The Photoshop 4 Wow! Book with CDROM (Wow Books) [Paperback]

Linnea Dayton (Author), Jack Davis (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 26, 1998 | Series: Wow Books

The all-new edition of the award-winning Photoshop bestseller!The first edition of The Photoshop Wow! Book garnered the prestigious 1994 Computer Press Award for the best book of its class, and the second edition took top honors in the 1996 Benjamin Franklin Awards. This new edition, expanded and updated for version 4, continues to set new standards for clarity and creativity in computer publishing, combining hundreds of new techniques, new projects, and new illustrations.This hands-on guide provides "click and drag" presentations of painterly, photorealistic, and special effects techniques. Hundreds of time-and work-saving tips are covered as well. An all-new chapter on Web graphics and techniques explores the special considerations that this new medium entails. The book is heavily illustrated throughout showing real-life projects created by top Photoshop artists.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

If you're looking for guidance on creating excellent effects in Photoshop 4.0, this is a great book to get. As with a lot of other Photoshop books, The Photoshop 4 Wow! Book teaches you how to paint; use filters; create special effects; manage selections and layers; correct photos; create montages and collages; work with Illustrator and Photoshop together; and output your work for 3-D, multimedia, and Web applications. But here, each chapter is broken down into discrete tips, and each tip is highlighted on one, two, or three well-laid out, full-color pages, so it's easy to find exactly what you need. For example, you might jump from the tip on "using images to make selections" in the second chapter ("Selections, Masks, Layers, and Channels") to "chiseling" in the eighth chapter ("Graphics Special Effects").

Everyone from beginner to advanced users can glean plenty from this book. The initial chapters are pretty basic, offering an introduction to Photoshop's interface and various digital-imaging and memory-management issues. Besides lots of screen shots you also get thorough instruction, so there's not much room for messing up or being led astray. At the same time, most of the tips include suggestions for producing your own variations on the artwork presented. Galleries show artwork produced by several Photoshop experts, along with explanations of how each artist produced his or her effects.

The bundled CD-ROM has stock photos; demo versions of filter software; demo versions of Adobe packages, such as Photoshop PageMaker, Premiere, and Illustrator; and ready-made Actions (Photoshop's batch processes) that run special effects. There's also a Macintosh edition of this book, which is identical except for keyboard commands and the platform-specific advice in the first chapter.

From the Back Cover

The first edition of The Photoshop Wow! Book set new standards for computer book publishing. Readers found techniques and solutions developed by renowned artists and designers, plus no-nonsense practical advice on using the software, and galleries of professional artwork for print, multimedia, video, and film.

The Photoshop 4 Wow! Book has been thoroughly revised with new tips and techniques, new projects, and hundreds of new illustrations. Readers will learn how to make the best use of the new tools and keyboard shortcuts, Adjustment layers, Actions and Navigator palettes, and Photoshop's new features for creating graphics for the World Wide Web.

Included is a CD-ROM filled with hundreds of dollars' worth of filters, photos, and prerecorded "Actions" for special effects that readers can apply to their own images, as well as sample applications and other goodies.

The book has won the International Digital Imaging Association's "Most Useful Book" award, the Computer Press Association's award for the "Best Advanced How-To Software Book," and the Publishers Marketing Association's "Benjamin Franklin award for "Best Computer Book."

Teachers: Linnea and Jack have created a suggested course guide to help you use The Photoshop 4 Wow! Book and its accompanying CD-ROM as a text for classes in computer imaging and design using Adobe Photoshop. It's available in Peachpit's Acadmic Resource Area.

Product Details

• Paperback: 329 pages
• Publisher: Peachpit Press (January 26, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0201688573
• ISBN-13: 978-0201688573
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,479,738 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Bought it as a gift, ended up keeing it for myself, July 3, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Photoshop 4 Wow! Book with CDROM (Wow Books) (Paperback)

I bought this book as a gift to teach my father how to use Photoshop 4, in the end, i found it so facinating and useful that I kept it for myself. The CD-Rom was great as well. It showed me how to produce neat effects that I was able to use in the workplace and home - Step by Step and with automated actions. One of the best photoshop books I've ever bought.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars AMAZING at the LEAST, November 29, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Photoshop 4 Wow! Book with CDROM (Wow Books) (Paperback)

This book was more than incredible, being a professional designer I envy the creators of this book. With a simple and easy to follow layout, the book describes amazing techniques which will astonish anyone. It effectively describes every aspect of photoshop and how to use it. Even for beginners, this book is a smash hit! It features images by people from intustrial light and magic (Made Star Wars) and it has great details on rotoscoping quicktime movies! If all else fails, there is a CD included that contains over 50 actions, filter demos, and images, A definite MUST BUY!

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Learn Massive Amounts Of Cool Techniques, November 2, 1999

By 

[e-mail] (Seattle, WA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Photoshop 4 Wow! Book with CDROM (Wow Books) (Paperback)

I bought this book on it's graphics alone, and I was rewarded by my choice. The only reason that I didn't give it 5 stars is that the tutorials could be a little less confusing. As well as a couple of mistakes that I had to write in the book to remind myself of. Other than that, the price of the book is almost worth it just to get the cd. The actions included are unstoppable. Plus the tutorials, which as I previously stated could be a little clearer, compliment the actions on the disk. Giving you the step-by-step to mimic them(actions). Plus you can amaze and astound your friends with the techniques learned from this book. I definitely recommend it.