Photoshop 5 Bible

Rating:
Summary: a comprehensive book, but could be much better written
Review: All books on computer software can generally be divided in two groups: manuals, which describe all features of the program in a condensed (encyclopedic) form, and tutorials, which guide the readers through a sequence of steps to teach them how to perform either basic or advanced functions. Good manuals are concise, accurate, and comprehensive. They can be used over and over again to look up the necessary function or keyboard shortcut. Tutorials are usually wordy, cover only selected functions of the program, but frequently go far beyond the basics by showing examples how to achieve non-trivial effects. A large number of exercises is a must for a tutorial.

The problem of "Photoshop Bible" is that although this book is essentially a manual, it is written in the wordy style of a tutorial; on the other hand, it is not quite up to the standards of tutorials either. It is a manual because with a very few exceptions it only discusses the functions and applications of each single menu item of Photoshop. To be fair, I must admit that this it is done on a very detailed level, which makes this book one of the most information-filled and comprehensive guides on Photoshop. I was truly impressed by the author's level of knowledge and experience with Photoshop. The problem is that the book is not particularly reader-friendly: it takes enormous effort and time to digest and memorize all those practical tips and tricks offered by Deke McClelland. There are reasons for that. To begin with, the book is poorly organized. The first 300 pages or so are mostly useless and deserve to be in the appendix. I bet that 95% of average Photoshop users will never see pantone swatches, will never try duotone printing, and will not spent any significant time importing all these graphics formats that Photoshop can read. Recording scripts and 15-page-long table of shortcuts probably should not be on the first pages, either. Nonetheless, all this stuff takes the first third of the book. One can easily get bored before getting to the real stuff. Another thing that bugged me a lot are tutorial files. The books comes with a CD-ROM, and it does contain some tutorial files, but they are very well hidden in the directory structure among other pieces or Photoshop artwork. Furthermore, neither their names nor the folder name suggest that they are tutorials. I discovered them accidentally when I was on the page 400 or so. Apparently, the author's idea was that the readers should realize what kind of fools they are only at the very end since the first page where these tutorial files are mentioned is the LAST page of the text. About 800 preceding pages NEVER mention a single name of a tutorial file, and it is up to the reader to figure out whether a particular picture is included as a file, what the name of this file is, and where to find it on the disk. The fact that all files need type and color space conversion, and that their resolution appears to be much higher than the one use by the author, so if the book says "feature the selection by 2 pixels", you should probably go for 10 to reach a similar effect, only adds to the confusion. The bootom line is that even if you find and use all tutorial files on the CD-ROM, they are still not sufficient to learn everything by doing. I spent 6 weeks reading this book every evening, I learned a lot, but I got overwhelmed to an even greater extent.

My personal opinion: The author probably spent at least a year putting this huge book together. He has done a great work, but he left it unfinished. Had he spent another month rearranging the chapters and preparing the tutorial files and practical exercises to meet the readers expectations (and the standards of computer literature), it would be a fantastic book. In its present form, I am not sure that it is worth spending your money, and most important, your time. This book dumps lots of data on you, but does not help you much to learn it.

Rating:
Summary: middle-of-the-road
Review: Good solid first years with photoshop book. One of those large bookshelf books you find yourself going back to clear up niggles. Its a bit difficult for absolute beginners because of its size and price, neverless it is a long term investment.Photoshop is a hands on intuitive thing and in this book its easy enough to find what you want when your intuition fails you.The real pearls are the artist interviews. This takes it beyond a textbook to an inspirational tool that shows a photographer a graphic artists mind and vice versa. The interviews can be light reading or tutorials depending on your mood or situation.The cds will appeal to those that like cds with books though its easy enough to work with your own pictures and a little commonsense. There are plenty of plug in demos to try for people who dont know about third party tools.Also the real hidden gem is the fact that the author has made available the update to photoshop bible 5.5 in acrobat format, this upgrades this book for free,minus the cost of a 10 mb download.Overall essential.

Rating:
Summary: Excllent
Review: Hello. i am Nitin from INDIA(DELHI). I am very impress with this book could u plz tell me the time frame of delivery, price and also type of payment.. plz send me information on this address ([e-mail]) thank you.

Rating:
Summary: Let's do Justice to this Wonderful Hardcover
Review: I've used Photoshop for some time now, and speaking strictly personally of my skill level, I consider myself slightly below the Intermediate mark (By the way, I wrote this review after I've finished reading just the beginning four chapters of the book, well, thought you'd want to know). I've come across several Photoshop books before, most noticeably from Adobe Press & IDG. Photoshop 5 Bible GOLD EDITION is the book that stands out among the rest. It covers almost any topic in Photoshop (Retouching, Masking, Layers, Channels, Paths, Special Effects, Color Management, even customizing your very own filters), and in a very detailed manner. The author, Deke McClelland had done an amazing job by putting in his opinions, tricks, and humor into the book. As a result, it's as much fun editing images in Photoshop as reading the book itself! The book is thick (and heavy), which indicate that there is abundant information for every question you might have regarding Photoshop. Furthermore, the 270 of full color artwork printed on glossy paper are truly a sight to behold. It covers the spectacular real-world digital masterpieces done by top graphic artists in the world today, complete with descriptions and tips. The artwork is so good, that it provide a good source of inspiration and ideas on image editing and computer graphics in particular. There are 36 chapters divided into 10 broad parts. GOLD EDITION begins with four chapters covering the fundamentals of using Photoshop. These chapters also dig so deep into covering all the file formats that Photoshop can handle, following by Basic Color Management, and then on Printing. One can't help but marvel at the amount of information waiting to be discovered, page-by-page, chapter-by-chapter. The descriptions are easy to follow, supported with lots of pictures from both platforms (Macs and Windows). Luckily, Deke always go into the effort of explaining why a certain steps have to be taken and occasionally, showing you what kinds of tools work best in different situations. And it doesn't end there. There is a Photoshop 5.5 supplement included somewhere in the middle of the GOLD EDITION. It's a real bonus as it provides additional (and invaluable) information regarding Photoshop 5.5. Although there is a free version of the supplement lurking somewhere in the Web, the file is approximately 10 Megabytes. Just think how long you will have to wait for it to download with a regular modem. The supplement covers most of the new features of Photoshop 5.5 like the Extract command, the new eraser tools, namely the Background and the Magic eraser, Contact Sheets, and also ImageReady 2.0 which is included as a package with Photoshop 5.5. And it doesn't end there either. Photoshop 5 Bible GOLD EDITION comes with two CD-ROMs, which is cross platform, meaning you can use it with a Mac or a Windows PC. Inside the CD-ROMs contain many third-party plug-ins which you can use with Photoshop, although some of them are shareware. Additionally, there are many artworks, stock photographs, and also some picture from the book, which the readers can use it to follow along with the tutorials. If that's not enough, there are also additional chapters stored in the second CD-ROM, now it's really information overload. No? Then check out the bonus articles (also stored in the second CD). There, you will find many interesting articles and invaluable tips and tricks, which further enhance your pleasure in using Photoshop. As a matter of facts, if you didn't get anything out of this book, then you'll never get anything from Photoshop itself. To sum it up, this book is the most awe-inspiring book I've ever feasted my eyes on. It got everything, and by the time you finished reading this book, you'll be no less an expert. I'm really proud to be the owner of the Photoshop 5 Bible GOLD EDITION, yeah!!

Rating:
Summary: Photoshop 5 Bible
Review: The layout and content of the book are logical and comprehensive. The book covers from the very basics of photoshop commands to more advance stuff such as layering, paths, selections, masks, filtering, and customizing your very own filters. The book is easy to read. Instructions are clear and supported with lots of illustrations. I found a lot of other Photoshop book (including the ones from Adobe Press) sometimes do not give the why's and it frustrates me. Whereas Deke McClelland always explain the underlying reasons why for using certain methods/filters and the dosage of applications. This means to say once you understand the why of doing things, you can apply the same principle to other situations. I use Photoshop daily and I've read this book through from cover to cover. Still I'm re-reading certain chapters and find something new to learn. All in all, this is a very informative and fun to read reference book.

Rating:
Summary: Photoshop catechism guide maybe, but not a bible.
Review: This is a good book and covers a lot of the basics of Photoshop 5. If you are looking for a book that goes over all of the details of Photoshop 5, this might be the book for you. However, it doesn't really seem to be all that good at providing simple steps for completing cool images that Photoshop can do. I guess I when a book claims to be the Bible for a program, I expected a little more. Again, the book is very good, it just doesn't seem to be a Bible of information.

Rating:
Summary: Use this with other references
Review: This is a great book full of ideas and great pictures. Don't use it on it's own though but with other references to get full benefit of the software.

Rating:
Summary: A bit below average
Review: This is just my personal opinion - It's a bit to too thick on account of "fat paper". It rambles and digresses. It redigests the owner's manual. I found the Peachpit press books more concise (and lighter). You might think portability wouldn't be an issue, but it is. No one wants to carry around a doorstop unless it has relevance. One might think that a book geared toward a graphic design application might have some design sense. One who thinks in such a way as it relates to this book would be disappointed, because the page design is hideous. Very cheap printing. Oh, and overpriced. That's also key. Not recommended.