Customer Reviews

Adobe Photoshop Cs4 One-On-One

5 star:		(30)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

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Photoshop can be a big bundle of frustration to learn. Adobe makes a powerful tool but then seemingly blocks our ability to summon that power by hiding it in some way. This hide-and-seek game is unappealing for those of us who need to use Photoshop as one of many tools we must master to earn our daily bread.

There is fantastic value in this book because of the way the material is organized and presented. You are definitely going to learn something when you can read the material, watch the material and practice the material as it comes at you in these well-paced lessons.

There is something more here too: as you can tell from Deke McClelland's "Ten New Features" on this Amazon page, the author's knowledge is matched by his advocacy and his ability to convey a fresh perspective and irreverence that prods your thinking.

Physically, the book is richly illustrated and opens flat, just perfect for the "read, watch, do" format.

As I discovered with McClelland's book on the CS3 version [ Adobe Photoshop CS3 One-On-One ], the instructional videos on the accompanying DVD included an astounding amount of information. There is incredible content here. The video material does not repeat the written instruction -- it complements it. That is 5 hours of personal class time at your convenience with one of the best instructors out there!

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There are plenty of PS (Photoshop) books out there; most are good. The problem is picking the right one.

Certain things are essential. High quality printing. Easy to follow examples and tutorials. Logical flow (simple to complex).

Then, it has to match and be just slightly better than the reader's current capabilities. Just as a beginner would get lost in an advanced book (like Deke's Channels and Masks) and an advanced reader would find an introductory book a waste of money, middle level PS users need to find just the right book for their current skill set.

For me, this book was a perfect fit. Photography (and digital darkroom work) are a hobby that takes 10-15 hours a week. I like to learn new tricks and techniques. I like to learn ways to work faster and smarter. This book helped me with that on all points.

First, some advice: The first chapter has a series of settings and shortcuts that Deke uses and that he recommends. Follow this chapter carefully; it will make the tutorials that follow easier to work through. You can always reset things later if his workflow isn't the best for you.

Aside from that, the book starts out with a recommendation to watch the video (there's a high quality video for each chapter that shows him working through the techniques. It is an overview and not meant as a stop-start-follow-along tutorial. Then, he recommends reading the text first, followed by editing the sample pictures that match the tutorials.

I did just that and even did them again so that they'd become natural for me. After that, I went back to some of my own inventory of images and worked the steps on them -- and often wound up with better end results that I had previously achieved. (Perhaps that's the best measure of a book like this.)

Nothing is perfect, and I do have a few minor wishes.

1. A much better index.
2. A summary of the tips at the end of each chapter
3. A few blank pages at the end of each chapter or at the end of the book for jotting down notes.
4. Some advice on when to use Bridge (comes with PS) vs Lightroom (a separate but more robust product).

In summary, it really felt like Deke was sitting there giving me personalized training at my own pace.

This book is a great value. You not only get a high quality book but you get a DVD with several lessons. I was delighted with the DVD as the screen shots are very high resolution and very readable. There are several very good Photoshop experts out there, however, no one is more entertaining than Deke. The book is more of a tutorial than a "Bible" type book. If you upgraded from CS3 to CS4, Deke goes over several of the new features. This was especially valuable to me since I have been using Photoshop for several years. I have purchased numerous Photoshop and Adobe books. This is one of the best out there.

It seems like Photoshop has been around since the first personal computer, well not that long but close. Photoshop is the most widely used photo/image editing tool on the planet and used by professional and amateurs world wide. So there are so many books on Photoshop that it is hard to figure out which one is right for you.

This book by far is the most easy to understand book I have ever read. The color illustrations and screenshots are beautiful and very helpful, the writing is concise and to the point, and the added 4 HOURS of Lynda.com videos make it perfect.

Now this is a book that is geared towards Photoshop beginners or people who need to upgrade their skills from older versions of Photoshop.

Deke McClelland is a great author and has wrote many Photoshop books but this latest version really is a winner.

He goes into detail of all the skills that somebody who wants to master Photoshop would want to learn such as correcting color balance, applying masks, using filters, building layered compositions, and printing output with commercial reproduction.

Each chapter is taught like a lesson from a classroom and you can pick and choose what part you want to begin so you dont have to always start at the beginning.

Just the 4 free hours of included video tutorials is worth the price of the book.

A great buy and worth every penny.

Adobe's Photoshop has always made me feel a little like Dorothy in Oz. Deke McClelland manages to take the "Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!" feeling out of it. From the navigation of files with Adobe Bridge to printing, this book walks you easily through the program. It provides an honest look at Photoshop CS4 covering changes from the CS3 release as well as a good general overview of the program.
The book is lesson based and each chapter is prefaced by a video lesson complementing the chapter. The DVD that comes with the book includes both these video tutorials as well as files to complete the lessons. Deke also shares his set up of Photoshop and includes things such as his keystroke shortcuts and custom colors. This insures that your program looks exactly the same as what is in the book. In each lesson you have the choice of working quickly through the highlights of the program or taking your learning experience a step further by working through the "Extra Credit" portions. The explanations not only cover what you are to do but also why. The "Pearls of Wisdom" scattered throughout the book provide information that while not needed to complete a lesson provide a deeper understanding of the subject matter.
This book is well enough organized for a beginner to use yet has enough insight into the program for seasoned photo editors to find it a good learning tool. Deke McClelland certainly shines as a Photoshop expert. I would recommend this book to anyone looking to better their skills.Adobe Photoshop CS4 One-on-One

this book is very useful if you are an entry level CS4 user and need some pratical exercises that guide you step by step and help you to learn the tool. the exercises are well structured but very rigid too... they need to be followed step by step without deviations... so if you want to venture off the path... well... you are pretty much on your own. still rated 4 because it is still good as initial learner.

In typical DekeMcClelland style, the step-by-step descriptions are detailed, understandable, and precise. This is not your typical Photoshop manual: it really reads like a well thought-out tutorial on how to use Photoshop CS4 capabilities in the context of a logical image correcting workflow. The prose is almost conversational, as though the reader was sitting in a workshop and the book was doing the talking. I think the procedures described and their order (Deke's prescribed PSCS4 workflow) is excellent.

The book comes with an excellent disc containing several hours of video tutorials from Lydia.com. These are very well done and complement the book beautifully. These are real, detailed tutorials and not snippets: you'll learn from them. Between the tutorials and the lessons in the book, I really felt like I'd gotten a "one-on-one" course in Photoshop, and my ability to edit photos was definitely improved. The discussions on masks and the uses of layers were terrific.

One-on-One is more of a series of detailed lessons than a reference book. I appreciated the clear descriptions of how tools worked and why the author chose particular sequences and ways of doing things. A small nit: while all tools and capabilities seem to be represented in the index, some corresponding techniques are not. For example, "free transform" is there, but "transform" is not.

I found many of the "Sidebar" comments--which are often 1-2 pages long--distracting. The problem isn't the content, which is invariably very useful: the problem is where the sidebars fall. Too often a sidebar will be placed between two pages of a detailed procedure or other discussion. I found this placement distracting. At other times, sidebars are politely placed between logical discussions and their pages referenced in the text. After encountering a number of distractingly placed sidebars, I found myself wishing that they'd been appended to the chapters and referenced appropriately.

As a long-time, "somewhere between beginner and intermediate" Photoshop user, I'd readily recommend this book to people new to image editing and to new PSCS4 users, even if you've used earlier versions of Photoshop. The book is written with a friendly, informative, and accessible style and the content should appeal to many beginning and intermediate Photoshop users.

Photoshop one-on-one is a great place for newcomers to learn Photoshop. It has easy to follow exercises and good explanatory videos all with Deke McClelland's unique sense of humor, which makes things more fun. If you're familiar with Photoshop or you want more of a reference manual this may not be the book for you, but if you're just getting started this book is great!

I am a big fan of the Deke Adobe training books. This one is very good at providing information to the new user as well as providing tips to the more advanced user. The books are well written with very good graphics and the DVD information is very good for following along and performing the exercises.

I wanted the book to show visual examples for each step, to let readers know how each instruction look like when it is done. I never worked with Photoshop, so I needed more visual material.