Adobe Photoshop CS One-On-One [With CDROM]

by Deke McClelland

Photoshop is an essential, powerful, and sometimes a befuddling tool. Adobe Photoshop CS One-on-One clears the fog, taking you from graphics newbie to Photoshop warrior, under the watchful, easygoing guidance of Photoshop master Deke McClelland. This full-color book, accompanied by nearly two hours of video tutorials on CD, is an up close and personal training experience. Deke's classroom approach takes you step by step through real-world projects...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0596006187
• ISBN13: 9780596006181
• Release Date: March 2004
• Publisher: O'Reilly Media
• Length: 465 Pages
• Weight: 3.00 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 8.0" x 9.7"

Customer Reviews

Superb book for those who want to LEARN

This book rivals the Adobe "classroom in a book" titles for clear, concise coverage of features and practices. The lessons are very clear, lots of illustrations and "pearls of wisdom" throughout, and Deke doesn't talk down to you like some "guru authors." Add to this a dozen or more involved, very easy to follow, enjoyable video lessons in which Deke demonstrates the software to you. He does it in a very informal, friendly manner, as if he were in the room with you. I've seen good video training and bad, and this is most definitely GOOD. (The quality of the video performance in a decent DVD-ROM drive is amazing. Total Training does it right.) These are not quickies, either; I spent an hour and a half at Costco watching the first section of videos non-stop while my tires were rotated. =:) The disc also includes lesson files for EVERY LESSON. It's like taking a class. If you're wondering what book to get to really run you through the basics and some advanced uses of Photoshop CS2, this one's a bargain. Deke gets you into the software and learning from the get-go, and if you're the slightest bit motivated, you'll HAVE FUN. Even this Photoshop veteran learned a few new tricks, too. ;)

Excellent...

I'm not sure if I can add much to the positive reviews so far. This is an excellent text - do yourself a favor and read all the reviews.For me, I really appreciated the sidebars and "Pearls of Wisdom" scattered throughout the text. In these, the author gives quick insights like; why one tool works better than another or a keystroke reminder or a technical definition.This book does much more than just tell you how to do something, it also explains why your image changes when using the various tools. In other words, it goes beyond just getting you from A to B. There are a million different ways to get from A to B in Photoshop, so it's nice to learn a few new ones to add to my current Photoshop knowledge.I use Photoshop basically for two things. Fixing up photos I've taken with my digital camera or scanned in from the family archives and creating images for my personal web site. I found the chapters about highlights, midtones, and shadows and color correction invaluable, especially when trying to fix up some old color pictures of the family from '70s. =)Excellent book, visually pleasing, highly recommend.

Probably the best guide to Photoshop on the market

O'Reilly has a knack of publishing really excellent computer books, and this knack is continued with Adobe Photoshop CS one-on-one. The book is published with colour examples throughout, and the author, Deke McCelland, also presents an included CD of video tutorials. These complement the book superbly.The author covers the major features in Photoshop, but usefully also explains when you should you a specific feature rather than another one. For example, he usefully suggests that the 'Brightness/Contrast...' option can result in pretty awful results, and explains how to change brightness and contrast in a more satisfactory way. The result is that anyone with this book will quickly move from being an amateur user of Photoshop who just gets by, to being an expert who knows how to get the very best results.The book is very practical, and not a dry run-through of the toolbox. McClelland uses examples - like removing scratches from a scanned image or improving the focus of a photograph - that may well make the reader load up their own pictures half way through a chapter to experiment. The text is very readable, and broken up well with headings.This is quite possibily the best guide to Photoshop on the market. Highly recommended.

Stunningly beautiful and useful book...

To say I am "graphically challenged" would be an understatement. For whatever reason, I just have a hard time envisioning what I can do with images and colors. To help solve that issue, I got a copy of Adobe Photoshop CS one-on-one by Deke McClelland. In short, this book is packed.The book is organized into the following 12 lessons: Open and Organize; Highlights, Midtones, and Shadows; Correcting Color Balance; Making Selections; Crop, Straighten, and Size; Paint, Edit, and Heal; Creating and Applying Masks; Adjusting Focus; Building Layered Compositions; Text and Shapes; Layer Styles and Adjustments; and Printing and Output.Each lesson starts out with an "About This Lesson" page, which gives you an idea of what you're going to cover. It ends with a "What Did You Learn?" exercise where you match the concept with the description. And in between is the excellent material on how to do what it is that's being covered. Interspersed throughout the text are "Pearls Of Wisdom" which are short 5 to 10 line sidebars that explain a concept or a slant on the material that you may not have realized. And McClelland doesn't just explain how to do things, either. He goes into the concepts behind how graphics and color work, such as how to read a histogram or the difference between 8 vs. 16 bits per channel. So when you get done with the book, you should have a greater understanding and appreciation for the art of graphical manipulation.But you're not done yet. The book comes with a CD that includes video lessons that follow along with the book, as well as the files you'll need to do the exercises. Unlike most CDs that are included in a book, this is one that actually enhances the value of the material instead of just allowing the publisher or author to charge more for stuff you may never look at.On the aesthetic side of things, the book is really stunning. High-quality paper and beautiful colors on the examples. The only flaw I can mention is that my copy must have gotten a bad batch of paper at the printers. A small number of pages are flawed (ingrained folds) and a couple of the graphic screen shots are blurred to the point of not being able to read the text. Even with that, there is nothing that takes away from the usefulness and quality of this effort.If you use Photoshop and want to learn how to utilize it to the fullest, you owe it to yourself to check out this book.