Photoshop CS Savvy

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Summary: Photoshop CS Savvy Review
Review: I've had Photoshop CS software on my wish-list for a long time, so when I picked up the book Photoshop CS Savvy for review, I had a great reason to finally purchase the software.

With over 700 pages and a CD-ROM, this book can seem daunting, yet it can easily be used by Photoshop beginners like me. In the "Introduction," the author says it like this, "It's for those of us who take photographs, draw, paint, and cut and paste pictures. It's for computer artists, graphic designers, Web designers, and printers. It is intended to help master the software, at whatever level you might be in the learning curve."

One of the first things I noticed was the books' layout. The book is divided into four parts, twenty-seven chapters, two appendices, a glossary, and an index. When dividing 700 pages by twenty-seven chapters, there tends to be a lot of stuff that's not mentioned in a common table of contents. This book goes the extra mile by including a "Contents At A Glance" in addition to the "Contents." The "Contents At A Glance" consists of only two pages, while the "Contents" is eleven pages long and is very detailed. This allowed me to scan through the "Contents" to find something specific to read about. In my case, one of the first things I wanted to read about was "Photo Retouching." I quickly found it in Part III, Chapter 19, page 449.

Before I started using the book as a tutorial, I wanted to give it the review it deserves, so I began at the beginning. Chapter 1, The Foundations of Photoshop, was very interesting. It's interesting to me because it started with a very nice history of imaging. I read about mosaics, painting, Impressionism, printing, photography, collage, photomontage, the Web, and finally a history of Photoshop. This was a very nice bit of information before getting into the meat and potatoes of Photoshop.

Chapter 2, What's New in Photoshop CS, was really good for me because I haven't upgraded my Photoshop since 5.5. So, I had a lot of catching up to do.

Chapter 5, Setting Up Photoshop, provided an in-depth guide to setting preferences and allocating memory. I didn't even realize there was an Efficiency setting in the status bar at the bottom of the window. If the status bar ever drops below 100%, I can increase the percentage of memory (author recommends by 10% increments) until the efficiency remains at the maximum 100%.

Chapter 8, Working with Type, has lots of great information on how to use Photoshop to create type. I know type is normally created in Illustrator, but Photoshop really shines in its capability to produce cool text effects. The really cool thing about this chapter is the Hands On section. Immediately following nine of the twenty-seven chapters, you'll find nine Hands On sections. After you read a chapter or a few chapters, you come across a Hands On section. These sections are tutorials. The book tells you to access the Photoshop CS Savvy CD to select and save a file onto your disk. Now you can perform some cool Hands On stuff with Photoshop.

Although I've had Photoshop for several years, I've remained at the beginner level. After using Photoshop CS Savvy for a few weeks now, I have to say my Photoshop skills have increased tremendously. Am I a Photoshop expert? Not even close, but I am doing a whole lot more with Photoshop than I ever have before. This book will remain on a shelf close to my iMac for quick reference.

All in all, this is a great book. It has tons of great information and the CD has tutorials, software, demo software, and even a cool 45-page pdf Bonus Chapters quick reference guide. If you're using Photoshop CS, I highly recommend purchasing this book.