Customer Reviews

Photoshop 5 Bible: Gold Edition

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

The gold edition has more color, but less useful information. I got the Gold edition after seeing the paperback in the bookstore. I ordered the Gold edition thinking that it'd be nice to have a hardcover for $2 more...but then was completely disappointed when I saw what they'd done to the content. I'd used the book before, and the regular edition is much better. There's just more in it. I'd give the paperback four stars. I can't believe they took a good book and made it worse with packaging. It just doesn't make sense.

I ended up returning the book and buying the paperback at the local store -- the book cost more, but I got the right one. Oh, and I lost postage on the return too. Don't fall for it.

Photoshop 5 Bible, Gold Edition is a well written, easily understandable text that no serious Photoshop user should be without. The book covers all aspects of Photoshop starting with the fundamentals all the way through to digital photography and web site design. The color illustrations are very helpful. In addition, the author discusses color management in detail. I would recommend Photoshop 5 Bible, Gold Edition to any Photoshop user who wants to get the most from Photoshop and produce great digital photos.

All books on computer software can generally be divided in two groups: manuals, which describe all features of the program in a condensed (encyclopedic) form, and tutorials, which guide the readers through a sequence of steps to teach them how to perform either basic or advanced functions. Good manuals are concise, accurate, and comprehensive. They can be used over and over again to look up the necessary function or keyboard shortcut. Tutorials are usually wordy, cover only selected functions of the program, but frequently go far beyond the basics by showing examples how to achieve non-trivial effects. A large number of exercises is a must for a tutorial.

The problem of "Photoshop Bible" is that although this book is essentially a manual, it is written in the wordy style of a tutorial; on the other hand, it is not quite up to the standards of tutorials either. It is a manual because with a very few exceptions it only discusses the functions and applications of each single menu item of Photoshop. To be fair, I must admit that this it is done on a very detailed level, which makes this book one of the most information-filled and comprehensive guides on Photoshop. I was truly impressed by the author's level of knowledge and experience with Photoshop. The problem is that the book is not particularly reader-friendly: it takes enormous effort and time to digest and memorize all those practical tips and tricks offered by Deke McClelland. There are reasons for that. To begin with, the book is poorly organized. The first 300 pages or so are mostly useless and deserve to be in the appendix. I bet that 95% of average Photoshop users will never see pantone swatches, will never try duotone printing, and will not spent any significant time importing all these graphics formats that Photoshop can read. Recording scripts and 15-page-long table of shortcuts probably should not be on the first pages, either. Nonetheless, all this stuff takes the first third of the book. One can easily get bored before getting to the real stuff. Another thing that bugged me a lot are tutorial files. The books comes with a CD-ROM, and it does contain some tutorial files, but they are very well hidden in the directory structure among other pieces or Photoshop artwork. Furthermore, neither their names nor the folder name suggest that they are tutorials. I discovered them accidentally when I was on the page 400 or so. Apparently, the author's idea was that the readers should realize what kind of fools they are only at the very end since the first page where these tutorial files are mentioned is the LAST page of the text. About 800 preceding pages NEVER mention a single name of a tutorial file, and it is up to the reader to figure out whether a particular picture is included as a file, what the name of this file is, and where to find it on the disk. The fact that all files need type and color space conversion, and that their resolution appears to be much higher than the one use by the author, so if the book says "feature the selection by 2 pixels", you should probably go for 10 to reach a similar effect, only adds to the confusion. The bootom line is that even if you find and use all tutorial files on the CD-ROM, they are still not sufficient to learn everything by doing. I spent 6 weeks reading this book every evening, I learned a lot, but I got overwhelmed to an even greater extent.

My personal opinion: The author probably spent at least a year putting this huge book together. He has done a great work, but he left it unfinished. Had he spent another month rearranging the chapters and preparing the tutorial files and practical exercises to meet the readers expectations (and the standards of computer literature), it would be a fantastic book. In its present form, I am not sure that it is worth spending your money, and most important, your time. This book dumps lots of data on you, but does not help you much to learn it.

My main complaint with this book is that it does not show how to combine photoshop functions to render some specific final image -- instead, it describes individual features of Photoshop functions, many of which would appear immediately obvious just by reading the name of the function and then clicking a button.

The conceptual design of this book is strange. If you attempt to use it like a reference, it presents topics with such disjointed expansiveness that you wonder why it doesn't offer concise definitions and get to the point. While it covers all aspects of Photoshop, the depth is relatively superficial with few "magic" methods, such that you could just as readily reference the program's online help. If you attempt to use the book as a step-by-step manual, which it may or may not be, you find that some of the steps are missing or don't appear to work because of some vague specifications of a few particular steps. If you use it like a training manual, the flow may drive you crazy because it covers everything without particular focus on development of a central design (as with, for example, taking raw images and completing a more elaborate finished product using Photoshop functions.) -- it gives you lots of small superficial examples on the level of "isn't it cool how this one function works?" and doesn't quite integrate several functions for more unique effect. Thereby, it is not quite the "only book you will ever need" on Photoshop. I tried to use two of the chapters in this book to manage some transparencies to create a high definition mask using Photoshop. The book's index section was not specific and had very little depth, and thus was rather useless. I wound up flipping through pages of chapters looking for what I needed. The description of the relation of alpha channels and other channels as they affect mask production was poor (as in no real discussion). The step-by-step instructions were missing a few steps here and there and were thus less than accurate. So it was an unpleasant experience throughout.

There is a lot of filler in this book as it relates to other topics, and the author's banter is distracting and occasionally annoying because when you need to get something done, you want the solution not commentary on the laundry list. The book seems to focus on describing every single permutation of a single function applied in one-dimensional depth on a single image. I don't understand the point of this -- if a function behaves predictably, why spell out the predictable effect in excruciating detail -- the audience can extrapolate what happens with a linear function -- its the special stuff that a reader might want to know about when there is some hidden effect. But there are no surprises here.

The CD is filled with bloatware as with most books in IDG's Bibles series and the composition of the photoimages on the CD are uninspired, so why bother wasting the bandwidth. This book is seriously overpriced (surprise). I would recommend that newbies, as I was, get a Visual Quickstart Guide on Photoshop from PeachPit for about eighteen smackeroos; this book covers the basics with concise accuracy without filler, and get Anders' Hands-On Photoshop 4, which doesn't have the latest add-ons but discusses the core functions of Photoshop in an integrated manner -- you see how to tie the functions of this huge program together to compose and render an image in a project-like manner from beginning to end, adding on more complexity as you go on. Anders' book is what I used to understand the mechanisms behind masks and transparencies and channels, which is probably the most difficult integrated concept behind Photoshop, and to decipher this "Bible's" chapters on Masks. After you have used the Quickstart and Anders books, you might be looking for some more depth, but then you wouldn't find it in this Bible either because it doesn't offer the depth you might need. I guess I don't like this book much.

In summary: If you need to learn how to use Photoshop to do a project, go elsewhere. If you have leisure time and you want a topical guided tour of how to click on and off some of the gadgets in Photoshop to render some straightforward effects, this is the book for you.

In a digital world of freebies and give-me how-to's, this book breaks the tradition of professional secret keeping. Through this book, Deke McClelland gives you the knowledge and insight to make your own decisions on the 'how-to's rather than blindly following examples from some trick book. The book is eloquently humored to distract from the more mundane yet necessary portions of Photoshop (Although a bit excessive in areas) Photoshop 5 Bible: Gold Edition is not for the inexperienced quick fixers but rather packed with information for the serious long haul.

There is a reason that this book recieves such high reviews from everyone in the graphics community. Deke is one of if not the most knowledgeable person when it comes to Photoshop. He explains everything in this book from basic techniques to some of the application's little known features. If you currently use photoshop and would like to know how to use it better, this is the book for you.

This might be the ideal book for a user with a good working knowledge of Photoshop in earlier versions. I am a beginner and was looking for a how to book to get me started and take me to a more advanced level. It is definitely not for beginners. I returned the book and am now looking for a replacement to help me get started with Photoshop.

I've used Photoshop for some time now, and speaking strictly personally of my skill level, I consider myself slightly below the Intermediate mark (By the way, I wrote this review after I've finished reading just the beginning four chapters of the book, well, thought you'd want to know). I've come across several Photoshop books before, most noticeably from Adobe Press & IDG. Photoshop 5 Bible GOLD EDITION is the book that stands out among the rest. It covers almost any topic in Photoshop (Retouching, Masking, Layers, Channels, Paths, Special Effects, Color Management, even customizing your very own filters), and in a very detailed manner. The author, Deke McClelland had done an amazing job by putting in his opinions, tricks, and humor into the book. As a result, it's as much fun editing images in Photoshop as reading the book itself! The book is thick (and heavy), which indicate that there is abundant information for every question you might have regarding Photoshop. Furthermore, the 270 of full color artwork printed on glossy paper are truly a sight to behold. It covers the spectacular real-world digital masterpieces done by top graphic artists in the world today, complete with descriptions and tips. The artwork is so good, that it provide a good source of inspiration and ideas on image editing and computer graphics in particular. There are 36 chapters divided into 10 broad parts. GOLD EDITION begins with four chapters covering the fundamentals of using Photoshop. These chapters also dig so deep into covering all the file formats that Photoshop can handle, following by Basic Color Management, and then on Printing. One can't help but marvel at the amount of information waiting to be discovered, page-by-page, chapter-by-chapter. The descriptions are easy to follow, supported with lots of pictures from both platforms (Macs and Windows). Luckily, Deke always go into the effort of explaining why a certain steps have to be taken and occasionally, showing you what kinds of tools work best in different situations. And it doesn't end there. There is a Photoshop 5.5 supplement included somewhere in the middle of the GOLD EDITION. It's a real bonus as it provides additional (and invaluable) information regarding Photoshop 5.5. Although there is a free version of the supplement lurking somewhere in the Web, the file is approximately 10 Megabytes. Just think how long you will have to wait for it to download with a regular modem. The supplement covers most of the new features of Photoshop 5.5 like the Extract command, the new eraser tools, namely the Background and the Magic eraser, Contact Sheets, and also ImageReady 2.0 which is included as a package with Photoshop 5.5. And it doesn't end there either. Photoshop 5 Bible GOLD EDITION comes with two CD-ROMs, which is cross platform, meaning you can use it with a Mac or a Windows PC. Inside the CD-ROMs contain many third-party plug-ins which you can use with Photoshop, although some of them are shareware. Additionally, there are many artworks, stock photographs, and also some picture from the book, which the readers can use it to follow along with the tutorials. If that's not enough, there are also additional chapters stored in the second CD-ROM, now it's really information overload. No? Then check out the bonus articles (also stored in the second CD). There, you will find many interesting articles and invaluable tips and tricks, which further enhance your pleasure in using Photoshop. As a matter of facts, if you didn't get anything out of this book, then you'll never get anything from Photoshop itself. To sum it up, this book is the most awe-inspiring book I've ever feasted my eyes on. It got everything, and by the time you finished reading this book, you'll be no less an expert. I'm really proud to be the owner of the Photoshop 5 Bible GOLD EDITION, yeah!!

The author wastes valuable pages giving you silly examples of filters included in the software. they don't explain you your tricks in extension, only half of them. Also, the plugins included on the cd-rom are not "exclusively made for the book", you can download them from their respective site. I found that this book teaches you much of technical aspects of photoshop, and very few "how to". Also, it lacks color photos in a lot of places, and in others only wastes the colour

Good solid first years with photoshop book. One of those large bookshelf books you find yourself going back to clear up niggles. Its a bit difficult for absolute beginners because of its size and price, neverless it is a long term investment.Photoshop is a hands on intuitive thing and in this book its easy enough to find what you want when your intuition fails you.The real pearls are the artist interviews. This takes it beyond a textbook to an inspirational tool that shows a photographer a graphic artists mind and vice versa. The interviews can be light reading or tutorials depending on your mood or situation.The cds will appeal to those that like cds with books though its easy enough to work with your own pictures and a little commonsense. There are plenty of plug in demos to try for people who dont know about third party tools.Also the real hidden gem is the fact that the author has made available the update to photoshop bible 5.5 in acrobat format, this upgrades this book for free,minus the cost of a 10 mb download.Overall essential.