Photoshop CS / CS2 Wow! Book

by Linnea Dayton

Ever since Photoshop version 2.5,The Photoshop Wow! Bookhas enlightened and inspired graphic designers, illustrators, and photographers around the globe. This newest edition delivers the familiar... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0321213459
• Release Date: October 2006
• Publisher: Peachpit Pr
• Length: 792 Pages
• Weight: 4.15 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 1.8" x 7.5"

Customer Reviews

Packed to the Brim with Information for Users at all Levels

I can remember a time not too long ago when the first reaction I would have had to a book as large as this one, which has 800 pages, would be that the book must have mostly black and white illustrations with just a small center section of color images. Today, this assumption would be wrong. Linnea Dayton and Cristen Gillespie have beautifully color-illustrated this book throughout and have packed it to the brim with great information for Photoshop users at all levels. Of course, if you have been using Photoshop for a while or have one or more of the many Photoshop related books, you will probably recognize some of the information in the book. But even so, this book will serve as a major resource to answer just about any question you have. And, those who are just discovering the popular Adobe Photoshop software are lucky to have a book such as this at their side from the start. Most Photoshop related books have one purpose or goal. This purpose may be to present a collection of "tips", a series of tutorials or a gallery of projects created by today's professional artists as a source of inspiration. This book has all that and more for both the CS and CS2 versions of Photoshop. However, when a technique or feature is specific to only the latest version, the authors clearly indicate this and you are not left confused. What I appreciated about this book is that, although it has a lot of information for the photographer and photo related projects, there were also whole chapters dedicated to digital painting, web and animation. Not surprisingly, the book begins with a "What's New in Photoshop CS/CS2?" section and then covers the Photoshop basics. The rest of the book contains chapters dedicated to using digital color in Photoshop, enhancing and correcting photographs, digital painting, type and vector graphics, styles and FX effects, project production, web, video and animation. Each chapter has several sidebar sections such as the "Find Out More" section which gives page numbers for other parts of the book that have information related to that chapter's topic. I especially found the "Secrets of the Universe Revealed" section useful. For example, in the Painting chapter, the well known digital artist, Cher Threinen-Pendarvis, shares her technique for creating a color palette and image composition from a reference photograph. You will also find each chapter's Gallery and accompanying overviews of the artist's creative techniques very interesting and inspirational. As I mentioned, my favorite chapter was dedicated to digital painting and covers several digital painting techniques including how to simulate painting with watercolors over scanned line art, a wet-on-wet technique with Photoshop's Smudge brush, and painting with the Pattern Stamp and Art History brushes. The DVD contains before and after example files for the tutorials in the book as well as a collection of preset tools, actions, styles, textures, patterns, gradients and effects. I found t

Fantastic Book !!!

I own several books about Photoshop (in English and in French) and this one is really the best and the most useful I ever read.. Every tip is detailled and let you discover the infinite potential of this software. The sample pictures are included in the Dvd Rom companion; then you can reproduce the exercices before playing with your own files. a very clever book, not for the just beginner, but really understable indeed... Je possède beaucoup de livres sur Photoshop, aussi bien en langue anglaise ou française mais celui ci est certainement le meilleur et le plus utile que je n'ai jamais lu. Chaque astuce est très détaillée et nous laisse découvrir le potentiel illimité de ce logiciel. Les fichiers examples sont inclus sur le dvd Rom et vous pouvez ainsi reproduire les examples du livres avant d'expérimenter avec vos propres fichiers. Un livre très intélligent, pas forcément destiné aux vrais débutants mais il est cependant facile d'accès.

A Brilliant Photoshop book

Congratulations to Linnea Dayton for making this version of Photoshop WOW the best ever. I would definitely choose this as the one book I would take to a desert island with my MacBook Pro. While not for beginners, everyone who is reasonably comfortable with Photoshop will find this book invaluable. The organization is superb and almost every topic imaginable is easy to find and demonstrated with clarity and precision. This is truly "everything you ever wanted to know about Photoshop." Dazzling!

Something for everyone who uses Photoshop

I, too, have complained in this forum about the constant delays in the publication dates of this book. But when it finally came out, I decided to get it and I'm glad I did. The book is not written expressly for one type of Photoshop user anymore than Photoshop is designed for just one type of user. It runs the gamut from photographers and retouchers of all levels of expertise; web designers (primarily of entry and intermediate level); designers working in different types of media and others who use text and text effects for their work; artists who use PS to create original work or modify photos to simulate artistic effects--to name just a few. Obviously, there are some parts of the book that do not relate to me, but that is to be expected in an almost 800 page book. But the parts that do apply to me and that I have scanned through today are exceptionally clear, well-written and well-illustrated. Not just with the before and after photo, but with the sequence of steps in between. Each tool, filter, palette, dialog, setting,and process is explained in a way that the new user will understand and the old user will still find informative and helpful. I've learned things I didn't know, realized things I should have known (but didn't), have been reminded of things I once knew and forgot, and have been shown to use alternate or easier methods than those I've been using. Another common complaint of persons who, like me, keep up with tutorials, read books and magazines on the subject, and are otherwise submerged in the subject of PS, is the repetition and recycling of lessons and illustrations. I am happy to say that an unusually high percentage of this book is un-recycled material (there are a few familiar illustrations in it, but VERY few). A quick glance at the cd reveals that it contains an assortment of actions, presets, and styles that many people will find useful in addition to chapter-by-chapter supplemental material for those who are using the book to study or practice techniques. From this assortment, I am likely to be interested in the brushes and one or two presets, but the point is that there is something there for everyone and it comes free with the book, so why not enjoy it. At first glance, the index seems adequate. Every broad subject seems to be well covered. However, I'm a little weary because, in a book of this length and with such a broad scope, a 16-page index seems a bit short. I haven't tried to find the solution to one of those strange PS issues that sometimes confound me. But, if its not in the index, this is a pretty big book to try to plod your way through looking for some obscure detail you know is there somewhere. While, a large part of the book does not apply to me, I would have bought it simply for the colorizing black and white photos section. I have purchased several books on the subject of "hand-painted" photographs and all of them put together have not provided the photoshop-specific scope and detail that this b