Customer Reviews

Photoshop CS3 Essential Skills (Photography Essential Skills)

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

I have read four other books on the new Photoshop CS3 - all of which quickly became too complicated. After all, I want to produce excellent pictures with my Nikon 80D SLR, and am learning Photoshop CS3 from scratch, but other writers seem compelled to include, in books labelled as introductory, the most arcane or esoteric features of this magnificent software. They do so while neglecting basic issues like capturing and enhancing a RAW picture for transmitting across the web.

So I was relieved to find this 430-page book, which begins with "Digital Basics" and waits until P375 to deal with "Posterization" and suchlike. Check Amazon's "Search Inside" feature and look at the Contents. You'll see that this is a book for photographers, as well as professional web designers, for example. It is even more attractively designed than most, and is accompanied by a DVD with loads of useful information (readily accessible in spite of one odd review here). The DVD has more than eight hours of instruction by the authors in subjects ranging in complexity from the use of simple hand tools to montage and special-effects.

The step-by-step instructions are easy to follow, and (unlike other books on the subject) contain no glaring errors of fact or syntax. The authors have clearly taken care to avoid careless editing. Hence my gratitude extends to writing this complimentary review!

Galer presents a really useful set of teaching tools: A fine set of DVD movie tutorials and exercise images accompany a well-written book. I cycle between the book, the movies, and doing the exercises--all of which are complementary. Be prepared, however, to go over the same material multiple times. Some of the concepts are not easy, but there is a real sense of accomplishment when you see how something works. I have several CS3 books, and I like this one best.

This book is very well featured and user friendly. It definitely provides great coverage of Adobe Photoshop CS3, mastering every techniques covered in a project by project basis which is very simple to learn.

A free DVD is also included with lots and lots of great short movies to support the practical projects, and also great royalty-free images for you to practice your photoshop skills. I'd certainly recommend it to everyone, and at that very cheap price, it's a steal !!!

I have the Scott Kelby book for CS2 and I was debating between this and the Scott Kelby for CS3. Glad I chose this. I am kind of in the learning mode for the PhotoShop and Scott's book though good, lacked some of the basics that this book covers well. I loved the videos on the DVD which takes you through some of the techniques also given in the book - but as they say "a picture is worth a thousand words" - so the video should be worth more - it is!
Highly recommended for beginners as well as advance level photographers/enthusiasts.

I found this book to be well written for the newcomer to Photoshop as well as for those of us who want to learn about the nuances of the new bells and whistles in CS3.

The disk that comes with the book is a real plus and the tutorials are great.Photoshop CS3 Essential Skills

I wanted a book that would take me from coarse manipulating images in Photoshop to lifting out the richness of detail. This book does it! Unlike many similar books on Photoshop, there is no padding, no overuse of large images to extend without adding value, this book is to the point. I learned many tricks and valuable techniques.

That said, it can be demanding and sometimes it is too tight. It would have helped if the key steps were relegated each to a single line or a single dot point to reduce risk of missing a step buried many words.

Sometimes too the steps are many such as project 1 beginning page 250 and the background or reason for doing it is not spelled out (what is "Apply Image" and why? page 253). It would help if the introduction to the recipe covered key steps and what will happen with cross references.

It is also not empathetic to the reader. For example page 252 it takes steps to duplicate a blue layer and after a levels adjustment it is called "this mask". What "mask" I ask? Then in step 3 (page 253) it refers to a "layer mask". Is this the copied blue layer or the black and white mask? An explanation of the blue layer copied would have helped and if somehow a mask, please say so.

It is however one of the best reference books and goes highly recommended with a decent index and support CD. Well done Galer and Andrews but again, care with the steps more prominent and a little explanation of what some steps actually do (eg what does "Apply Image" actually do as there is nothing in your book about it and oft used).

I bought this book because the DVD material sounded promising. However, the book introduces complex concepts but fails to provide explanations that make any sense. Probably my biggest complaint is that the book is absolutely geared towards Mac users - the author comments that "the UI is the same irrespective of the computer platform you are working with." However I was unable to locate several of the menu items that he references and many were in a different location.

I do realize that most digital photographers use the Mac platform, but if you're going to offer yourself up as supporting both platforms, then you need to live up to that, because not ALL photographers use Mac.

I am going to try another book - trying to follow this one is a HUGE waste of time.

I have both the photoshop Essential Skills CS2 and CS3 editions and I used both...although there is some repeat from edition to edition there is always some really good and needed info in each of them. I also like the tutorials on the cd. Mark Galer and Philip Andrews write easy to understand, step by step informative books.

I used this book with the DVD for a photoshop class that I took at the local college. The DVD contains ~8 hours of easy to follow tutorials which saved my day. Mostly because the teacher wouldn't show us a lot of the tools that we could use. The tutorials are easy enough to follow, and you can go at your own pace, and easily rewind on your computer if you need to. I mostly followed tutorials right along with what I was doing in photoshop, so it helped me immensely.

This is a very good concept. I hope that Galer's future books follow the same format.

I highly recommend this book, even if you only get it for the DVD.

There were several times where I had to seek alternative sources to have my questions answered about Photoshop. So, I do feel this book could have addressed topics in more detail. If you are a beginner in Photoshop, I don't recommend this book.