Adobe Books

I purchased this book on sale as I was looking for a good book to tutor me on the use of the complex looking Photoshop program. This book turned out to be a diamond in the sands of a beach because it demystified the program for me. It took awhile to learn the basics of the program, but once I mastered that, I dove into the more challenging projects with relish. It was so much fun completing the projects that I wish the book had more. I highly recommend this book for learning Photoshop 5. And be sure to check out other editions for Photoshop 6 and 7 also the Boutons.

I am a self-taught Photoshop user. I really felt that I was really missing out on alot of photoshop features and I was right. Until I worked my way through the lessons in this book, I had no idea the power I could have! But seriously folks, I really feel like I can call myself a power user now and its all because of this book. The lessons all come with practice photos on the cd so you get real hands-on experience. I highly recommend this book!

Beware! The description for this book describes an "Adobe Limited Edition" CD that accompanies the book. Actually there are two CDs included, but neither is what I expected, ie., a copy of Adobe Photoshop, Limited Edition, although both CDs use those words in their titles. Instead, the CDs are a collection of demos and samples.

This is a good Photoshop book, but it's not the best one to use to learn Photoshop, not is it the easiest to follow. My biggest complaint is that the instructions tell you to click this or press that key, but no explanation is provided as to why. I have to make extensive use of the on-line Help and frequently refer to other Photoshop books to understand key concepts.

I also find the organization of the book a bit haphazard. Lessons present concepts in a disorganized fashion -- for example, some info on a specific selection tool, some more info on layers, and one or two "advanced" concepts (not properly explained, either) thrown in just to keep things confusing.

Finally, compared with most Photoshop books, this book is quite unattractive. There is almost no colour in the book, and what there is is pretty plain. I enjoy Photoshop books with photos that inspire me -- this one certainly doesn't.

There are some good lessons in the book, and overall there is a good amount of information, but if I were learning Photoshop from scratch again, I'd pick another book to start with.

I've never seen the term "Limited Edition" used in the way it is here. The book might be very good, but people looking for help to to learn Adobe Photoshop 5 Limited Edition will not find it here. The book is ONLY about the full version of Adobe Photoshop 5.

I have used many of Scott Kelby's books and every one gets better and better.
Everything is so well explained that even a relative beginner to Photoshop would be able to achieve these effects. Although some of these effects can prove to be more difficult with a bit of care and careful reading they can eventually be done.
All the effects , both with pictures and various text projects are really brilliant.
The only warning is these effects become a bit addictive and you rarely feel happy with un-altered images any more.

This is not an in depth instruction manual for Photoshop CS. This does give the inexperienced user of Photoshop quick and easy tips for creating a variety of useful projects. Many of these projects will expose the new user to some of the powerful tools of Photoshop. If you want to learn all of the features of Photoshop then buy a more technical book or take a Photoshop course. So to get a start into the world of Photoshop this may be the book for you.

This book is great for Photoshop CS beginners. It's packed with many tricks and techniques. You'll be saying, "So that's how they do that!" quite often. I have been able to take several techniques and use them and create variations for my own advertising.

Example photos are available on Kelby's website for download. Unfortunately, they have a BRAND X stamp on them and their quality seems lower, but useful none-the-less.

The Photoshop CS Book for Digital Photographers (Voices That Matter)

Both books are by Scott Kelby. He does a great job of telling you exactly what you need to do with the photos.

I buy all of the "Tricks" books for Photoshop. They all have great 'secrets' for achieving some really cool effects in a very short time. This book was no exception. Once you get one of the "Down and Dirty" books, you'll want them all. No Photoshop artist should be without them. If you want to hang with the pros out there, you need to know every one of these tips in this book. I recommend the "Down and Dirty" series for everyone who owns Photoshop.

I've been using Flash for a number of years and am a decent, intermediate level AS2 user. I have to agree with the reviewer frustrated with the jargon-filled descriptions and the undefined terms. The author knows his stuff but this book is far better for the programmer who wants to learn Flash than it is for the regular AS2 flash user who wants to migrate to AS3. I find myself learning more from studying the accompanying code than reading the explanatory text. Once I read through the entire book I will go back and start from scratch, hopefully understanding more of the purpose behind the changes in AS3, but right now I am plodding through long definitions of aspects of AS3 the purpose of which have yet to be described and which are full of undefined jargon. This also seems best suited to those working on very large multi-media projects rather than medium sized graphics-heavy interactive projects.

The general approach isn't bad, and this might be a pretty decent book some day, when it's been re-reviewed and had all the typos and code errors fixed. I've learned a lot by figuring out the errors! But that's not a very pleasant way to learn. It's fairly clear to me that they stopped adding corrections to the companion site lest potential readers catch on. And there really is no excuse for not matching the site file names to those used by the book. Actionscript is hard enough without having to deal with the lack of publishing professionalism here. You might want to try a different book.

There is a reason the joke of "hello world" exists.

Because most well written programming books start with a small program and expand on it so you can see how it all connects. This mess of a book jumps around with unconnected code snippets, offering newbies no insight into how it is all put together.

If you are actually a beginner to action script and not a professional doing some log rolling, avoid this book like the plague.

This is an excellent book, especially for Flash users who need to know the basics of AS3. There's a huge difference between AS2 and AS3, and This book really helps bridge that gap.

If you are just starting out in AS3 then this book is a great place to start. I refer to it daily. While it doesn't have the heavy detail of a 900+ page reference manual, in my opinion this book is probably the best introduction to AS3 currently on the market.

First off, let me preface this by saying I have been programming for about 10 years or so and while I think this is a GREAT Flash primer for programmers, this is not a book for beginning programmers.

ActionScript 3 as a language is very similar to Java and other C based Object Oriented Languages, but the hardest entry point into Flash for programmers is the fact that the Flash IDE is really aimed at designers. Adobe has created Flex as a tool for programmers who wish to use ActionScript 3 to create Rich Internet Apps, but the Flex framework has a fairly large (200k) footprint which is not suitable for all applications.

This book does a very good job of explaining how to set up the Document class (so you can start adding code), how the DisplayList works, and how to tie in your visual components to your code as well as having lots of other Flash tips for programmers.

This book teach high end skill of photoshop especially for portrait..
It skip all of basic technique,, so it is not for beginner. BUt the skill they tecah is very useful,, althought it take time to digest and absorb it into your own style..

If you are familiar of photoshop and portrait.. this is a MUST HAVE book..

highly recommended..

JOHN LIN ,

This book is beautifully presented and laid out and printed on quality paper. Most of the chapters have exercises with step-by-step instructions which are clearly presented and illustrated. The actual image files used in the book are available for download on the author's website and are used in the exercises. What you'll learn isn't just applicable to photographing women, but very useful for editing photos in general and for getting to grips with Photoshop. The next best thing to having a live teacher.

This book is a must have for professional and who want to edit in Photoshop like one. I can say that this is the best book.

A possibly better title would be "The Art of Retouching Women" as this book concentrates on the use of Photoshop to fix photographs that need drastic correction rather than the actual photography of women. Even so, it's Kelby's usual entertaining beginner Photoshop book with lots of cool graphics and tips that work, even if they are sometimes convoluted. If the photographs you take of women could use some repair and retouching, this book offers lots of good advice.

I can't believe this book is suppossed to be taken seriously. This has nothing to do with the "art of photographing women." This is about taking a snapshot picture and then transforming her through photoshop into a barbie doll.

Most of the examples show how to trim the edges of a woman's body off to make her look thinner. I feel bad for the women who's pictures are in the book cause by the end of the photoshopping they look like dolls. I returned this book ASAP!!

The topics covered are very limited compared to the basic needs and scope of actionscript and the coverage of each topic is too limited and redundant. O'Reilly books are usually very good, this one is a miss.

It's me first AS 3.0 book.
This is a good book. Easy to read and learn action script 3.0.
Have examples good and clear for all of the topics.
I like it.

Este fue mi primer libro de Action Script 3.0.
Es un buen libro. Fácil de leer y aprrender AS 3.0
Tiene ejemplos buenos y fáciles para todos los puntos que toca.
Me gusta.

Carlos Barboni
[...]

very simple recipes. for any intermediate to advanced programmer this book is not recommended.

It *appears* that the authors know their material, and there's a lot of useful stuff covered.

Unfortunately the book is so full of errors that when encountering a confusing point, it's difficult to determine whether to believe what's written and try to figure it out, or simply write it off to another incorrect statement by the authors.

I find it hard to believe this thing was proofread. O'Reilly, you should be ashamed to put your name on such a poorly-edited publication! This is NOT up to your usual standards.

In theory this book could have been very good. There were a few things that I did like about it. I liked the problem, solution, discussion approach to learning ActionScript. The book covered all of the topics I was interested in. It used real world examples to demonstrate the points.

The reasons I gave this book a poor rating were the fact that it was written for Flex developers and all examples used the Flex tool to build (not very good for me who uses Flash), and they continually gave examples and explained how to solve problems using their predefined, custom classes. The pages would have been better spent showing us how to build these useful Classes ourselves, instead of teaching us how to use them. Luckily for me, I was already versed in ActionScript and could easily understand that these Classes were not part of ActionScript. If I were not, I think it would have been rather confusing to try to pick out their custom classes from what comes with ActionScript 3. I'm trying to learn ActionScript, not the custom Classes the authors have created.

If you are new to ActionScript and not a Flex developer, do yourself a favor and buy a different book.

_t

I found this book to be easy to understand and very helpful.
I don't usually read books on software, but, Adobe did a good
job with making this book, very user friendly.

This book is very well laid out and full of useful information. Written by one of the people that developed the program. Highly recommended.

I am using this book in a school setting and I enjoy it. It has all of the details for students from the basic overview to the intricacies of the various modules. I especially like how the text explains how to do things and includes keyboard shortcuts. The "Note" sections in the sidebars provide context and they are sometimes my favorite parts.

If you want to get into Lightroom this book can get you going quickly!

I get Martin's Photoshop book with every new version. Now I've got two of Martin's books to get religiously, with the introduction of his new book on Lightroom,

Alpha-tester for both Lightroom and Photoshop, Martin's a practicing photographer and his real world expertise shows in every page. That and his association with many of the top professionals in the industry including fellow PixelGenius members (Fraser, Holbert, Resnick, Rodney, and Schewe) ensures that he's up to date on the latest developments at a very advanced level.

One of the best authors in the industry, he's clear, concise, and thorough. Graphically and photographically Martin's books have always stood out in the field making them easier and more pleasing to digest.

This book covers almost all of the features, making it a definitive resource on the subject. You may not read the entire book (certainly not at one sitting). But you will find yourself constantly referring to it when you need answers.

At the heart of his discussion of the tools and his practices is the notion of an evolving streamlined workflow - getting the job done well simply and efficiently. This leaves more time for making images increasing productivity. That's what Lightroon and this book are designed to help you do.

Martin does a good job of explaining when and why you might move to Lightroom instead of using Photoshop and how to integrate the two. It's something he's done both personally and professionally.

[...]

This book does a fairly decent job of covering the program in it's entirety, and I did learn a few new tips.

However, I feel as if the "Intermediate to Advanced" skill level listed on the back is a bit misleading, unless you're completely new to photography (but why would you be learning a $300 program if you're a newbie shooter?). Lightroom was designed quite well (in my opinion), so a couple hours of just playing around in the program will be sufficient to teach you ~30-50% of what's covered in this book.

This isn't to say I wouldn't recommend it to someone just crossing over to using Lightroom for the first time, I was just expecting it to be more in-depth or advanced. I got my copy for $26.40, but I think the $40.00 suggested retail is a bit high.

I think few people are writing textbooks which try to teach the philosophy and critical thinking portions of digital editing and retouching, and for this effort, Caponigro should be praised. Unfortunately, the text gets somewhat preachy and self-indulgent in some places. I'm not sure that the author selected a specific audience for this book, and therefore it is hard to suggest the book to anyone.

I too found the very thin and light type of this book very hard to read. However, after vowing to slog through it anyway, I found the discussions of the techniques to be well done. The problem, which can be viewed as either good or bad depending on your bend of mind, is that the author takes the reader on his personal journey of discovery of digital art. And personal journeys takes a long time and are somewhat boring for anyone else but the person himself. Starting from a photography background, I found the artistic point of view interesting, even educational and inspiring, but too much of a good thing. After a while, I started skimming the main text and reading the 'methods' summary at the end of each chapter which spelled out the techniques in a nutshell.

I have many photoshop books, and this is, by far, my favorite. However, it is not for beginners. The words "Master Class" hint at the skill level required to appreciate the book.

This book will show you how a successful artist uses the application to create composites. It doesn't hold your hand and show you step-by-step examples. Rather, JP talks about how he used the different tools in Photoshop to accomplish something and what his thinking was behind the strategy.

The chapters take time to read (JP does get a little philosophical at times), but you will be rewarded.

I because acquainted through this book because it is a required text for a second-level digital photography class I'm taking in college. I've read almost all of it. While there is a lot of valuable information (particularly with regard to monitor calibration), this book definitely has some issues.

Firstly, Caponigro's New Age tone is ponderous and meandering, and it's difficult to discern the necessary concrete tips hidden among the adjectives. The methods, in particular, are poorly organized. I took a Photoshop class (completing Adobe's Classroom in a Book), and I found the lack of intermediary steps to be challenging.

For this reason, my instructor--after many student complaints--dropped the requirement that we complete a number of "methods" (Caponigro's term for exercises) in this book. We are now free to choose other, clearer exercises from the multitude of Photoshop books available.

Also, while I appreciate the expertise that has gone into Caponigro's artwork, I don't care for most of the work itself, and I am not alone in my view. (Just how many bilaterally-symmetrical floating rocks does a reader really need to see?) While I'm aware that this is a personal bias, it definitely affects my overall impression of the book. If Caponigro's tone was a little less arrogant, I'd let that slide, but it's a sticking point for me.

Ultimately, I am sure there are people who would find this book to be a perfect fit. I am not one of them. I would recommend that anyone new to Photoshop stay far away until they've gathered a lot of experience and patience with the program. Perhaps at that point they'd be ready.

The shelves are packed with books teaching you how to create an effect in photoshop. How many units of this, and what filter to combine with this, yadda yadda.
This book is the complete opposite. Just the first few chapters blew my mind away! When the author talked about cuves and levels, I went crazy because I never knew there was so much to understand about them. Now I feel like I really know what I'm doing rather than simply bend the curves and hope for the best. I'm reading this book after reading Photoshop CS Bible (Pro Edition) and this is far far far more in-depth. Let me make one thing clear. If it werent for the bible, I have a feeling I'd be lost in this book. You definitely need to know your photoshop well to really understand this book. It takes you from undertandint photoshop, to understanding other things related to it such as printing and color calibration. It is in my opinion very advanced level and sometimes even I am lost in the author's words.
This book is a "why" book and teaches you the reasoning behind a lot of things related to photoshop. Its like the saying, give a man a fish and feed him for one day, teach a man to fish and feed him for a lifetime. In the same way, you can learn 100 different cool effects from any other photoshop book, but when it comes time to make that 101th effect, your lost and can only randomly make choices in photohop. This book explains the theory behind a lot of these things and thus when you see an ideea in your head, you know how to realize it..
This book took me a looooooooooooooooooooooooooong time to get through because its content is so heavy but otherwise, I have both my thumbs up!

This book is a complete steal for whatever price it's now selling for. I bought it (not the limited edition, but the original) several years ago used for $8 (including shipping!) and have ever since referred to it as the best Photoshop foundation book around. (Regardless of what version of Photoshop you're currently working in.)

Make no mistake about it, this is not a casual read. It's over 1000 pages of serious information. It's black and white (except for a color gallery section in the middle), it's not printed on fancy coated paper, the cover is less than gorgeous, the book itself is large and cumbersome, each page is drowning with large amounts of type, and many of the images for the exercises are outdated and downright cheesy. But...

It is an AWESOME book. You WILL learn Photoshop if you read this. If you really, truly, actually do read it and work through all the examples (included on the CD).

I like this book because it has meat. It's not filled with fluff and marketed to turn a quick buck (I mean, seriously, look at the cover!) The content is 100% solid. (The author also provides some subtle humor and is actually pretty entertaining.)

Overall... this is the best book I've seen to take someone from being completely new to Photoshop, to being an advanced user. It lives on in my Photoshop library as a valuable reference tool.

I purchased 4 books for getting on with photoshop and thsi one stands out along with The Photoshop 6 bible. Garry runs you through al of Photoshop's powerful tools and by the end of the book you really are in a position to do things in photoshop yourself.unlike many books out there this book teaches you how to use a tool,what its advantages are and which situations to use rather than describe the tool only for achieving a particular aim in a particular tutorial.Add to this the friendly rant of the authors,the light haerted tips and remarks and professional level works,YOU GET A WINNER!
But one point to note is that this is NOT A BOOK FOR THE BEGGINER.You need to have a reasonable amount of experieance with photoshop to get the maximum out of this book.
Thanks Garry for coming out with such a great book!

This is the best computer book I have bought.
It really teach me on how to use Photoshop.
It's helpfull for the novice to the beginner. I was beginner.
What I really like about the book it's that it comes with step by step instructions and a cdrom with files you need.
It's worth every buck and also is good reference.

This book is HUGE. It is packed with useful and helpful information to guide anyone through Photoshop. The tutorials were very helpful to me in getting started with the techniques used in Photoshop. All users of Photoshop 6.0 should keep this book close by-- it is an excellent reference.

I am a programmer, not a DTP professional - therefore this review might not be good for people who do the living on DTP or photography editing.

This book seems to cover techniques how to do something, but in a strange manner. The book is too slow, which makes me very inpatient and angry, and examples (tasks) often are guided like: press ctrl T, now D, then select pen tool and draw a line (which you can't from some reason), then press this and that, and we have a new path here, now hide a layer by ctrl whatever, and so on.

The book is not organized well. It misses the global definitions at the beginning, e.g. what the path is. What is a layer? When we use it? Then there should be a simple example how and when to use it. When to link or not to link a selection with layer? When to use RGB layers, add a selection layer. And finally the same for some frequently used basic tools and effects (shadows, distortions, and whatever is important).

I have seen many people who really know Photoshop (guys who work for newspapers), and that stuff can't be learned from this book. They use different techniques, more efficient, while this book wastes your time by showing you how to do a shadow, or use a path for such a simple thing that you would never use path for. Also, the author is paying too much attention for tools like lasso, or some other selection tools, while I was interested into details of displacement maps and other effects, mixing photos and etc.

However, I have seen that marks of this book are really great - and therefore I must be very wrong because I am going to mark this book with only two stars, so forgive me on that. But I would really recommend future readers to try to borrow this book before buying it or compare with some other book, since this book is not organized well and is not leading you properly as the good book should.

This is a very useful little book, easy to read, however, don't make the mistake I did. I bought a "like new" edition that didn't specify whether the cd was included or not (I assumed if it was like new it would) and there are many exercises in the book that rely on images contained in that cd, as well as plug ins for your photoshop 7 for your computer.

If you get the book, be sure to get an edition with a disc.

This is a great Photoshop book. I picked it up a couple of years ago at a store and I really liked the content in it because it shows pictures of the final product and it shows you how to get to that point. I guess pictures work better for me. I let a friend borrow my first copy and he never returned it. I had to buy it again! I bought a CS2 book and didn't like the content as much as I did with the Photoshop 7 book.

I bought this book as a Christmas gift. Seems to have gotten good reviews and my sister is a freak about Photoshop.

I am a novice photoshop user but very good with computers and software. I purchased this book in the hopes that I would immediately be trying stuff with photoshop... wrong... The first chapter is all introduction. The first 50+ pages are all discussions on techniques and shortcuts to work more proficiently in photoshop... not actually working on a project. I was expecting more of an interactive tutorial type book and the first chapter of this one was difficult to get through because it really is not interactive.

As the book reads on in chapter 2 (and the remaining chapters), things get much more interactive. The tedious first chapter starts making sense! There is great information in the first chapter and I can see how the author might think it is the key to the book. But for me, it seems this information could have been demonstrated (or illustrated) in a better way. Maybe a reference chart or an appendix?

This is a good book with a lot of great information in it. I would give it 4+ stars if it weren't for that first chapter. I expected to be engaged in the first paragraph with the photoshop program opened on my computer and instead I found myself fiddling with the computer and losing interest in the book after the 5th page. I'm glad I held out fo the other chapters.

This book contains a lot of information and illustrations but could be better organized as it seems to jump from topic to topic. The CD is a bonus as it contains styles and actions that can be used in later Photoshop versions. This book is a very good bargain if you are still using Photoshop 7.

Excellent book. Gives you step by step instructions on how to do some neat things with your digital photos.

This is a wordy introduction to Elements 2. Mr. Aaland provides a good rationale for improvement with photographs and how they may be accomplished. This is important - as it is not immediately obvious what improvements need to be made to a photograph when starting out in digital photography.

However, his approach is wordy - and you have to plough through a lot of (unnecessary) text to go through the individual steps. Some people like wordy explanations, others a more visual guide to a visual medium.

Secondly, and this is a personal feeling, it is clear that Mr. Aaland makes his living by writing computer manuals and not in graphics or as a photographer. The photographs supplied on the CD and in the book are of the mundane snapshot variety. This may be fine if you are simply working on mundane snapshots - however, for me (and I am sure others), I am looking for approaches to improve more artistic photographs. (If you are looking for help with this and you are visiting the UK, I recommend you buy a copy of Digital Photo magazine [not Digital Photography or other similarly named magazines] - you will get a lot of clearly, explained advice there).

So a mixed bag. If you are looking for a reasonable comprehensive 'textbook' on PE2 then consider this. If you are through the basics and are looking for a deeper explanation of advanced features and artistic management, then I suggest you look elsewhere. For me, the book falls short of my needs and interests and the CD photographs are disappointing.

Hope this helps!

Couldn't go another day without thanking you for this great "Photoshop Elements 2 Solutions" Book. After completing half of the Books Photo Exercises which gives the simplest, precise way to acheive the best professional results, I've finally learned Photoshop. This has evaded me for years spent on other learning programs. I just couldn't understand how the layers related and applied to each other for the background or how to work on them to get a final finish quality photo. The exercises were easy and understandable and fun to learn. Plus all those Plug-Ins on the CD.
Thanks,
Satisfied Customer.

I bought this book expecting the enclosed CD to be a full tutorial. It is not. If you read far enough into the fine print it does say it is a trial (read demo) copy. To my sorrow I didn't see this; all I read was "100 before images" and "follow along with the book". Sounds great, but what you get is software that shows you what the real thing WOULD do if you bought it. Legal but morally reprehensible.

I've seen the author on TechTv explaining tips with Photoshop Elements...he's good. But, he wrote the book like you already know most things instead of a step by step approach. I've taught myself more just by using Photoshop 6.0 and Photoshop Elements through trial and error. Look for another author or go to a book store and look through one of these books to see if it will help you. This author can't even explain the red eye tool...I learned on my own. Bottom line...I threw the book in the recycling container.