Customer Reviews

The Photoshop 6 WOW! Book

5 star:		(32)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

For learning and mastering an impressive package like Photoshop 6 I usually say that you need 3 kinds of materials: 1. A beginners guide to show you the framework and teach you how the basics work; 2. A detailed reference volume for when you need to research the solution to a problem on your own; 3. A selection of impressive advanced effects to give you inspiration and solutions to common advanced problems. If you have access to these 3, all you need is sweat and time. Few books have it all, since many of these functions seems to contradict with each other. Another common flaw is that many books show you very impressive effects, and how to carry them out, but after doing so, when the initial "Wow! Look what I just made!" fades away, you have learned almost nothing and understand very little about how the effect was made.

Based on these criteria, I have to conclude that The Photoshop 6 Wow! Book has it all. This is definitely not my first book on Photoshop 6, but I wish it was. It would have saved me quite a few bucks, and taught me more in the same time.

My personal interest is creating illustrations, not so much applying effects to photos or making web graphics. But still the Wow! Book covers it all to a very satisfying degree, in fact with so much depth and detail, that this book doubles as my reference volume. Also it patiently takes its time to make sure beginners understand all the key concepts in Photoshop.

I am impressed. Very impressed. My verdict will have to be the old cliché about, "this is the only book you'll need". But it can easily be the only book you'll need for a loooooong time.

Feel free to mail me if you have questions.

When I first started using more seriously Adobe Photoshop, I went shopping for a book which I could have next to me when I had a challenge I could not find my way out of.

After a few hours browsing through the tons of options out there for books on the topic, I came to the conclusion that this book had it all: well laid out, comprehensive, self-explanatory, printed in color... you name it!

After I checked with some designers friend I have, they confirmed my choice: WOW! is the book of choice to cover all Photoshop stuff you can think of -web, print, etc.

I'm an amateur photographer. Initially, all I wanted to do with Photoshop is crop a scanned picture and maybe change a bit of its background. After several weeks of searching three other books for what I wanted to achieve, it became patently clear that 1) Photoshop was an extremely deep and complex program, and 2) I would never be able to accomplish simple tasks unless I dedicated my life to the study of Adobe. Then one day, The Photoshop 6 WOW! book's colorful presentation caught my eye. One hour later, I had not only cropped my photo and given it an entirely different background, but I fully understood what I had done and learned some additional tricks along the way. This book's graphics are delicious and the accompanying text clearly explains each step required to reproduce them. You will be compelled to try everything.

This is one of the most anticipated books of the year... Linnea Dayton and Jack Davis didn't rush to the bookshelves to get the latest WOW when Photoshop 6 launched... but rather took their time to produce a blockbuster collection of the best before/after tutorials in the industry -- 200 of them! Photoshop WOW 6 will prove to be a treasured addition to any Photoshop users bookshelf. Owners of WOW 5, 4, and 3 books won't be disappointed either... the CD with WOW 6 includes dozens of new Actions, Custom Presets, and more than 300 knock-out Layer Styles, PLUS more than 50 all new automated Rollover Styles. __ I've reviewed a lot of Photoshop 6 Books in the past year -- some of which deserve the coveted 5-Star rating. But Linnea and Jack's new WOW 6 definitely takes the cake! Is there a 6th Star? __ If you ever actually learn everything in this book, it also makes a superb coffee-table book for hours of visual treats! ___ This one earns Dayton and Davis the Designer's Bookshelf EDITOR'S CHOICE AWARD for August, 2001.

Linnea Dayton and Jack Davis have done it again. The Photoshop Wow! series of books just keeps getting better (and thicker) with each new version of Adobe's Photoshop. Found on the shelves of most Web designers the Wow! series has become a standard other books can only hope to match. The latest v6 edition outdoes the previous series with over 200 stunning full-color before/after tutorials.

Designed to help you get the most out of Photoshop and Imageready, this book covers the gamut from what's new in version 6, to fancy special effects, filter use, handy shortcuts, scans and color corrections, and Web graphics optimization and animation. The photo retouching chapter alone is worth the price of admission.

One of my favorites is chapter 8, where you learn how to make special effects for type and graphics. Learn how Apple got that cool clear plastic look, how to do neon, glass, and custom chrome.

The companion CD-ROM comes chock full of matching tutorial files, 300 preset layer styles, 50 automated rollover styles, improved actions, gobs of ready to use artwork, and more.

Unlike the earlier "blow-them-away-you-already-know-Photoshop" editions, this one shows you how to work more effectively with Photoshop, *and* blow them away with your graphics expertise. The book is a wonderful way to improve your Photoshop skills, and an inspiration with its example artwork from top designers.

THE PHOTOSHOP 6 WOW BOOK by LINNEA DAYTON & JACK DAVIS
This book has some of the best project tutorials I've ever seen. They are fun, amazing and all can be applied to projects and issues facing today's designers.Besides instruction, the WOW includes wonderful screen captures and special sections with beautiful color plates of other digital artists work, including a synopsis of their methods. The authors also generously include many extra pre-set goodies on the CD rom along with before and after images for the projects. Thankfully, the "after" files are with the layers in tact, so you can peek at specific settings when you need to in order to match settings, which do vary from the text specifics at times. The beginning of the book has in depth definitions and "how to's" of Photoshops commands, functions, tools, palettes etc. The rest of the book is divided into 9 category specific tutorial sections. There are many tutorials which cover different ways to approach desired outcomes. The authors also do some of the work for you, so it is most benificial to read through several paragraphs before attempting "hands on" and to be observant of the "before image" layers, channel, and paths palettes. The authors include Alpha Channels storing the selections for most of the projects that require selections; this saves much time for the Photoshop student so they can get into the heart of the project without having to spend time making selections. I especially like this book for its in depth coverage of the new features & tools of Photoshop 6. The amazing things you can do with Shape Layers and it's interchange with Adobe Illustrator is my most favorite new feature. That alone will make you shout "WOW!" I teach Advanced Photoshop for Designers at Nashville State Tech and this was my choice "hands down & thumbs up" for the class textbook!

Jack Davis never ceases to amaze me. He has outdone himself again! I don't think there is a man on the planet that has a more in-depth, and complete knowledge of Photoshop, not even the people who developed the app or the manual writers at Adobe.

I had the opportunity to see Jack at the Photoshop Wow! Seminar for the 5.5 book. His methods of teaching are concise, intelligent, extremely well-thought-out, and easy-to-follow and understand. His pacing was so perfect, no one really lost him at all, even the beginners in the room, yet he intrigued and fascinated the experts. I learned more in a day than I had in my 4 years as a Web Designer.

The Photoshop 6 Wow! Book is a "must have" for anyone who uses Photoshop. Period. Even if you own the 5.5 Wow! Book, you still need this book. Some authors tend to "sell-out" from version update to version update, in an effort to milk the sales of a book, by offering a mildly reworded volume of useless pap. No such practice from Jack! He has extensively expanded upon an already legendary tome. I merely bought the book because I am a fan and wanted to "support the team" regardless of book content. When the book came, I realzied I got more than my money's worth, once again. The layer styles on the CD are alone worth twice the price. The chapter on "painting" will have you buying a Wacom tablet the following day [I did]. He does things that no one ever knew Photoshop could do. The gasps of astonishment in his classes are proof. And no wasted pages. Jack dives right in! Page ONE [1] actually has a useful tip on it! - making star shapes with the Polygon tool. And it's blast into orbit from there on out!

I agree wholeheartedly with the awards - "Most useful Photoshop book" ever - hands down. A vast amount of work went into this book to offer the most brilliant Photoshop book in the world. Maika'i Hana, Jack!

Hiya,

I bought this book a few days ago, and i LOVE it! The Photoshop 6 WOW! Book can serve as a reference and reading material. Along the left side of each page are cliff/cole 's notes that containa breif summery of the page with pictures! There are many tutorials, filter/preset informating and lots of gallerys for inspiration. I am totally BLOWEN away with this book. In just a few days i know more than weeks searching on the internet for ps tutorials!

Thanks Linnea Dayton and Jack Davis for creating a truly wonderful book!

HIGHLY RECOMENDED FOR PHOTOSHOP USERS!!

I learned a lot of great little tricks and shortcuts from this book. A lot of those things you see and wonder "how did they do that?" this book explains. It is a little hard to follow the step by step guides sometimes. If they could number the steps, or put in more of an outline form, it would be perfect. Still, with all the info that is here, I think they probably did it the only way that would make sense. A very good book to look at for ideas when you are in a little bit of a creative funk.

This is a great book. Not only is it a good source to learn from, it's also a good referense when you need to go back and look things up. It has a lot of detailed information to complete difficult tasks. The book displays its contents in an easy to access format which makes it easy to learn from and use. I very good book for those who want to do amazing things with Photoshop. All I can say is... WOW!