Rating: 
Summary: A must
Review: I am very surprised at a few of the reviews Photoshop Wow 5.0/5.5 has received. I found this edition to be very informative with a wealth of examples that show how to use the new features to the best advantage - like Layer Effects, the History palette and ImageReady, for instance. Dayton and Davis have once again given us an excellent "cookbook." I highly recommend this edition to people who want to use Photoshop 5 or 5.5 to its fullest.
Rating:
Summary: Wow book gets the thumbs up from professional
Review: I create very complex digital imagery combining baby portraits and natural scenes. The Wow book shortcuts reduced some of my work from 2 hours to 20 minutes. I learned so much about all sorts of features I never thought I'd have time to use. The graphics and samples are beautiful and helpful. The filter effects are clearly shown so you don't have to go through each one to see what it does. You can start with any section of this book and not worry about getting lost. If you have Photoshop, you have to get this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Long wait, but chock full of great tips!
Review: I first ordered this book close to a year ago, so it was fantastic that it was finally printed and distributed! The book seems to ramble on a bit much concerning filters that come with Photoshoshop, as well as 3rd party filters, but an example of each filter is illustrated, providing some great inspiration for cool effects. All in all, the book was only slightly worth the wait, but is extremely resourceful, nonetheless.
Rating: 
Summary: Stop Milking Digital Artists
Review: I have been a fan of the WOW books, having the painter WOW, Web design WOW, and photoshop 4 WOW. I must say this recent Photoshop 5/5.5 WOW book is nothing but daylight robbery. If you're going to write a new version of a book, put some * NEW * content in it, or tell your readers this is just an update covering new features of a product.Seriously, beginners would be better with the photoshop classroom in a book, and the experienced photoshop'ers may like Photoshop Studio secrets (a personal favorite).
Rating: 
Summary: A let down¿
Review: I have to agree with the last reader. I had placed my order last March and was eagerly waiting what I thought was going to be another excellent addition to the WOW! series...I was sorely disappointed. I really love the series but like the last reader said wait until Photoshop 6 WOW! comes out with, hopefully after enough negative feedback, some new material.
Rating:
Summary: High quality color screenshots, interesting tutorials
Review: I liked Photoshop 5.5 Wow book. For a start, it has high quality color screenshots. I am still surprised to see many Photoshop and other art titles showing up printed in greyscale, good color is essential in books like this one. As for content, once again, we have to read about stuff that's already exposed in the original PS documentation from Adobe, plus the usual clichés, color theory, etc. Fortunately, the amount of redundant information is reasonably acceptable. As for really creative ideas, this book does have some. A few interesting tutorials are perhaps the best of the book, which includes some chapters on natural-looking painting (For those won don't want to go for Corel's Painter series), and the usual topics. (Nothing like checking the Table of Contents link) In my case, I particularly enjoyed the chapter on Montage and Collage, and also on masks and adjustment layers. This title is very acceptable to most beginners, (some might have trouble with some tutorials) and has value even to advanced users, but those will definitely not get all that much for the money. These days you can read impressive Photoshop tutorials on the web for free (Phong, and Eyeball are just a few examples of such sites) and books have to offer more and more to be worth the price. But still, I liked the Wow 5.5 book, it's far from reaching the depth I wanted, but it's not as basic as I feared it could be. Very full of color and some interesting tut There are some bad aspects, mostly small details, like absence of a complete list of keyboard shortcuts. They are not compiled, but somewhat spread on the whole book. The showcase of artist projects was a good idea, but it would be better to have the .PSD files available for tutorials. Yes yes, I know, Copyright issues might be the reason here, but it would be a lot more impressive to see them as tutorials than just JPGs with some "how-to" explanations. Also, I have little interest in seeing several pages full of examples of the use of certain Plug-Ins that everybody already knows pretty well. It's mostly just to fill space, unless you really use the covered Plug-Ins in depth (but in that case, you should know the effects pretty well by now. Eye candy, but not really all that useful). This is also a very broad title, if you need detail in some areas (color correction, Collages,etc) you will need more books. It is true that it adds little from previous versions, but that's hardly a reason for 1 star reviews. If you own a previous PS Wow book, it might not be worth the upgrade, but for the other readers, it's worth taking a look. In general, interesting title, definitely worth checking out. I'd lose the plug-in pages and would add more depth to some areas, but in any case, most beginner-to-intermediate readers will probably learn (or remember) something. If you're buying, you might want to consider waiting for a possible 6.0 version, which might cover the new slicing and vector drawing tools of Photoshop 6.
Rating:
Summary: Great Book, nice tutorials
Review: I purchased this book a while back and I was personally quite impressed with it. Being the owner of a website which uses Photoshop extensively I found some of the tutorials such as Chrome and Fire to be highly advanced which can easily be done by reading the step by step process. Their plug-in section was also quite impressive, mentioning the various plug-ins available for Photoshop, most of which I had never even heard of. I would definitely reccommend this book to all the Photoshop users out there, whether you are a novice trying to get an aspect of Computer Graphics, or an advanced user hoping to learn advanced tutorials.
Rating:
Summary: Best book on Photoshop I've read
Review: I really don't understand how anyone can level any criticism against this book! I've read much material on Photoshop over the years, spanning a number of versions. This book was clearly laid out, well structured, with fine examples and pictures guiding you through each process. 'Bibles' are boring. I like to work by example and I feel this book more than fulfills that. I'll go as far as to say it's the only book you should need on Photoshop.
Rating:
Summary: Not useful if you are already familiar with Photoshop
Review: I really like the Wow book series for Photoshop and Illustrator. However I am quite disappointed at this one. Some examples are not new at all. This one is not useful to those who have the verions 3 and 4 Wow books. If you are new to Photoshop, you may find this book useful. I recommend beginners to read "Classroom in a book" and "Photoshop Artistry" for the advance users. Then buy a used book for version probably at half price.
Rating:
Summary: A waste of paper... and my money!
Review: I was sorely disappointed by the "NEW" Photoshop 5.0/5.5 Wow! book and will be returing it to the retailer tomorrow. Like a recent reviewer stated... this book is nothing more than an attempt by the author/publisher to milk the growing popularity of Photoshop by addressing the VERY slight differences between PS 4.0 and PS 5/5.5, putting a new cover on it and trying to pass it off as new material. IF YOU ALREADY HAVE PS 4.0 WOW! STAY AWAY FROM THIS BOOK!
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