Paint Shop Pro Web Graphics

Rating:
Summary: Can't complain!
Review: As a beginner of Paint Shop Pro, this book provided everything I needed to advance from the basics to creating graphics that I never thought I could create. Although this book isn't all-inclusive of PSP7's power, it does give enough detailed examples and colorful illustrations of the subjects within to appease the reader.

My only disappointment was the lack of subjects, such as Masking and Channels, however, these and many other subjects have been or will be dealt with in the publisher's periodic e-newsletter.

Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Review: I love finding books that you can actually work with! This book is written in plain English and contains good examples throughout the book as well as a great support site. The author let's you know what options are to be covered and most importantly what she is NOT covering or she deems too advance for the scope of the book. This simple format allowed me to search those items on my own. This is not to say she skimps on substance, but we all know that there is always an advance level of play on any program that should not be included in a beginner's book. This is a lot better than the author (like some other books) skipping program options completely in a book. Something else I liked was the continuous use of icons and screen shots throughout the book. Unlike Sams PSP 7 in 24hrs (Check out my review of it), the author constantly refreshes the reader of the previous chapter and tools learned by print and screen shots/graphics. Needless to say I am happy with the purchase, especially since the reviews here steered me to buy this book.

Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Review: I read the reviews here and bought this book hoping to learn to use PSP7 to make exciting Web graphics. Aside from a couple of useful chapters, I found the book lacking in substantial information. The writing is very dry, like a text book. Further, the graphic samples used to illustrate this book are amateurish and...well, just awful.

The tutorials in the Getting Started book that came with PSP7 are much more useful than what is found in this book. I was hoping that Paint Shop Pro Web Graphics would serve as a great supplement to the documents that came with PSP. Unfortunately, I was disappointed.

Rating:
Summary: Good start, but light on content
Review: I'm a web developer by trade, but I've mostly coded back-end stuff. When I found myself needing to create some minimal imagery for a site, I turned to PaintShop. The price tag compared to PhotoShop was the difference maker and I had heard I could do 90% of what PhotoShop did with PaintShop.

I quickly found that I needed some extra help in using the software. Having never before used graphics software I found myself in serious need of help. This book was an excellent introduction, and I was quickly able to accomplish what needed to be done. I had to start from square one. After reading the first couple of chapters, I felt I had a good grasp of questions like what is a layer, how to flatten images, number of colors on the palette, and how to manipulate the tool in basic ways.

I'll look at each of the sections of the book in greater detail:

Part I Making Great Images -
This section of the book is 83 pages long and covers the fundamentals of how to use PSP. It covered all the nuts and bolts about how to do things like draw a line to rotate and resize your image. It does a pretty good job in this task. Having never used a graphics software package before I totally needed this chapter. More advanced users will probably be able to skip it.

Part II Marrying PSP to the Web -
I was a little disappointed in this part of the book. There is a chapter on basic graphic HTML. What really would have been useful would have been some CSS help here. There is a chapter on creating transparent images. Even with little graphics experience, I didn't really get anything out of the book on that topic that wasn't obvious in the tool. There is a chapter on why using small images is good and how to compress and crop. Simple stuff. There is a chapter on coordinating your graphics. Wonderful advice like picking colors that look good together abounds. How to create buttons and spacers and the like is also covered. Finally, there is a chapter on backgrounds. This one is actually pretty good if you use backgrounds in your design, but they usually look tacky to me.

Part III Accelerating Your Images -
This is the meat and potatoes of the book. Topics like layers, vectors, putting text on a curving line, etc are covered. You have to have some kind of help to figure this stuff out if you haven't used a graphics package before, and this book did a descent job. Although I must say that I used it more to learn how to ask the PSP help the right question more than I used the book to answer it. There simply is not enough detail here for you to get everything. But, you will at least have the vocabulary necessary to find an answer in the help, and you usually have some kind of idea what you are going to be doing.

Part IV Image Mapping and Slicing -
PSP does have a pretty cool tool that lets you take a big image and slice it up into smaller images and then it puts those images into an HTML table. All you have to do is take the generated HTML and paste it into your site. It's pretty slick and the explanation in the book is adequate. Topics like creating rollover menus and image maps are also covered. (Please resist the temptation to create mystery-meat navigation. The book doesn't warn against it.)

There is also quite a bit on animation, but as I have done no animation using PSP, I guess I shouldn't comment.

Appendices -
This is a total waste of space and a pad to book size (which is only 311 pages of a lot of pictures). There is actually a list of "Cool Sites." The list of keyboard shortcuts is nice I guess.

All in all, this book did a descent job teaching me how to use PSP. From what I've seen, it's the best on the market. Unfortunately, that doesn't say much. This book will certainly get you started, but after a few hours of use, you'll spend more time looking in the PSP help.

Three Stars -
HawkeyeGK

Rating:
Summary: Good start, but light on content
Review: I'm a web developer by trade, but I've mostly coded back-end stuff. When I found myself needing to create some minimal imagery for a site, I turned to PaintShop. The price tag compared to PhotoShop was the difference maker and I had heard I could do 90% of what PhotoShop did with PaintShop.

I quickly found that I needed some extra help in using the software. Having never before used graphics software I found myself in serious need of help. This book was an excellent introduction, and I was quickly able to accomplish what needed to be done. I had to start from square one. After reading the first couple of chapters, I felt I had a good grasp of questions like what is a layer, how to flatten images, number of colors on the palette, and how to manipulate the tool in basic ways.

I'll look at each of the sections of the book in greater detail:

Part I Making Great Images -
This section of the book is 83 pages long and covers the fundamentals of how to use PSP. It covered all the nuts and bolts about how to do things like draw a line to rotate and resize your image. It does a pretty good job in this task. Having never used a graphics software package before I totally needed this chapter. More advanced users will probably be able to skip it.

Part II Marrying PSP to the Web -
I was a little disappointed in this part of the book. There is a chapter on basic graphic HTML. What really would have been useful would have been some CSS help here. There is a chapter on creating transparent images. Even with little graphics experience, I didn't really get anything out of the book on that topic that wasn't obvious in the tool. There is a chapter on why using small images is good and how to compress and crop. Simple stuff. There is a chapter on coordinating your graphics. Wonderful advice like picking colors that look good together abounds. How to create buttons and spacers and the like is also covered. Finally, there is a chapter on backgrounds. This one is actually pretty good if you use backgrounds in your design, but they usually look tacky to me.

Part III Accelerating Your Images -
This is the meat and potatoes of the book. Topics like layers, vectors, putting text on a curving line, etc are covered. You have to have some kind of help to figure this stuff out if you haven't used a graphics package before, and this book did a descent job. Although I must say that I used it more to learn how to ask the PSP help the right question more than I used the book to answer it. There simply is not enough detail here for you to get everything. But, you will at least have the vocabulary necessary to find an answer in the help, and you usually have some kind of idea what you are going to be doing.

Part IV Image Mapping and Slicing -
PSP does have a pretty cool tool that lets you take a big image and slice it up into smaller images and then it puts those images into an HTML table. All you have to do is take the generated HTML and paste it into your site. It's pretty slick and the explanation in the book is adequate. Topics like creating rollover menus and image maps are also covered. (Please resist the temptation to create mystery-meat navigation. The book doesn't warn against it.)

There is also quite a bit on animation, but as I have done no animation using PSP, I guess I shouldn't comment.

Appendices -
This is a total waste of space and a pad to book size (which is only 311 pages of a lot of pictures). There is actually a list of "Cool Sites." The list of keyboard shortcuts is nice I guess.

All in all, this book did a descent job teaching me how to use PSP. From what I've seen, it's the best on the market. Unfortunately, that doesn't say much. This book will certainly get you started, but after a few hours of use, you'll spend more time looking in the PSP help.

Three Stars -
HawkeyeGK

Rating:
Summary: Great book!
Review: I'm developing some Web-based training and needed to reduce the file size of some graphics. With this book, it took me 15 minutes to learn how to do this. The book has lots of other practical advice for creating and modifiying graphics and photographs for the Web. I, who have absolutely no artistic ability, was even able to create a fairly decent Web page with a bordered background and buttons and other fancy stuff. Be aware, though, that this book is not for Paint Shop Pro beginners--you really need to know a little about the program before you jump in.

Rating:
Summary: Great Beginners Book!
Review: Paint Shop Pro Web Graphics - Third Edition focuses on using Paint Shop Pro 7 program by JASC Software, with a few diversions. Chapter 5, for example, covers Web Graphic Basics, which may be useful to some readers.

If you are familiar with Paint Shop Pro 6, or work with web graphics on a more advanced level you may find this book not extremely helpful. I do feel it is a very good beginners book for using the latest version of this software. JASC Software has made tremendous leaps to improve this program and with a few exceptions this book covers the software in a concise manner.

On the downside, I was extremely disappointed in their not covering a few topics that the advanced web graphic artist would need, and those were Alpha Channels, Adjustment Layers, Actions, and Masks. . I wish these types of books would come with the images used in the book on a CD. The examples in this book are available on-line as an almost 3 MG zip file.

Rating:
Summary: Just right
Review: Software developers are often graphically challenged. We spend a great deal of time pouring over code and usually turn to the artist-types when we need graphics for a web site. But if the artists are not available and you need a basic graphic fast, what do you do? For Paint Shop Pro users, you turn to a book like this for help.

A graphics expert might find this book lacking in detail, but it was perfect for my needs. In addition to describing the basics of Paint Shop Pro, topics such as creating backgrounds, making buttons, and working with layers were all covered. There is also a section on retouching digital photos, something even the casual hobbyist would find useful.

The book itself is an attractive publication containing an extraordinary amount of full-color illustrations. My only complaint was that a few topics could have been covered in a bit more detail. Perhaps a few more web design tips would be a nice touch as well. Those were the only items preventing me from giving the book 5 stars.

Rating:
Summary: Luke warm book on PSP web graphics
Review: This is truly a great book if you want to get up to speed fast. It doesn't cover everything, but that's a GOOD thing --- no sense getting confused ahead of time! It will give you a sound base upon which you can build by reading the PSP manual or any of a number of Web resources. I think it deserves at least five stars.

Rating:
Summary: Good compliment to user manuals
Review: Very helpful with easier and more detailed instructions than the user manuals. Gave me the confidence to experiment and design my own website with Paint Shop Pro and to use animation shop. Good appendix for graphics and other websites.