Customer Reviews

How to Wow: Photoshop CS2 for the Web

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

Reading Photoshop CS2 for the Web has provided a great learning experience on getting a professional looking design going for my web site. The book includes loads of visuals, tips, insights and practical tutorials to guide the reader through the projects. It also includes a CD-ROM that contains images and presets to facilitate hands-on learning while you read. I loved the section called "Sites that Wow!" If you ever wonder how the pros get `the look', this is it.

As a designer, developer and educator, I highly recommend this book both for the beginner and for the life long learner pro.

The book has a nice layout, comes with a CD-Rom which has two very important folders, your project files, the CD-Rom also has Photoshop styles, actions and patterns.
The book is made into four sections, Navigation, Animation, Automation and Sites that Wow, each section as powerful and informative as the next.
Navigation covers Image Dimensions, Resolutions, and Color Mode. There are two really good sections on optimization settings for jpeg and gif which go through the various options with explained detail.
This section also explains how to build a navigation bar, slice it up and optimize it, goes through the slice options.
Not only does it show you how to do rollovers but it shows how to do pointers and remote rollovers. Also how to create image map, hot spots in Image Ready.
Next section Animation, make a Radar Screen, Animating Warped Text use Warp Text feature which is done in Photoshop not Image ready, various other animations for you to try.
A cool Image Ready project to bring a picture to life. This section also shows you how to export flash format movies right into Image Ready.
Automation shows how to make action, troubleshoot the action and batch the process. Explains what actions are in detail.
A good part is using batch processing with the Image processor for an easy and fast way to resize and reformat photos.
There are handy tips on understanding and using droplets.
An advanced project creating Dynamic Flash Web Banners using data sets and dynamic text variables.
Sites that Wow, applying patterns to Web Graphics, step by step on making a gallery site with viewer feedback, making an interface, make a web photo gallery template made with Flash straight from Photoshop CS2, just a few of the techniques explained in this book.

I think this is an excellent book, very good Photoshop/Image Ready for beginners and advance users. Not many Image Ready books on the shelves a welcome addition.

I give this book 5 (five)out of 5 (five)
Suggested retail $39.99

Jan Kabili and Colin Smith's How To WOW: Photoshop CS2 For The Web is outstanding: it presents the in-depth tips from two professional graphic designer/trainers who have developed a method for combining quality, flexibility and speed with web graphic creation based on Photoshop CS2. Their program teaches all the fundamentals for building more effective sites, building upon basics to move to more advanced topics such as animation. A companion cd-rom disc includes all the original designs used in the project-building HOW TO WOW, along with styles, actions and pattern presets. A 'must' for any owner of Photoshop CS2 who is serious about building the better web site.

As a web designer I found this book helpful with creating outstanding graphic images for my pages. The most handy feature with Photoshop that i didnt know about was creating web galleries. I have done web galleries using Dreamweaver and Fireworks but the photoshop one is better.
I can also customise the template to how i want.
Good book with many useful tips

Good book for ideas. Step by step process is good and bad. Good because it's easy to replicate what they've done, but bad because it doesn't really teach you, it can be limiting. Overall the book gives great ideas and is worth checking out.

I've been using Photoshop to develop web pages for 6 years. I thought I was efficient and competant. I was mistaken.
This book covers everything and is layed out in functional, logical way. It starts from the basics of the Photoshop file to optimizing and slicing.
The sections on animation and automation are going to save me hundreds if not thousands of hours of development time saving me time, money and stress.
This book is a great resource for users of all experience levels. It takes you step by step with explanations and information all along the way. The accompanying CD is such a great addition to the training and teaches the user an efficient manner of organizing and structure.
This is a great resource book for any designers library!

If you are a beginner looking to learn how to use Photoshop CS2 for web site work, I believe that this book is very helpful. Pick up a copy you won't be disappointed.