Customer Reviews

Hacking Photoshop CS2

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

With a title like "Hacking Photoshop" you'd expect the book to have all sorts of hidden, undocumented secrets to customizing Photoshop. Sadly, this isn't the case.

A more appropriate title might be "Using Photoshop" because I'm not sure where there is any sort of "hacking" involved.

This book focuses mostly on settings and using tools. For example, there is a whole chapter on making selections and using masks. The chapter is called "Hacking Masks" - but it doesn't break any ground or shed new light on masks.

There are some useful tips here and there, the most helpful chapter may be the very first one, which points out the preferences to adjust in order to make Photoshop perform better on your machine. While helpful, these settings are hardly unheard of or undocumented.

I'm not sure who this book is for. It doesn't offer any tips on creating images, so I can't see a beginner using it. The techniques are something any intermediate user already knows, so I can't see them using it either.

The full color printing is nice, I just think this book misses the mark by not being a complete reference guide.

I like to think of Photoshop books as falling into three categories: process books, which take you through an entire process; cookbooks, that show you how to solve certain problems or achieve certain effects; and encyclopedias that discuss Photoshop tools and processes without reference to specific pictures. "Hacking Photoshop CS2" falls into the last category.

The book contains hundreds of tips, organized into chapters like "Optimizing Performance", "Hacking Layer Masks", and "Outputting to Print". While many of the tips are the kind that you would pick up in a process book, others are of the kind that most books miss. For example, like many other books, the author shows you how to apply ratings to images in Adobe Bridge. But he also provides a tip for quicker opening in Bridge of previews stored on a CD by exporting either the cache or sidecar files to the CD. Another new tip I encountered was a method for creating a new image with the same dimensions and color mode as an open image rather than the new image default.

The question a reader will have to ask himself is whether it's worth wading through a lot of tips that may not be relevant to the reader to get to the one tip that will help him. I suspect that heavy Photoshop users will find it more useful to do so. I also note that most of the tips are probably more applicable to graphic designers than photographers.

I was a little disappointed by some of the tips that weren't in the book. For example, in the discussion of optimizing performance, the author noted the importance of additional RAM to Photoshop but he didn't mention that if Windows users add more than two GB of RAM to their computers, Photoshop will only be able to access it if the 3 GB switch is set in the boot file.

The author has also been a little sloppy. For example, in providing the location of the Photoshop preferences file in Windows, he has omitted one of the subdirectories that you must go through to get to the file.

Still, for the serious user of Photoshop, there will probably be a few useful tips that will make this book worthwhile.

Okay. You're not going to find everything about everything in here. And it's not going to cover just one topic in exhaustive detail.

But I was able to find five different optimizations and hacks to increase my PS CS2 productivity within the first five minutes of opening this book! In the second chapter alone, in the day I've had this book, I've implemented eight of the tips to customize my work area. And I'm finding tips, tricks and hacks that allow me to do things I've wanted to learn and have searched for tutorials on through these last eight months.

This book is worth the money.

Singh writes for a Photoshop enthusiast, who is already using it, and wants to expand significantly your knowledge of what it can do. So the immediate nicety is that the book doesn't waste your time over the elementary stuff. It offers over 300 hacks, grouped in a more or less logical manner.

One chapter lets you customise your work area to suit your preferences. Heavy Photoshop users should look into it. Especially if you use Photoshop professionally, for several hours a day. Customising the work area can help optimise your work flow. For example, there are 19 palettes. Rarely should you ever need close to all 19 being visible in the work area. Instead, you can just make visible those pertinant to your tasks.

Speaking of palettes, another chapter goes into how to use these well. Like purging their histories if your memory is running low. Or using the Info palette to get the basic RGB and (x,y) coordinates of pixels under the mouse.

Given that Photoshop is, above all else, an image editor, it should not be surprising that there are several chapters on editing images and correcting colours. For many of you, these may be the key chapters. The hacks in them can be somewhat involved, but they can enable quite subtle image changes.

This is a good book for one who already has a working knowledge of CS2. It is nicely put together with lots of full color pictures and good explainations. If you are new to photoshop CS2 start with "Classroom in a Book" and go to "100 Simplified Tricks". Both of those take you by the hand and walk you through different projects until you become familiar with all or most of the tools. I got a good deal on this book in Amazons used catagory so I had to snap it up. All and all a GREAT book for the more experienced user.

This is not a tutorial book that you follow along with step by step. This book is for Photoshop users who have previuos knowledge of Photoshop and wish to get more out of the program.
It shows different ways that you can perform the same task in Photoshop.
The book has 18 chapters in full colour throught, tips, tricks, modifications and getting the most out of Photoshop CS2.
THIS BOOK DOESN"T WASTE TIME
Throughout the book you will see headings such as CAUTION, NOTES, TIPS and CROSS - REFERENCE
All these give you valuable input.
There's also a companion Website for the book which has links to other Website's for tutorials, scripts, coloour management, plug-in's,
keyboard shortcut's, etc..... Well worth a look.
You will also find URL's in the book, but be careful the URL's seem to get lost in the page, I would have liked to see the URL's in bold and in another colour, to make them standout.
The book shows you how to custmize appearance and optimize performance in Photoshop for a better and faster work flow.
Cool tricks with camera raw, masks, paths, layers and much more. 400 plus pages full of very good information. A great chapter is chapter 4 - Browsing with Bridge, this is new to the Adobe Creative suit 2. It would be hard to pick a favorite chapter, but chapter 15 - Automating Task and Chapter 16 - Outputting to print come close.

Conclusion: This is an excellent book, well written and laid out, plenty of diagram images that are clear and easy to see.
It doesn't come with a CD, but then again you don't need one.
I give this book Five (5) out of Five (5)
Suggested retail $29.99

Wiley books are available at your local bookstore or by calling 1-800-225-5945.
In Canada, call 1-800-567-4797.

Great stuff. Not a lot of fluff. Just good, straight forward tips. Presented in a concise way. Not for a beginner but even a modest user could greatly benefit from this book.

I was waiting for this book for months and was very disappointed. It does not cover anything new nor undocumented features. One of the most misleading title and an absolute waste of $. Two thumbs down.