Rating: 
Summary: It's NOT a reference manual. . .
Review: This book is designed to supplement a users knowledge in order to prepare them for the Adobe Certified Expert exam. In that capacity it excels. For a reference manual, I would recommend Adobe Photoshop 5 Studio Techniques (ISBN 1-56830-474-9) as this offers some usability tips not found in many reference tomes.I would also recommend browsing internet sites that offer photoshop tutorials. These can offer a great deal of free advice to advance your skills. MS
Rating: 
Summary: Great book!
Review: This book is easy to read and understand. Topics are well organized too. Is is a very good book for beginners and intermediate level users. It covers all the capabilities of PhotoShop 5.5. This book does lack the advance techniques coverage. If the Adobe Creative Team can publish two types of version to beginners and advance users, that will be great!
Rating:
Summary: Pretty good
Review: This book provides a do-it-yourself training program for Adobe Photoshop. It provides step-by-step instructions that will help you explore and learn to use the main features of Photoshop. Each lesson begins with an overview of the skills you will learn, and an estimate of the time it will take to complete the lesson. Following that are the instructions that guide you towards completing the assigned tasks to the artwork contained on the accompanying CD-ROM. At the end of every chapter is a short list of review questions and answers. I came to this book as a complete beginner- -the only graphics software I had used before was Microsoft Paint. I had an inkling that my supervisor would soon require me to begin using Photoshop, and I knew that I wouldn't be able to do so without training. I managed to get about a 2 month head start in using this book before I needed to use the software for work. Since I could manage to complete about a chapter a week in this book, that was barely enough to get by when the time came. With no background whatsoever in graphic arts, I had a tough time understanding the minimal explanations contained in this book of gradients, masks, and channels. The explanations of how to use these tools are very clear, but even after learning how to use them, I'm still quite hazy about what they are and why a designer would use them. For that reason, I wish this book had suggestions for further reading, to help graphic novices learn more about the general concepts behind the tools. Nevertheless, by carefully following the training program in this book, I was able to develop the skills necessary to do small photo editing tasks. More importantly, thanks to this book, I am now quite comfortable with the Photoshop interface and all its palettes, which seemed so formidable in the beginning. Overall, the instructions and screen shots in the book were quite clear. Even though I was using the book for Photoshop version 5.5 with version 6.0 software, I was still able to follow along on almost every task (sometimes with the assistance of Photoshop Help, to find the new location of the required tools). The only major inaccuracy that I found was in the chapter 15 review questions, where the sequencing of questions and answers was completely disorganized.
Rating:
Summary: Pretty good
Review: This book provides a do-it-yourself training program for Adobe Photoshop. It provides step-by-step instructions that will help you explore and learn to use the main features of Photoshop. Each lesson begins with an overview of the skills you will learn, and an estimate of the time it will take to complete the lesson. Following that are the instructions that guide you towards completing the assigned tasks to the artwork contained on the accompanying CD-ROM. At the end of every chapter is a short list of review questions and answers. I came to this book as a complete beginner- -the only graphics software I had used before was Microsoft Paint. I had an inkling that my supervisor would soon require me to begin using Photoshop, and I knew that I wouldn't be able to do so without training. I managed to get about a 2 month head start in using this book before I needed to use the software for work. Since I could manage to complete about a chapter a week in this book, that was barely enough to get by when the time came. With no background whatsoever in graphic arts, I had a tough time understanding the minimal explanations contained in this book of gradients, masks, and channels. The explanations of how to use these tools are very clear, but even after learning how to use them, I'm still quite hazy about what they are and why a designer would use them. For that reason, I wish this book had suggestions for further reading, to help graphic novices learn more about the general concepts behind the tools. Nevertheless, by carefully following the training program in this book, I was able to develop the skills necessary to do small photo editing tasks. More importantly, thanks to this book, I am now quite comfortable with the Photoshop interface and all its palettes, which seemed so formidable in the beginning. Overall, the instructions and screen shots in the book were quite clear. Even though I was using the book for Photoshop version 5.5 with version 6.0 software, I was still able to follow along on almost every task (sometimes with the assistance of Photoshop Help, to find the new location of the required tools). The only major inaccuracy that I found was in the chapter 15 review questions, where the sequencing of questions and answers was completely disorganized.
Rating:
Summary: Great for Beginners! Look at FX books for more fun!
Review: This book tought me a lot of how to use the palets and just all the features of Adobe 5.5 and Image ready 2.0. So I recommend this book to you if you haven't used Adobe 5.0 or 5.5 before so you get used to everything but once your done you'll want a good FX Adobe book so you can have some real fun that we all like doing.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent for beginners!!
Review: This book was very useful to me! It takes you step by step with each lesson provided that explains everything, as if you were in a classroom. It doesn't take up much time, and its very easy to read and understand. If you are looking to learn photshop 5.5 from the VERY beginning, this is the book to start with!
Rating:
Summary: A practical book that is easy to read, good for beginners.
Review: This is a good start if you are not familiar with ImageReady and Photoshop. It is because it covers all the basics. Therefore you won't miss a thing if you are serious to learn Photoshop. The examples are pretty easy to follow. I didn't find any problem with the CD. The Adobe Classroom in a Book series use a texbook approach that is different from others. There are review questions after each chapter. Some people may find the teaching style pretty dry since they can find more design tricks in other guides (e.g. Offical Adobe Photoshop 5 Studio Techniques from Adobe Press). I think this is a personal preference. The only thing I don't like is it's in black and white. The writing style is similar to the version 3 and 4 books. If you have the verion 5 Classroom in a book, you will not find this one useful for the main difference is only ImageReady. It is also a beginner to intermediate level book. This book is not for you if you want more advance techniques.
Rating:
Summary: Great step by step directions
Review: This is a great book for beginners. This book walks you through each lesson with easy to follow, step-by-step directions. If you are interested in learning the basic techniques this is the perfect tool. The only problems I found with this book was the fact that it would start teaching a technique only to switch subjects, then pick up later in another lesson. The other problem was that it would tell you how to optimize without telling you why you were choosing specific functions or settings. This book will in no way teach you everything you need to know about Photoshop and ImageReady but it will give you the foundation you need to get started.
Rating:
Summary: Great step by step directions
Review: This is a great book for beginners. This book walks you through each lesson with easy to follow, step-by-step directions. If you are interested in learning the basic techniques this is the perfect tool. The only problems I found with this book was the fact that it would start teaching a technique only to switch subjects, then pick up later in another lesson. The other problem was that it would tell you how to optimize without telling you why you were choosing specific functions or settings. This book will in no way teach you everything you need to know about Photoshop and ImageReady but it will give you the foundation you need to get started.
Rating:
Summary: good book but BEWARE
Review: This is a great book, but essentially the same book as the CIB Photoshop 5.0 book. There are two additional lessons, but all the other lessons are identical. I was very disappointed to have spent so much money on just two chapters that I needed. If all the lessons were identical to the previous book, why didn't they just issue an update (2 lessons only....) I felt gypped.
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