Customer Reviews

Photoshop 7 for Dummies

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

I'm saving the best for last, so I hope you're still reading! Deke McClelland sets the standard for Photoshop authors, and MyMac.com plans to cover every item he publishes on the topic. What makes this Dummies entry into the Photoshop 7 arena worth raving about?

Two pages (four sides) of card stock are the first items you encounter when opening Photoshop 7 for Dummies. These quick reference "cheat sheets" present separate Windows and Macintosh keyboard commands for toolbars, selections, layers, palettes, and more. Worth a hefty portion of the price of this book, all on their own.

These authors write with a zippy, witty style that makes learning and using Photoshop fun (almost) and enjoyable (always). Did you know about "Dr. Photo and Mr. Shop"? If not, you need to begin with Chapter One and turn off the phone until you understand the difference.

Both Windows and Mac (OS X) screen shots are plentiful, making this book truly cross platform. Illustrations are bold and easy on the eyeballs, and tutorial steps are printed in bold type. Why don't other publishers realize how important printing and inking are to readers learning difficult material from scratch?

You want tips? How about warnings? Photoshop 7 for Dummies has them in profusion, on page after page. Special mention is given to each feature new to Photoshop 7, for all you upgraders. The brief color section has some mind-expanding examples of projects enumerated within the text.

I'm having a difficult time maintaining focus on this review, friends, because I'm itching to use the book to help me learn tons more about Photoshop 7. So let's stop here, with our highest recommendation of MacMice Rating: 5 out of 5. Bravo, Deke and Barbara. Thanks for your terrific book.

WOULD I BUY IT? Yes, and give it as a gift.

WOULD I USE IT IF IT WAS THE ONLY PHOTOSHOP BOOK AVAILABLE? We should be so lucky!

DO I RECOMMEND IT? Ubetcha.

http://www.mymac.com/book_bytes/fiveps7_12.6.02.shtml

I have always loved the Dummies Series and I will continue to purchase these informative books in the future; However, if you are not familliar with Photoshop to begin with, it's not the best choice.

A lot of the book refers back to previous editions of Photoshop, but the authors swing from one side to another - either thinking that the reader is using a computer for the very first time, or have just purchased 7.0 as an upgrade.

There is no middle ground for folks who have a solid computer background but just need to know what all the Photoshop options and icons do. Way too much of one chapter is dedicated to changing how the main screen is configured.

I would say anyone who is a complete computer novice, yet managed to have moderate usage of the previous PhotoShop versions should benefit from this book.

(And I hate it when authors offer to give a hint, but only if you purchase their OTHER book...)

Reads like stereo instructions. Too many technical graphics terms for a novice photo editor. I usually like the "for dummies" books but this one falls way short of the mark. I would recomend this book only to a seasoned graphic artist that was already familiar with the terminology.

Having invested years in learning Adobe Photo Deluxe, I was overwhelmed and frustrated when I initially tried to find my way around Photoshop. So I ordered a training video and started through it. However, the video approach required considerable time and patience and did not enable me to practice as I was taught. So I was quite discouraged when the idea of 'Dummies' occurred to me.

The Dummies book is well organized and clearly labeled, packed with succinct guidance, and funny too. I invested a few focused hours in reading through it, and although I've only scratched the surface of Photoshop's great power, I have been able to complete some long-standing projects with little difficulty and with great satisfaction.

In some parts they assume to much, it misses steps or suddenly introduces new words out of nowhere as if you knew the program. The other thing that its not visual at all, a ton of things could have been explained much easier and faster using visuals.

I mean I did find it useful but probably because I read it all, however it was kind of annoying how they tend to forget who their audience is.

I bought this book hoping to learn how to use Photoshop's various functions and settings. I've looked up two so far - batch processing and screen auto resolution. Neither are in the book's index, which makes me wonder how much more is not explained.

Worse, it's too full of distracting cute you're forced to wade through. From the section, Resolving Resolution: "The Resolution value determines how tightly the pixels are packed when printed. It's kind of like the population density of one of those ridiculously large urban areas cropping up all over the modern world. Consider Lagos, Nigeria, which is a city of nearly ten million souls - more than London, Paris, or Shanghais. Lagos, in case you're curious, is the fastest-growing major metropolitan area in the world, with an annual population explosion of 5 percent. (If that doesn't sound so bad, consider that it would put Lagos at 33 million people in the year 2020, which would be more than Tokyo, the current topper.) The population density of Lagos is second only to Honk Kong, at roughly 150,000 people packed into each square mile (on average, that's 15 times as crowded as New York City.)" And it goes on and on.

When I want cultural geography lessons, I'll buy a cultural geography book. I don't have the time to wade through this kind of stuff in hopes I might eventually stumble across what I'm looking for. Few of us do. I'm sure I'll get something from this book, but I wish I hadn't bought it. Save your money.

I'm new to Photoshop but no novice to computers. I needed something that would give me the basics of PS just to get me up and running. This book is well suited for that purpose, but a little too basic for me at times. Of course I understand it's a Dummies book, and even programming books have to assume a low base line for it's audience, so all in all I can't hold that against the book. It does have plenty of goodies to offer, you just have to suffer through a little novice fluff if you're not one.

Conclusion is it's great for novice beginners and still good for non-novices that happend to be PS beginners. And actually, It may even be a decent reference for people beyond beginner stages, though it's not really indexed to be a reference like that.

I found this book very helpful for me. First of all, I gladly recognized myself as a dummy in photoshop and a far-from-expert PC user. I find in this book a lot of helpful tips and explanations in a very light, simple, direct style.

Remember that the " ... for dummies" series are written in a funny and easy to read way. If you're the kind of guy who loves deep technical academical explanations and don't like to be teached in a funny style, then maybe you need another kind of book for "begginers".

Thanks to this book I now can jump to more complex themes on photoshop! Mission acomplished.

Dummies books have been a staple of my computing/software resource library for a long time. This book was very disappointing. If you're looking for an organized presentation of the functions and capabilities of Adobe 7, leave this on the shelf. There are few visual examples in the book and very few tutorials that lead you through a topic in any organized way at all. To get something out of this book, I found myself jumping all over the place, following topic and function chapter references tossed in all too frequently, sifting through meaningless and annoying chatty writing, trying to piece together a tool's functionality on my own. And did I mention the writing style? Distracting, distracting, distracting. I felt like I was sitting in a computer class for octogenarians with ADD. Get to the point!! Leave it on the shelf.

I've used Photoshop for years (very basic stuff)so i was happy to find out all the things i could have been doing. I consider myself pretty smart, so i was suprised at how easy the book is to read, without leaving me feeling like i should be back in 3rd grade...love the little jokes too