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13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Exactly as the title implies, February 27, 2007
This review is from: The Photoshop Anthology: 101 Web Design Tips, Tricks & Techniques (Paperback)
A previous reviewer, "S. Lensselink" was disatisfied with the book, having expected more advanced techniques. But the book's title aptly sums up the contents: this book is a collection of tips on how to create web design elements you've seen on many websites, using photoshop. It is not geared toward advance users, but individuals like myself who wish to create a website, have photoshop, know the basic tool functionalities, but would just like to skip learning everything in detail and jump right into creating design elements.
I was worried because the book begins with the most basic of steps, such as "how to resize an image" - which belongs in a basic primer photoshop book instead. This continues for the first 50 pages and if you judged the book only on those 50, then you would agree with Lensselink wholeheartedly. But the book begins to pick up the pace and can be breathless in its instructions. Another reviewer suggested the author's quickened pace neglected many steps, but none were missing. The problem lies in the layout. Instructions are giving in paragraph form like a narrative. The steps should have been broken into bulletted or numbered steps, making it easier to follow and turn back to.
Advanced tips specific to web presentation are quickly introduced such as creating bevelled buttons, confined text, color-matching photos, and layouts.
Lensselink belittles other readers for being lazy, implying all the information contained in the book is readily available through a simple google search. As a new photoshop user, I would have to disagree. As of Feb 2007, the search engine results are still populated with false positives and unless you know specifically what to type, you'll end up browsing through multiple webpages looking for instructions matching exactly what you want to achieve.
Although many tricks can be found in other photoshop books, they are scattered in a myriad of titles. Few books focus specifically on photoshop for web design, and this book does a great job of collecting some of the best ones. It's great reading for beginners (or Photopaint/Paint Shop Pro migraters like myself) and anyone who doesn't have the luxury of time to go on a wild google chase for the info.
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15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
For Web Site Designers Only, November 9, 2006
This review is from: The Photoshop Anthology: 101 Web Design Tips, Tricks & Techniques (Paperback)
Here's a book that's aimed at a small niche in the web site creation market, that is, web site programmers who don't know how to use Photoshop to create graphics and need help in converting those graphics into files that can be inserted into websites. The book covers only the Photoshop operations necessary to create web graphics. It does not cover any use of cascading style sheets (CSS) or hypertext markup language (HTML), or even the use of software like Dreamweaver to create a website.
The book starts out with an explanation of fundamental Photoshop techniques like using layers and drawing simple shapes. Next it covers some of the fundamental skills for making web graphics like the creation of buttons and backgrounds and working with text. There are two sections on working with images, and then a discussion of using PS to design a website. The author finishes up with a potpourri of advanced techniques like creating actions and animated GIFs.
The book is somewhere between a tutorial and a cookbook. The author doesn't provide detailed instructions to create the graphics but moves quickly through the steps to take to achieve a product. One can be aided by downloading files of the completed graphics from the publisher's web site. Readers comfortable with looking at things like the layers palette can follow along with what the author has done to create each graphic. But be warned that the method of finding the file you want and getting it into Photoshop can be confusing. I finally unzipped the files and copied them into another folder where I could conveniently select the right file with Bridge.
I have to admit that since Barry Haynes dropped his chapters on Image Ready from the "Photoshop Artistry" series, I've felt there was a need for a book like this. Unfortunately Haffly moves too quickly through the recipes for this book to easily work for a beginning web site builder. To use this book you will need some experience with Photoshop so that you are not lost, and you will certainly have to know how to build a web site with the graphics that you create here. I frequently found myself rereading sections several times to understand the steps that the author had followed. I occasionally wanted to shout "slow down".
I was dissatisfied with this book, and yet, if you are going to create graphics in Photoshop for a web site, this book will help you to do so, even if the learning may be somewhat painful.
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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent book - great quality and a friendly read, October 25, 2006
This review is from: The Photoshop Anthology: 101 Web Design Tips, Tricks & Techniques (Paperback)
For the last few years I've done a pretty good job of avoiding Photoshop, hiding behind the "I'm not a Graphic Designer" line. However I've recently taken on responsibility for the interface design of the Intranet systems where I work, as well as the backend stuff. So needing a crash course in Photoshop I picked this book up. I was amazed how quickly I got to grips with the concepts - I was whipping up professional looking graphics very quickly.
The most striking thing about the book is the quality of the printing. It's in full color, which is a massive help with a graphics book, and it looks great. Probably the best looking technical book I've read for a good while. It is slightly larger than the usual size of technical books, and laid out in a very easy to follow way - the book has a real sense of flow thanks to this.
The other thing that struck me was the way in which it's written. The author takes a very informal tone which I had mixed feelings about at first. However it was easy to get used to, and the writing style gives the book a very relaxed, friendly feel - it makes the book very easy and enjoyable to read.
The book is made up of sections of related short tutorials, for example a tutorial on making buttons leads into making buttons with various types of effects and looks. In isolation some of these tutorials don't seem very useful, especially considering the current trend for clean CSS driven websites. However they are in fact excellent at teaching the core concepts used in creating the majority of the highlight graphics you'll see on websites today. Once you've mastered the gradient and glassy buttons, for example, you can use the highlight techniques from these tutorials and apply them to highlight graphics, icons and other little niceties for use all over the place. The book goes on to teach the most of the concepts in involved in creating graphics for website, either from scratch or using existing images.
I was very impressed with how quickly I was able to start using Photoshop and producing graphics without having to rely on tutorials or other images for guidance. Its one of those books that's best read next to your PC while your trying out ideas and concepts as you go along - if your after a book that's light on theory and that will very quickly get you exploring Photoshop for yourself I'd definitely recommend this.
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