Adobe Photoshop CS Classroom in a Book [Paperback]

Adobe Creative Team (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 032119375X | ISBN-13: 978-0321193759 | Publication Date: December 11, 2003

Photoshop is one of those programs that's so cool you just want to dive right in and start creating--but by plunging in head-first, without any guidance, you're likely to miss a lot. There's a solution: With this book, you learn by doing, getting your feet wet immediately as you progress through a series of hands-on projects that build on your growing Photoshop knowledge. Simple step-by-step instructions, review questions at the end of each chapter, and a companion CD with all of the book's project files make learning a breeze as the Adobe Creative Team takes you on a self-paced tour of the image-editing powerhouse. Completely revised to cover all of Photoshop CS's new features (including a new file browser, nonsquare pixel support, Layer comps for creating design variations, and more), the book starts with an introductory tour of the software and then progresses on through lessons on everything from Photoshop's interface to more complex topics like color management, Web graphics, and photo retouching.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

The Adobe Creative Team is made up of designers, writers, and editors who have extensive, real-world knowledge of and expertise in using Adobe products. They work closely with the Adobe product development teams and Adobe's Instructional Communications team to come up with creative, challenging, and visually appealing projects to help both new and more experienced users get up to speed quickly on Adobe software products.

Product Details

• Paperback: 704 pages
• Publisher: Adobe Press (December 11, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 032119375X
• ISBN-13: 978-0321193759
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.4 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (41 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #573,083 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

147 of 148 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A good starting point for unseasoned Photoshop users, January 23, 2004

By 

ghibli99 (Arizona, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Adobe Photoshop CS Classroom in a Book (Paperback)

Like many people out there, I've been using computers for decades, and while I've dabbled with Photoshop over the years to do layer-based image touch-ups, enhancements, resizes, and related simplistic tasks (making tape/CD covers, greeting cards, etc.), I've never taken the time to work through a book to learn the other features of the program.

Adobe Photoshop CS Classroom in a Book (CIAB) is a worthwhile starting point for users who know how to use their computers, but might only know how to use some of the functions of Photoshop. This book spends most of its time on layers, masks, pen tools, and webpage basics (slices, animation, and image maps).

I found the pen tool chapter to be the most useful, since I had never really understood how vector-based drawing worked, and I am now eager to learn the basics of Adobe Illustrator CS as well.

The webpage chapters are also good for those who have lots of ideas in their mind about how their webpage should look, but don't have intuitive tools to do it. ImageReady CS (included with Photoshop CS or Adobe Creative Suite) makes creating precise web graphics, image maps, etc. almost too easy.

I found several errors in the book that occur in later chapters, but none of them prevented me from completing the lessons. There are some spelling, grammatical, and formatting errors throughout the text. However, these will not prevent the average user from running into roadblocks. The biggest error occurs in Lesson 15, where the image references in the sample HTML file do not correspond with the actual image filenames. Basic HTML/text editing can fix this, but as an official Adobe product, this should have been found before duplicating the CD-ROM which accompanies this book.

Otherwise, the lessons are presented well and are very easy to follow. The text is clear and easy on the eyes. I was able to complete all 20 lessons in about 4 days. To get the most out of this book, it would be wise to complete a lesson, and then apply what you learned to your own project to help with retention of the material.

Overall, a good first step to other more in-depth texts. I'd like to see full-color in future installments, as well as more detailed descriptions on why certain selections and options are chosen. Also, I think the monitor and color calibration chapters should be moved to an earlier part of the book. It's odd that these are the last topics covered, especially since topics like levels and color correction precede it.

69 of 73 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Step-by-Step Lessons Really Help, May 6, 2004

By 

V. Maciulski - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Adobe Photoshop CS Classroom in a Book (Paperback)

In addition to the Lessons folder (which contains the art source files for 20 lessons), there is a Folder with 35 Fonts, so that you can do the lessons.

It starts by telling you how to navigate the application, such as understanding the tools and palettes, using the image browser, defining and saving work spaces, and jumping to Image Ready and back. (Photoshop comes with a powerful application for making image maps, animated GIFs, rollovers for the web, etc. Chapters 14 - 18 cover Image Ready and its Photoshop features.)

It tells you how to use the automated features for output. You can create a PDF presentation from the File Browser, save photos into a Web Gallery, make a Photo Package or a Contact Sheet.

Lesson 6 is all about masking and its many variations, such as gradient masks. Hidden in this chapter is the Extract command, showing you how to extract an image from its background.

It covers retouching and repairing photos, painting and editing, which includes blending images into a background and use of the History Palette.

Advanced layer techniques (Lesson 11) include creating clipping paths, adjustment layers, knock-out masks, importing layers from other files, using the liquify tool and more.

ThereÕs even a pretty good discussion of Camera Raw (page 64) and the stuff you should know about it.

29 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good for beginners, February 13, 2005

By 

M. A. Filippelli "Marc12074" (Roseville, CA, US) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Adobe Photoshop CS Classroom in a Book (Paperback)

PhotoShop cs classroom in a book provides new users of PhotoShop good step by step lessons and will help a user build a good PhotoShop foundation. The book covers the more basic functions of PhotoShop but does not go into some of the more detailed aspects of PhotoShop that experienced users would be looking for. It also does not really explore how to use it in conjunction with other Adobe products like Illustrator or Go Live. Those that are trying to learn how to build web pages or design ads will be disappointed by this. Those that are more advanced users of PhotoShop will be disappointed. The book never really states intended PhotoShop user ability level but it is mostly for the beginner to intermediate level user.