Rating: 
Summary: excellent book but....
Review: ....there are some errors. The most telling is in Chapter 12. I still haven't figured out how to get the pond ripple effect for the dandelion. You can't get it by following the instructions.
Rating:
Summary: A Slick, Rapid Venture Into Photoshop 7
Review: A Slick, Rapid Venture Into Photoshop 7I give this book four stars because it is well thought out, efficient in its execution, clear in its verbiage and clean of misprints and mistakes. I've read Classroom in a Book for earlier Photoshop generics and I can say that Adobe has honed their teaching format down to a lean and mean science. Does the Classroom In A Book teach you everything you need to know about Photoshop 7? No. Does CIAB go into great detail on the subjects it does cover? No. Is CIAB warm and fuzzy? No. I went through the book with a fine-tooth-comb so to speak and here are some of my findings and thoughts. As a long time user of Photoshop on the PC I have started to collect some opinions on this software masterpiece, so be forewarned. Right off the bat I want to irritate all the webmasters out there in Photoshop land. I have absolutely no use whatsoever for ImageReady! I may be the exception; I don't know. However, the book is constantly encumbered with the need to announce whether the next lesson is related to ImageReady or not; and in what ways. I buy Photoshop for Photoshop and nothing else. As far as I'm concerned take ImageReady out of the package and increase the bells and whistles in Photoshop. And while you're at it get that magnetic lasso and feed it to the Battle Robots; it gives me a headache. There, I said it and I'm glad. Next a comment about the on-line Help. It appears to be quite useful and in-depth. For the most part it is of no use to me, since I never allow my business machines to come anywhere near the internet. The book contains excerpts from the on-line Help and they are quite informative. A trick I came upon helped me with each lesson. At the end of every lesson there is a question and answer section. It is concise and to the point. These review questions often bring out points that I had just 'read across' and did not identify properly. Try it, you'll like it. CIAB covers the new Photoshop feature called 'File Browser' comprehensively. Once I played with it I was in thumbnail heaven. This is a two thumbnails up feature in the new Photoshop. Although it was designed for the photographers who use this product, I want you to know that all of you will love it. Some more complaints and compliments about the book are:
- It is inconsistent about mentioning keyboard shortcuts. Some tools, like the pen tool, are mentioned.
- It takes you on a very limited journey through the subject of photo retouching
- The subject of selections and using them is concisely introduced. Forget about learning any nuances.
- The Layers chapter was good as far as it went. Clear, concise steps led me right along. Even Layer Sets were touched upon. An excerpt from On-Line Help explained nicely the background layer and how it is handled.
- You learn to use the extraction tool.
- You learn to use another wonderful tool called the 'Healing Brush'. The icon for which is a Band-Aid; go figure. I would have used a little medical 'caduceus' icon myself.
- You learn all about the new Photoshop Pattern Maker. Great tool I might add.
- The lessons on working in ImageReady were of no interest to me. You're on your own here. If you are new to Photoshop you better get this book and about 5 more. I'm a third party book user from way back. If you want 'warm-and-fuzzy' when you're learning from a book, you will not find it here. Try some of the New Rider books, they have always helped me. This book will get you moving around inside of Photoshop 7. Try it, you'll like it. Paul Simone
Rating: 
Summary: Adobe Has a 5 star version of this product
Review: Adobe makes materials available online to educators that turn this into a 5 star product. Specifically, it has the whole classroom in a book offered in FULL COLOR ONLINE in PDF format that you read on Acrobat Reader 5. There is nothing like being able to look at this material on my 21" screen on my computer monitor in full and complete color and then simply drop down to my taskbar, click on my photoshop button and go there to do what adobe has just given me as an instruction. If you are disciplined, this is an incredibly effective way to learn Photoshop. There is no awkard handling of a physical book to get in your way either. Of course, you need the CD-ROM that goes with the book because that has all the images on it that you need to do the lessons. So what Adobe needs to do is somehow bundle together the CD-ROM, the book and the online PDF version and sell all 3 to the consumer in one bundle. Perhaps one solution would be to produce the physical book in a more economical way as the student will be using it to primarily review text after a long session on the computer monitor. Or perhaps it should sell the PDF and the CD-ROM together and skip the book altogether. If you buy the product as is, it is not 5 stars. It is 4 stars because of the serious problem of all the lessons being shown to you in black and white. Adobe, the leader in image software, does have the perfect learning product for you with Photoshop 7 Classroom in a Book if it only repackages its materials for the consumer. I recommend that you contact Adobe online and ask that it make the PDF version available too. If enough people do so, I think this product will eventually be rebundled.
Rating:
Summary: A must-have all-purpose resource manual
Review: Adobe Photoshop 7.0: Classroom in a Book is a comprehensive guide to mastering the nuances of the latest version of Adobe Photoshop. Intended for digital photographers of all skill and experience levels, from rank novice to expert, Adobe Photoshop 7.0 has black-and-white sample menus and images on almost every page to illustrate various details of handling the software. An included CD-ROM with lesson files rounds out this superb resource covering everything from basics such as photo corrections and retouching to advanced issues such as layer techniques, adding interactive slices and rollovers, creating animated images for the web, printing consistent color and much more. A must-have all-purpose resource manual, Adobe Photoshop 7.0 is the book to get if you can only afford a single "how to" instructional guide to Adobe Photoshop.
Rating: 
Summary: There are better "classrooms" that you can attend
Review: After days of reading and experimenting with each lesson, I have finally finished this thick tome of Adobe's "Classroom in a Book Series" for Photoshop 7.0. The book is divided into eighteen lessons and includes a CD (for both Windows and Macintosh), where the corresponding files - and even additional system fonts - can be found for each lesson. The book is designed to be read in the order presented or the lessons can also be skipped at the reader?s convenience. In my particular case, I wanted to re-learn the program due to the fact that when I first studied Photoshop, its current version was 3.0. Much (almost everything) has changed since then, so this sort of introduction was a good idea. It is, however, not more than an introduction, and if you should expect to become a pro by just going through every aspect of this book, you are much mistaken. Adobe Photoshop 7.0 is in itself a very complex and immensely rich program, which I believe to be almost limitless in possibilities of image manipulation. Sometimes I even think that not even its numerous creators know what one dedicated user can achieve with it; and this book will teach a superficial approach to the program. Will you wonder? Of course you will, but only at the possibilities of your imagination. That said, I also have to add that the book is in parts inaccurate. For example, on Lesson 12, the Distort Filter does not produce the rippled effect on the Dandelion that the book says it should and if applied in such a way, one will end up with a rippled border around all the image, taking it off its quadrant and making it look really bad. Pros will realize, however, that a simple selection around the area destined for the effect to appear will suffice; but alas, it is not in the book! Inaccuracies like this aside, I'd recommend a more in depth source, such as the "Adobe Photoshop 7.0 Studio Techniques" book, or even the fantastic "Adobe Photoshop 7.0 WOW! Book", both excellent sources for the development of skills and stimulation of the imagination. Another plus of these last two books is that they come in full color, something that I appreciate, especially on highly priced volumes such as this one. After spending all that time and effort, one deserves color...
Rating:
Summary: Adobe Photoshop: Classroom in a Book
Review: As a person previously acquainted with only the most basic of Adobe skills, I found this book and cd to be a great introduction to computer graphics. The instructions for the lessons are very clear and the illustrations quite helpful. The lessons give you some idea of the scope of activity available to you and leave you with plenty of room for additional exploration. I love this book and will be using it as a reference for years to come
Rating:
Summary: Good, but not quite good enough
Review: As a Photoshop user for over 2 years now, I purchased this book as it was recommended by Adobe as a preferred study guide for the ACE certification test. I purchased the book and went through all the lessons. While the lessons were very helpful, some went over tips and techniques that those familiar with Photoshop should already know. However, I did pick up some new techniques and shortcuts to improve the quality and time that I spend within the application. If you wish to learn more about Photoshop as a basic to intermediate user, then this is the book for you. However, if you are an intermediate user and wish to take this in order to pass the ACE test given by Adobe, I would recommend you purchase another item off the recommended list. This book did not prepare me for the test as much as I thought it would.
Rating:
Summary: Classroom in a book
Review: Helpful for Photoshop 7 beginners, which I was. If you want to use Photoshop and can read(which for some, seems to require a class in it's own) try this book out and follow the easy tutorials. I could not find typo's or other errors in this book, which is all to common with others.
Rating:
Summary: Classroom in a book
Review: Helpful for Photoshop 7 beginners, which I was. If you want to use Photoshop and can read(which for some, seems to require a class in it's own) try this book out and follow the easy tutorials. I could not find typo's or other errors in this book, which is all to common with others.
Rating: 
Summary: A book on photoshop in black and white!
Review: I am highly dissapointed with the book "ADOBE PHOTOSHOP 7.0 Classroom in a book" Since Photoshop is an IMAGE editing program,
I find it essential that a book on the subject delivers high quality IMAGES.
This book only contains black and white images except for a few color plates in the beginning (15 pages). This makes the book more or less useless as a book. I buy a book because I want to read a BOOK.
The only way to use this book is to sit by the computer and follow the instructions in it.
Now, if that was what I wanted to do I could as well use a web-site tutorial. Take for example the section "Creating new color swatches for the umbrella image" on page 232.
You could imagine how interesting that looks in black and white ... Or the image sequence of an egret on page 168.
This sequence is totally nonsense when you look at it. The only way to understand what is going on is to flip back and forth
to the color plates in the beginning of the book. This is not the way to read a book! I happen to own a book "The photoshop 3 Wow! Book"
by Linnea Dayton and Jack Davis from 1996, which is to more use for me when using Photoshop 7 than this book.
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