails went. I seem to be getting them, though I did have another one recently that seemed to bounce. Did you send them via gmail?

Anna