Customer Reviews

Adobe Creative Suite 5 Design Premium All-in-One For Dummies

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This book is essential for someone who owns the Creative Suite for Designers. If you have had it before, it brings you up to date on the changes and additions to each individual program. If, like me, you've owned individual programs in the suite but never the entire suite, it gives you a general overview of the purposes and capabilities of each individual program, and an idea of how to make the Suite work together seamlessly and in an intelligently coordinated manner.

The initial overview serves to:

* define the scope of each program

* help you set Suite-wide preferences for color management, etc.,

* familiarizes you with elements of the user interface, concepts like layers, shortcuts, and menus that are common to all programs,

* shows you how to move the same file from program to program or work with files created in another Suite application

* and just generally points out ways to work more efficiently.

From there, you proceed to program-specific details on each of the seven component programs. Each program is given sufficient attention that you become familiar with its capabilities, interface, and very general usage instructions for common tasks. This overview or introduction covers the important features and is sufficient to make you feel comfortable in the workspace and eager to experiment, but is not a substitute for a book that goes into more depth and specifics on the type of work that you plan to do with an individual program.

Looking over the programs I know fairly well (Photoshop, Dreamweaver, and Acrobat), I found the information to be both general and relevant to all types of users. In Photoshop, for example, which has two constituencies (the photographer and the designer) both needs were well covered. Since this is the first time that I have owned Photoshop Extended, I appreciated the introduction to those features. The coverage of the other two is equally good and, since I was upgrading from several versions back, I really benefited for the review and update.

I was vaguely familiar with both InDesign and Illustrator and had often seen other people work with them. I found that the explanations were very understandable and sufficient to allow me to create a basic document in either, but not a complex project. (Both these programs have steep learning curves).

Flash and Fireworks were two programs I've even never seen used. I now understand them enough to know that I'll probably never need Flash (thank goodness!) but I really should get to know Fireworks better. I'm actively getting familiar with the program and I can understand the explanations given and the concepts involved since it intersects so well with both Photoshop and Dreamweaver. The instructions in this book are sufficient to get me started and keep me entertained for a while.

So, all in all, I'm delighted to have gotten the book. It is fact-oriented, not project-oriented. It is not aimed at the professional who has been working with all these programs for a long time, but anyone else (from beginner to strong intermediate) will benefit from the coordinated overview. Sure, it's possible to just play around with the programs until you figure them out (or, at least, those parts you actually need), but there is no substitute for laying a good groundwork of basic skills and practical knowledge about each program and a clear and up-to-date overview of where everything fits in.

I was pleasantly surprised and genuinely impressed by the amount of information I was able to learn about CS5 from reading this book. Its huge! A great deal for the price. I admittedly knew nothing about the design premium when I purchased this book. The authors do a great job at presenting this material for a `dummy'. The setup and direction of the book makes it easy to follow along from start to finish. I would recommend this to any beginner looking for an great overview of the features of Adobe's Design Premium CS5.

I couldn't have asked for more out of this book! Since I am a complete beginner in all Adobe creative suite products, I was surprised at the books ability to walk me through the basics as well as teach the new features that are introduced in the CS5 version - and pack it into just 1 book. This book covers a lot of ground (InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop, Acrobat 9, Dreamweaver, Flash, and Fireworks) while keeping it simple enough for "Dummies".

I do not hestitate to recommend this book to a beginner, intermediate or to someone with more advanced skills; the Creative Suite 5 Design Premium all-in-one for Dummies is a valuable resource. I will definitely keep this book handy - I plan to use it as a reference guide until I become an expert with the programs.

This book covers everything you need to know without reading like a 1st grader's textbook. It also doesn't assume what you know or that you've ever used the previous versions of the software and covers the necessary points with the perfect amount of detail. I found the tips and tricks that are sprinkled throughout the chapter to be extremely helpful and I have a much better grasp of how to accomplish my goals when using any of CS5. I highly recommend this book- even a seasoned pro might discover some features that they weren't aware of.

When you spend so much for the CS5 Suite, you want to know how to use it, and all the features it has to offer. This manual is not only a good guide on how to make things happen effectively, but is pretty funny in its approach to making the user smarter on the entire CS5 product. Jennifer Smith, Christopher Smith, and Fred Gerantabee should be proud of themselves for doing their homework and realizing that the CS5 Suite software doesn't come with enough guidance to utilize effectively by your basic designing software novice without further instruction. Adobe should include this book free of charge with the CS5 suite!!!

We orderd this late Monday night and it was on the doorstep Wednesday afternoon! Nice job Amazon.....

A nice compendium to have on hand for use with CS5 Deign Premium. It saved me several times when taking an online Illustrator class for which I was forced to use the "Classroom in a Box". Vastly superior to "Classroom" because it's priced right and indexed very well. As Dummies books go, it's very good. Highly recommended. My 14 year-old uses it as well!

This book helps explain different applications that the digital classroom does not get into detail about. Recommended along with Digital Classroom.

Seem to pick up this book at least once a week. Great tips and great explanations of each CS5 product.

I am not a graphic designer or big user of the Adobe software but I use it occasionally and found that this book was great for getting me up quickly and helping me use the software. I found that the instructor was clear and simply stated so even a novice like me could get going and produce some nice projects very quickly.

When I looked to see what else was available from these authors, I found that they have a many more books with video and lesson files on DVD, which I cannot wait to try out. Look for another review from me on one or more of their books under the series name Digital Classroom.

This was helpful to learn the newest features of CS5 and some great short cuts I didn't know existed. Worth the price...and a great reference. I keep mine right next to my PC.