Adobe Photoshop CS3 One-On-One
Dynamic Learning: Photoshop CS3
Book Review

By Dale Farris, Reviews Coordinator Golden Triangle PC Club August 2007 The always reliable O'Reilly folks have again hit the mark with these new titles that provide super advice and key tips on how to use Adobe's new Photoshop CS3. Long recognized as the pre-eminent image editor program, Adobe's Photoshop CS3 is the latest edition of this program that in addition to being the image editor of choice among professionals, also may be one of the most difficult of programs to learn. Novices to image editing programs are strongly urged to get professional help when first learning how to use Photoshop, because of the program's inherent complexity. As you would expect with any high end software program, the more features and power built into an application, the more difficult the program is to learn, which is certainly the case with Photoshop. In addition, with this latest CS3 edition, Photoshop has now been on the market for many, many years, and in these many editions, the program continues to build still more features and power into its capabilities. For serious professionals well experienced with Photoshop, working with its latest, newest edition becomes more easy over time, because moving to yet another new edition merely represents for them a slight learning curve as they adjust to the new features and find their standard features. However, for anyone brand new to Photoshop, starting in with this latest, newest CS3 edition might just require serious professional help. The means by which users find help with Photoshop CS3, or any new version of any software application, include one-on-one professional help right at their workstations, training sessions in a training center, online help videos and tutorials, training guides and books, and of course the guided and paced environment of the formal structured classroom. When choosing books to help you learn a software application, there are of course quite a few options, but when books are considered, you can always look to the folks at O'Reilly to deliver super books that are better than most. O'Reilly has for many years provided the computer market with savvy, solid books on all things computer, and these 2 books on Photoshop CS3 will likely command attention. Dynamic Learning Photoshop CS3 ISBN 10: 0-596-51061-6 ISBN 13: 978-0-596-51061-9 Authors Jennifer Smith and AGI (Aquent Graphics Institute) Creative Team About the Authors Jennifer Smith, co-founder and Executive Vice President of the Aquent Graphics Institute www.agitraining.com, a subsidiary of Aquent www.aquent.com, has been working in electronic publishing for over two decades, and is widely regarded as one of the foremost authorities in electronic publishing and design. She has authored a number of books on print and Internet publishing, including the Adobe Creative Suite for Dummies (CS and CS2), Adobe Illustrator Classroom in a Book (CS and CS2), GoLive CS2 Classroom in a Book, and Sam's Teach Yourself Adobe GoLive in 24 Hours. Most recently, she has helped author much of Adobe’s internal training for the Creative Suite 3 launch. AGI, now an Aquent service offering, provides software training, consulting, and support services to professionals and creative organizations. For more than a decade, creative and marketing organizations have relied upon AGI to help them and their employees better use technology. Whether providing customized training solutions to ten or ten thousand employees or assisting with consulting and implementation services, AGI has the depth, experience, and approach to help you and your team. The Aquent Graphics Institute (AGI) training team www.agitraining.com is a highly experienced group of authors and instructors with a strong track record for developing and delivering best-of-breed books, video content, seminar series, and conferences. Learn more about Aquent Graphics Institute by visiting www.agitraining.com. Book Contents 360 Pages; Tons of glossy, full-color photographs; Step-by-step instructions; Fully functional files on accompanying DVD that follow all the lessons; Index DVD Resources The Dynamic Learning Photoshop CS3 Digital Classroom DVD is included with the book and is loaded with useful information, video tutorials that accompany each lesson, and the lesson files that you will need to complete the exercises contained in the book. The videos contain 13 video tutorials, one for each of the 13 lessons covered in the book. The DVD lessons contain the files used for each lesson, there are also many extra resources to learn more about Photoshop CS3. The included video tutorials play on both Windows and Mac machines, using the free Adobe Flash player. Publishing Date July 2007 Price $44.99 This is really a bargain, when considering the massive amount of time and energy the authors spent in organizing and creating this book, and especially because this priced includes the DVD disc. Table of Contents Lesson 1 - What's New in Adobe Photoshop CS2? Lesson 2 - Exploring Adobe Photoshop CS3 Lesson 3 - Getting to Know the Workspace Lesson 4 - Using Adobe Bridge Lesson 5 - The Basics of Photoshop CS3 Lesson 6 - Creating a Good Image Lesson 7 - Making the Best Selections Lesson 8 - Painting and Retouching Lesson 9 - Getting to Know Layers Lesson 10 - Taking Layers to the Max Lesson 11 - Using Smart Objects Lesson 12 - Using Adobe Photoshop Filters Lesson 13 - Creating Images for Web and Video Adobe Photoshop CS3 One-On-One ISBN 10: 0-596-52975-9 ISBN 13: 978-0-596-52975-8 Author Deke McClelland About the Author Electronic publishing pioneer Deke McClelland is a popular lecturer on Adobe Photoshop and the larger realm of computer graphics and design. He has hosted the interactive "Video Workshop" CD that shipped with Photoshop Versions 7, CS, and CS2, as well as hundreds of hours of tutorial-style video training for industry leaders lynda.com and Total Training. In addition to his video work, Deke has written 84 books translated into 24 languages, with more than 4 million copies in print. One of the most award-winning writers in the technology market, Deke received the Benjamin Franklin Award for Best Computer Book in 1989. Since then, he has garnered more than 20 honors, including seven independent citations from the Computer Press Association. In 2002, he was inducted into the Photoshop Hall of Fame. In 2004 Deke created the One-on-One book series, which uses video, step-by-step exercises, and hundreds of full-color illustrations to provide readers with the closest thing possible to private instruction from a recognized expert. These ambitious, self-paced guides include the bestselling Adobe Photoshop CS2 One-on-One and Adobe InDesign CS2 One-on-One. Late in 2006 Deke teamed up with vanguard online training company lynda.com to bring the One-on-One training strategy to a line of video products, beginning with Photoshop CS3 Beta One-on-One Preview, the first series available for the public beta of Photoshop CS3. In addition to the full 20-plus hour Photoshop CS3 One-on-One, his plans include Illustrator One-on-One and InDesign One-on-One. Among Deke’s current lynda.com videos are Photoshop Elements 5 Essentials and the #1 ranked Photoshop CS2 Channels and Masks (available for immediate viewing at www.lynda.com/deke). Deke is an Adobe Certified Expert, a member of the PhotoshopWorld Instructor Dream Team, and a regular speaker for the Photoshop Fling cruise seminars. Deke lives in Boulder, Colorado with his wife and two super-powered boys. Book Contents 544 Pages; Tons of glossy, full-color photographs; Step-by-step instructions; Fully functional files on accompanying DVD that follow all the lessons; Index DVD Resources All the sample files required to perform the exercises in the book are included on the DVD ROM disc. The DVD also contains the video lessons, and will only work with a computer, not a DVD set-top player device. The author also states that every minute of the nearly 3 hours of video on the DVD is unique to this book, and none have been excerpted from any of his full-length video series. These high-quality tutorial videos have been edited and produced by the trailblazing online training company lynda.com, and these video lessons are not traditional DVD movies. These play at resolutions as high as 880 by 660 pixels and every pixel updates at the same rate. The result is a high-quality, legible screen image and the movies play smoothly, even on "older-model" computers. Publishing Date June 2007 Price $49.99 This is really a bargain, when considering the massive amount of time and energy the authors spent in organizing and creating this book, and especially because this priced includes the DVD disc. Table of Contents Lesson 1 - Open and Organize Lesson 2 - Highlights, Midtones, and Shadows Lesson 3 - Correcting Color Balance Lesson 4 - Making Selections Lesson 5 - Crop, Straighten, and Size Lesson 6 - Paint, Edit, and Heal Lesson 7 - Creating and Applying Masks Lesson 8 - Focus and Filters Lesson 9 - Building Layered Compositions Lesson 10 - Text and Shapes Lesson 11 - Styles and Specialty Layers Lesson 12 - Printing and Output Target Readers These super training books provide impressive hands-one assistance as you learn the features of Adobe Photoshop CS3. Each book is filled with numerous full-color, glossy photographs that help guide you through the steps of using the Photoshop tools, and each book also has a very impressive DVD disc filled with video tutorials and all the files used in the lessons covered in each book. Each book is also a valuable learning resource that will well serve the needs of the formal, structured classroom, as well as assist self-paced individual learners. However, as many readers know, for those brand new to Photoshop, learning how to use the software is no simple matter, and these Photoshop first-timers are advised to get personal assistance or enroll in a structured classroom as they embark for the first time into the world of Photoshop. Students enrolled in academic training curriculum will likely have many prerequisite computer literacy skills, and possibly some experience with Photoshop, and these students will certainly appreciate the approach of these 2 books in learning Photoshop. Each book has been designed around clearly defined, highly structured, steps that will carefully take you through the lessons. This results in a very useful classroom text for classes in Photoshop that will appeal to most all Photoshop instructors. The accompanying DVD disc contains all the files used in the lessons covered in each book, so students can easily follow along with the lessons. Each chapter also contains an end-of-chapter review that includes review questions and answers, along with a suggested self-study review of the key points covered in the lessons. Each book also contains an impressive array of screen shots that have been well integrated into the text of the work, and the attention to detail in organizing the tedious step-by-step approach is amazing. This means these authors have invested tons more time in creating and organizing the book than would otherwise be expected if they were compiling a book that contained only text. The capturing of the countless screen shots and the intensive preparation of the detailed instructions result in superb learning resources that students will greatly appreciate. In addition, the accompanying DVD video tutorials are very impressive and greatly help in further understanding the material covered in the lessons, and the DVD discs alone are worth the investment in these awesome books. While each of these books provide similar quality, the title by Jennifer Smith and the AGI Creative Team may provide a better first look at Photoshop CS3 for classroom purposes, while the title by Deke McClelland covers more of the more obscure, difficult to use features and thus may better serve students with a little more computer skills or even those who may have already started learning Photoshop CS3. Also, as long-time, experienced Photoshop users know, in order to fully maximize all the features, tools, and power of Photoshop, this likely would require more than one book. So, each of these 2 books, as good as they are, really do provide a sound, strong beginning approach to Photoshop, and students who master the material in either of these 2 books will be well on their way to earning a living working with Photoshop in their preferred career of choice. Publisher Contact Marsee Henon marsee@oreilly.com O'Reilly & Associates, Inc. 1005 Gravenstein Highway North Sebastopol, California 95472 707-827-7000 800-998-9938 FAX 707-829-0104 www.oreilly.com