How to Wow: Photoshop CS2 for the Web [Paperback]

Jan Kabili (Author), Colin Smith (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0321393945 | ISBN-13: 978-0321393944 | Publication Date: November 12, 2005

Wouldn't it be great if you could have two of the world's most accomplished Photoshop and Web design experts sitting next to you at your computer as you
navigate the infinite possibilities of Adobe Photoshop and ImageReady? How to Wow: Photoshop CS2 for the Web is the next best thing. Two Photoshop and ImageReady powerhouses--Jan Kabili and Colin Smith--renowned authors, graphic designers, and trainers, have developed an effective way to help you reach your full creative potential. Jan and Colin guide you step by step through real-world projects, with an emphasis on uncompromising quality, last-minute flexibility, and go-home-at-night speed! You'll learn tips and techniques for creating everything from stylish navigation to eye-catching animation using Photoshop CS2 and its companion program, ImageReady CS2. Whether it's speeding up your workflow or making a modular home page for a game site, you're given the tools at every stage of the creative process in order to learn How to Wow!
This book begins with the essentials of Web site navigation, teaching you skills for building, slicing, and optimizing navigation graphics. Then things really get moving with how-tos on creating scene-stealing animations. Next, you'll find out how to automate repetitive tasks and create conditional actions that can distinguish between graphic types. Finally, you¹ll learn how to build eye-popping home pages and sites designed to keep viewers coming back for more.

The How to Wow: Photoshop CS2 for the Web companion CD at the back of this book is packed with everything you need to work through the projects in the book, along with some extra goodies to use as you create your own graphics for the Web.

 

The CD includes:

• All the original designs by award-winning Photoshop guru Colin Smith that are used in the projects in this book. Use these files as you follow along with the lessons to dramatically improve your understanding of the innovative techniques explained in this book. Working along with the authors will stimulate your own design ideas and let you discover how you can apply these techniques to your own work.
  
• Styles, actions, and pattern presets developed to enhance the look of the projects you'll produce in the books lessons. 
  
• PLUS extra style presets from the collection of over 1000 presets in Jack Davis' Adobe Photoshop One-Click Wow!
   

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Prolific author and trainer Jan Kabili has taught Photoshop and ImageReady to thousands of users. She is the author of five other step-by-step training books, as well as a regular columnist for Mac Design magazine. Graphic designer, author, and trainer Colin Smith is well-known in the design community for his stunning photorealistic illustrations composed entirely in Photoshop. He has written numerous books on Photoshop and is a regular columnist for Photoshop User magazine.

Product Details

• Paperback: 216 pages
• Publisher: Peachpit Press (November 12, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0321393945
• ISBN-13: 978-0321393944
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 9.1 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,318,609 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Not useful, May 15, 2006

By 

C. Jackson - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: How to Wow: Photoshop CS2 for the Web (Paperback)

This week-end, my significant other asked me to help her with her Photoshop homework. (The class uses this book as its text.) Although I'm not a Photoshop professional, I've been using the software since Photoshop version 3.

Although the authors are certainly expert Photoshop users, and have a vast knowledge of the product, the information was not conveyed in a consistent nor coherent fashion. Key steps were omitted, important concepts were not clearly explained, and exercises were not presented in a useful order. (The tasks you perform in step 3, for example, conflict with what you are asked to do in setp 5.)

The experience with this book reminded me of that old joke, How to Carve and Elephant ("Start with a block of wood and carve away anything that doesn't look like an Elephant.")

Unless you are well-versed in Photoshop, I would not recommend this book.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Extraordinary - How to take your web site into the 21st century!, March 6, 2007

By 

Randy Forgaard "enthusiastic haunter" (New Hampshire, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: How to Wow: Photoshop CS2 for the Web (Paperback)

This is an extraordinary book. I have to completely disagree with the naysayer reviews below. I've been building web sites for a long time, and I've been using Photoshop for the past couple of years (including CS2 since it first came out). But until I read this book, I could not get the hang of all these new web-specific features in Photoshop, nor could I fully utilize ImageReady. I have now read this book from cover to cover, and it completely explains, with stunningly attractive examples (included on the enclosed CD-ROM), how to use Adobe Photoshop and ImageReady to make web sites with world-class appearance, navigation, remote rollovers, and even built-in Flash animations. The book itself is beautifully crafted, with just enough explanation of everything (very complete, but no irritating fluff). It is like the veil has been lifted. My web sites no longer need to look like 1999 -- they can look like 2009. I am deeply impressed. If you want to learn how to design web sites with amazingly professional graphics, either as a business or just because you want to build the best, even if you are not artistically inclined, pick up this deceptively slim volume. It will make an enormous difference in your web site efforts.

17 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Limited, January 9, 2006

By 

Buffy (Sunnydale) - See all my reviews

This review is from: How to Wow: Photoshop CS2 for the Web (Paperback)

I felt that the exercises in this book were too specific unto themselves and would have liked to have seen a broader perspective taken. For example, they show you how to create a very specific type of navigation bar. However, what if you want to create a tabbed navigation bar (like Amazon's), or a menu bar that doesn't rely on one of Photoshop's preset button "styles" for it's look? I think this is the kind of book where (hopefully) there is a specific project they've done that you can incororate into your own web site as is. If not, you're probably out of luck. The book doesn't teach you how to create navigation bars, it teaches you how to create their specific navigation bar. Too limited for my liking, but some will probably like the immediacy of the projects.