Rating: 
Summary: Ben is the poop
Review: Ben is my Photoshop Hero. While people complain that each new book is just an update of the previous one, they are whiners. He has his own website with plenty of extra "how to's" for those who want something more challenging. Beyond that be creative and try new stuff. Art is not supposed to be paint by the numbers.
My suggestion to you is to as soon as possible by the appropriate studio techniques for the version of Photoshop you are using.
Rating:
Summary: Covering tools, palettes, layers, & masks
Review: Ben Willmore is the founder of Digital Mastery (a training and consulting firm specializing exclusively in Photoshop). In Adobe Photoshop CS Studio Techniques, Willmore draws upon his impressive expertise to present a complete course of step-by-step instruction to employing this most popular image-editing software. Covering tools, palettes, layers, masks, and Photoshop terminology, Adobe Photoshop CS Studio Techniques goest on to meticulously detail "real-world" production techniques, creative explorations and utilizations, website tutorials, updates, and more. Enhanced with a companion CD offering practice images to use while working through the tutorials (and more!), Adobe Photoshop CS Studio Techniques is a seminal addition to any Adobe Photoshop user's reference shelf.
Rating: 
Summary: Heavy Reading
Review: I ordered this book because of the great reviews it was getting and hoped I would get some new and wonderful ideas for photo editing. There is no question that this is well written publication, but I found that it is probably more suited for the "upper-intermediate" and "Advanced" Photoshop user. The book itself deals with a lot with "why things work the way they do" as opposed to "how to do it." I know that I will need to read the book a couple of times to absorb all the information. I am definitely overwhelmed by the information.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful Teaching Tool!
Review: I teach college age students this program, and this book has been wonderful for both me and the student. It is easy to follow and understand, and having the images on disk to demonstrate to the class, comes in handy! Also an easy book to teach yourself the program or just brush up on some new techniques!
Rating:
Summary: A true must have for the intermediate to advanced user
Review: I've purchased over a dozen PS books over the last few years. This one is excellent, ranking up there with the Katrin Eismann and Dan Margulis books. Unlike the over-rated Scott Kelby stuff, Ben teaches you how to create beautiful things without resorting to clichés. He presents tons of great info in a very readable, concise way. As I go through it, I'm finding myself getting more done simply because I'm not wasting as much time through trial and error. Tools I use all the time, I now understand better. Tools I ingored before, I find myself relying on. I've had it a month and it's already becoming dog-eared. It's that good.
Regarding the absense of Web content, at 720 pages, personally I'm glad it's gone. If this book was much larger and heavier, I'd have to think twice about throwing it in my backpack and I probably wouldn't have learned as much.
Rating:
Summary: A true must have for the intermediate to advanced user
Review: I've purchased over a dozen PS books over the last few years. This one is excellent, ranking up there with the Katrin Eismann and Dan Margulis books. Unlike the over-rated Scott Kelby stuff, Ben teaches you how to create beautiful things without resorting to clichés. He presents tons of great info in a very readable, concise way. As I go through it, I'm finding myself getting more done simply because I'm not wasting as much time through trial and error. Tools I use all the time, I now understand better. Tools I ingored before, I find myself relying on. I've had it a month and it's already becoming dog-eared. It's that good.
Regarding the absense of Web content, at 720 pages, personally I'm glad it's gone. If this book was much larger and heavier, I'd have to think twice about throwing it in my backpack and I probably wouldn't have learned as much.
Rating:
Summary: The best of the best of Photoshop Books
Review: No one could deny that really learning Photoshop is a bit of work. Now that I have my certificate I can tell you that for a fact. Ben Willmore's book takes what appears to be the sometimes scary commands, tools and features of Photoshop and not only what they are - but when to use them. He explains them in a way that makes it appear simple, and then gives you an example. The book is easy to follow and one of the textbooks books that should be read from front to back. And consantly used for a reference. I will not be selling this one on Amazon Mktplace! For you dollar this book is a bargain. I used this book constantly though my last semester advanced photoshop class and it gets the most credit for getting me an A (398 out of 420 possible points) in my class. I hope he writes an equally excellent book on Imageready. I highly reccomend this book.
Rating:
Summary: The best of the best of Photoshop Books
Review: No one could deny that really learning Photoshop is a bit of work. Now that I have my certificate I can tell you that for a fact. Ben Willmore's book takes what appears to be the sometimes scary commands, tools and features of Photoshop and not only what they are - but when to use them. He explains them in a way that makes it appear simple, and then gives you an example. The book is easy to follow and one of the textbooks books that should be read from front to back. And consantly used for a reference. I will not be selling this one on Amazon Mktplace! For you dollar this book is a bargain. I used this book constantly though my last semester advanced photoshop class and it gets the most credit for getting me an A (398 out of 420 possible points) in my class. I hope he writes an equally excellent book on Imageready. I highly reccomend this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Good supplement to the User Guide BUT...
Review: The author removed an important section from this, the CS edition, that was present in the previous books.
Specifically, Mr. Willmore didn't include the Web chapter. To his credit he does state this in the intro section, citing the number of improvements to ImageReady (the web graphic creation part of Photoshop) is huge and that the associated chapter would dominate the book. He also said that web designers are not forgotten, that the book is still very web-friendly, he just didn't include a specific chapter or section that covered the web tools.
Well, something must have happened between his writing of that and the actual printing of the book, because I can't find anything that deals with items such as animation, slices, GIF's, or even ImageReady itself. I do need to say that I haven't read the book cover to cover, and that just because there are no entries in the index for these items it doesn't mean they aren't discussed, somewhere, in the pages that I've not read (although if they are, then the book deserves another ding because the index is incomplete).
What is covered is done very well and very completely. Mr. Willmore knows his subject, and it shows in the thourough way he discusses the program. He provides great primers on channels, masks, color correction, scanning, curves, levels
layers, and other features. He takes the more complex tools and breaks them down in ways any user, no matter how much or little experience he or she may have, can understand and apply. Each chapter has a mini-glossary titled "Ben's Techno-Babble Decoder Ring", each entry further explaining terms introduced in the chapter in a no-nonsence manner.
I will say this is an indespenseable book to go along with with the too-thin User Guide. I'm just disappointed that readers of the previous editions must now purchase yet another book if they want to learn about the web graphic features.
Rating:
Summary: Great even for novices and advanced users
Review: Well, I bought this book because of the great reviews it had received, and I gotta say it deserves them. It's so good I read the first 240pp in about 3 days. The first chapter alone will show you how to streamline your workspace to get the most out of Photoshop. By the time you read through to chapter eight, you will have a very solid understanding of some tools that will allow you fix photographs you thought were messed up beyond repair. Willmore's conversational style makes it easy to understand everything he's explaining, and the images (all in color, unless they're grayscales) clarify whatever confusions may arise. Just be sure to work along with him (using the images in the CD) so you get a feel of the tools he's teaching you how to use. I have not yet gotten to the part where he teaches you specific "tricks," but I looked ahead and am very eager to get there. I find that highlighting certain parts of the text and rereading them before moving on to the next chapter helps me remember what I just read. This book will definitely turn any beginner/novice into an advanced Photoshopper.
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