Customer Reviews

Official Adobe(R) Photoshop(R) 5.0 Studio Techniques

5 star:		(28)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I have went through three photoshop 5.0 books. The adobe user guide, adobe classroom in a book, and adobe photoshop studio techniques. Out of all these books, the photoshop studio techniques is above all the best. Ben Willmore puts you at ease and provides humor throughout the book. He relates the unusual and hard stuff about photoshop in lamen terms that anybody can understand. I now understand layers, shadows, drop shadows, color correction, RGB, CMYK, GRC, Levels, Curves, Channels, getting rid of color casts, and understanding what the differences between "ppi" and "dpi" are. He provides an excellenct theory behind the things he is going to explain. So you have the best of both worlds. Adobe has done an excellent job in finding someone that can write a book about photoshop 5.0 and relate it to the general public. Do not buy books on photoshop, just buy this one and you will become a master in short of amount of time. It is too bad they cannot do this for Illustrator and GoLive by Adobe.

After much debate at a local bookstore I finally desided to buy this book, based largely on the chapter dealing with text effects. Soon after reading it while in Photoshop I soon discovered that I was reading a fantastic book. Very presice in its explanations and very to the point without what Ben calls "Techno Mumbo Jumbo". While reading any book I often "tab" important pages, I had to stop doing that with this book, I found myself tabing every page!!!. If you are a novice at Photoshop like I was, buy this book it is worth its weight in GOLD. I just wish Ben would now do a book on version 5.5.

Scott R. Hirschman

I have purchased several books on Photoshop 5 and never got past any particular chapter. As instructional books most read like the manual that comes with the application.

The Official Adobe Photoshop 5.0 Studio Techniques by Ben Willmore gave more than its promise.I never really understood levels, curves,and color corrections until I read Willmore's book.He writes like he really understands the novice and experience amateur. I've been using Photoshop to do photo imaging, greeting card, enhancing or fixing damaged photos, etc. and thought I knew enough about these subjects.Willmore's book taught me more things that I never really knew or understood and I can now work more efficiently.

This book is not disappointing. It is not the "greatest ever" by no means either. It is written in a nice, down-to-earth manner, which will make beginners at ease.I do have to confess that I didn't install the accompanying CD, so I can't say anything good or bad about it. The good points of the book are that it does teach some very useful tricks. (His chapter on shadows and text effects is almost worth the money alone). For the people who intend to go into graphic design and are going to use Photoshop relatively frequently, the chapter on Selection tools is a must, because these are one of the most used features of the program, and he did a great job of covering them. The book is fairly priced too and you will get your money's worth. I'd say buy it, the book is adequate but it shouldn't be the one and only book that you have for Photoshop (if you make a living with the program, that is).

This is the first Photoshop book that instead of just giving you examples of features actually tells why and how the most important features work. The first part of the book deals with all the Photoshop tools, the book really details the tools and gives the reader a good overview of the tools along with some great tips. The book then digs into some of the best yet hard to master filters, levels and curves. These are the meat of Photoshop and once you've read about these you'll have a great understanding of these tools. For me just learning more about these tools was worth the price of the book. The book travels along and takes you through color correction and channels. It then gets fun with creative exporations.Covering such things as shadows, blending images,and more filters. It ends up with using the type tools and many other effects. I really enjoyed the book and once I got started I couldn't put it down. This a such a great book for anyone who really wants to understand more about Photoshop. Great job Ben!

Ben Willmore explains the principles and theory of why Photoshop works. His work is concise, quick to the point, very informative and fun to read. It's a medium sized book, but packed with all the information you'd find in all of those 3 inch thick books put together.

If I only bought one Photoshop book, this would be the one. The first section 'Working Foundations' is like a Photoshop 101 class. It gives you the basics of Photoshop (and in a very fun and easy way, too!). I found lots of great tips to speed up my work! The second section, 'Production Essentials' covers the most important stuff for a working studio or graphic business. This is the topic that often gets skipped in other Photoshop books. Willmore covers the principles behind color correction, sharpening, curves, working with grayscale, and other techniques neccessary for producing professional output. The third section, 'Creative Explorations' goes into different techniques for enhancing your image. It covers image blending, retouching, using type and other filter effects.

Occassional Photoshop users will find everything they need in this book. Professional users will find this book as an essential building block and reference for their Photoshop knowledge.

I'm using Ben's book as as textbook in a Photoshop for Photographers course I'm teaching for the first time in the Fine Art Dept at Florida State University. I have received very positive feedback from the students. The book minimizes the technical jargon and isn't over-flowing with Photoshop "tricks" or "gimmicks". Many of the students had used the Adobe Classroom-in-a-Book and they say Ben's book approaches Photoshop in a more intuitive and easier to understand manner. I highly recommend this book for novice and intermediate Photoshop users.

Ben has really outdone himself! I've been an intermediate PhotoShop user for the past year or so, and have always felt like a klutz. I've never known what to do with channels; what an alpha channel was; what you could do with a mask.

I never had a clue about the blending tools, or grouping, or how gradients could be effectively used. I only had a foggy notion of what could be done with the various filters, but not specific applications.

Ben's book teaches all of this and more in a friendly, fun, effective presentation that begs you to read on and discover more. Ben makes learning PhotoShop an adventure! This is definitely the best teaching tool for PhotoShop that I've ever seen. Thanks, Ben!

This is a very enjoyable book and eases you into Photoshop 5 one step at a time. Ben has managed to explain complicated things in a straight forward manner which is not an easy task in describing Photoshop 5. There are lots of tips, shortcuts and hidden features all over the book which makes the chapters interesting. Ben has managed to cover a lot of areas without overloading the readers with long chapters. Overall, an easy to read and informative guide to Adobe Photoshop 5.

Ben Willmore brings common sense to computer training. He stays away from all of the "64-bit" words and speaks in terms even my mother could understand. It is a must have for the beginner or the advanced user who knows the software. He is straight to the point and gives the user something to build on. My students love it cause with Studio Techniques, Photoshop is not a foreign language.