Dynamic Learning: Photoshop Cs3 [With DVD]

by Jennifer Smith

Dynamic Learning: Photoshop CS3 is part of the O'Reilly Dynamic Learning series, a comprehensive, integrated learning environment that combines books with video tutorials and online resources. Written... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0596510616
• ISBN13: 9780596510619
• Release Date: August 2007
• Publisher: O'Reilly Media
• Length: 349 Pages
• Weight: 1.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 7.4" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

A wealth of information

For anyone intimidated by Adobe's Photoshop CS3 mountain of information and how to approach it, there is the helpful book, DYNAMIC LEARNING PHOTOSHOP CS3, which includes video tutorials and lesson files on DVD. Dynamic Learning has a series of books, and Photoshop CS3 is easy to find, just look for the blue frog! Also included is Jennifer Smith, certified Adobe expert, who will instruct you through the thirteen DVD lessons which are explained in much greater detail in the corresponding thirteen lessons outlined in the book. System requirements for Windows or Mac, how to load the lessons and the lesson files, the importance of resetting your defaults for each chapter and everything you could possibly ever need to know is covered in careful detail. A newcomer to Photoshop could easily follow these instructions. Each and every step is explained down to the smallest detail, in a clear and concise way. I found it helpful to watch the video first, read the lesson through and then actually do the lesson in the book using all the expanded explanations. (We all know a video is worth ten thousand words.) This allowed me to set my own pace, quickly glossing over what I already knew about Photoshop and to spend more time on what was new to me. After the start up session, Dynamic Learning digs right into doing a little creation. Instead of the boring part of getting to know your way around the tools and palettes and the layout of your workspace, you get to actually do a project first. I found this interesting and a way to encourage me on to the following lessons. The tutorials are great, Ms. Smith whisks you through the lessons and a slider makes it easy to back up and go over the instructions as often as is necessary for you to grasp the concept of that lesson. Each chapter concludes with a self study project and review questions along with the answers right there where you need them. The projects reinforce what you have learned and can be fun, whether you use the provided images in the lesson files and/or substitute your own, which can make it more interesting and personal. These projects also let you evaluate how much you have learned or if you need to reconsider backtracking on the lesson. Overall, I found a wealth of information spread throughout the lessons regarding color and its importance as to how it conveys when printed, displayed on a monitor or viewed on other devices. And, if understanding color is the life blood of Photoshop, then layers is the muscle to support and manipulate it. Two lessons are devoted entirely to learning the effectiveness and value of layers. If you can master layers, you have unlimited flexibility to generate creative images, your creative images! In case anyone wants to further pursue their Dynamic Learning experience, there are resources beyond this book and DVD. Training videos and conferences are available as are in person seminars conducted by the authors of the Adobe Suite series. Inf

A great way to learn Photoshop

When you are trying to learn a program it helps to do it with short projects that give you the feeling you have accomplished a lot, and this book does just that. Even on the first few lessons you get a very good sense of accomplishment and explanations as to why you should do this or that in this particular fashion. Photoshop itself offers several different ways to accomplish tasks, and I felt that the majority of the tasks performed during the exercises were an optimized way to performed them. The language was very easy to follow and having a video to guide you for part of the lesson was very helpful.

Excellent and Practical Beginner Book

§ Of course, I cannot claim to be an excellent beginner. It will be a while before I emerge from the mediocre stage. This book and accompanying DVD are certainly helping me make progress. The thirteen lessons are well-paced for the eager beginner and the topics covered are clearly geared to practical value. The lessons are interesting and I am getting in some good practice as I progress through the 340+ pages of content. Here is what I liked about this book compared to a few other Photoshop CS3 books I have reviewed recently: 1) The new features of CS3 are treated more fully and effort is made to integrate those features into the lessons. 2) Two of the 13 lessons keep the focus on optimizing the use of layers. I think this is really important for the serious beginner. 3) The last lesson concentrates on creating images for the Web. So many new users of Photoshop are people like me, Web professionals. Quibbles: Although the videos (Flash format) are full of excellent content, the author of the book and narrator, Jennifer Smith, spoke a bit fast. I had to keep hitting pause and backing up. In addition, some steps were not vocalized and this also was cause for a pause. An ad for the book took up the left side of each video, sometimes taking space that could have been better used. This is an excellent book that I am still working through. I have no hesitation in recommending it to others. §

Enjoyable way to learn Photoshop CS3

The book gives lots of real life examples and the files in the book are on the dvd that comes with it. The videos on the dvd are a great bonus, as Jennifer Smith steps you through what's covered in the chapter - there are separate video files for each chapter. The only thing I didn't like was having to open each file separately because I wanted to watch all of the videos at the same time. I picked up a lot of really good information from this book. On my Mac I did have to unlock the files after copying them, but after that, all of the exercises worked just like in the book.

I like the approach of this book

I have ventured into Photoshop, but never really knew what I was doing. This book taught me more in the first few lessons than I learned in several years of struggling on my own. I like how the book took me into some cool new features with really clear instructions. I finally get masks and layers! I would highly recommend this book, even if you already use Photoshop.