Real World Adobe Photoshop CS3 [Paperback]

David Blatner (Author), Conrad Chavez (Author), Bruce Fraser (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0321518683 | ISBN-13: 978-0321518682 | Publication Date: December 20, 2007 | Edition: 1

Anyone who relies on Photoshop to meet tough production challenges knows that when a new version arrives, especially one as chockfull of enhancements as Photoshop CS3, there's no time to fool around. You need to get up to speed on it, and you need to do so now. This book will get you there. In this copiously illustrated book, best-selling author David Blatner offers shows you how to sharpen your Photoshop production techniques and provides clear explanations of the concepts that drive them. Readers will learn about managing color, correcting colors, capturing images, getting great scans, and more. They'll also find complete coverage of Photoshop CS3's new features: a streamlined interface, nondestructive Smart Filters, a new Quick Selection and Refine Edge tools, improved Curves, automatic layer alignment and blending, and more. Throughout, the emphasis in this book is on efficiency: the timesaving tips and professional shortcuts that will allow readers to solve their everyday production challenges creatively with Photoshop CS3.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

David Blatner is an internationally known expert on Photoshop and QuarkXPress and is the author of numerous other books, including Real World QuarkXPress and Real World Adobe InDesign. David lectures on desktop publishing and digital imaging at conferences and workshops around the world.

Conrad Chavez began providing education, training, and support for digital-media applications in 1987, contributing countless pages to the user guides for print, Web, and digital video products at Aldus Corporation and Adobe Systems Incorporated. Now a freelance writer and editor, Conrad co-authored the books Adobe Photoshop CS/CS2 Breakthroughs (with David Blatner) and Real World Scanning and Halftones, Third Edition, and is a contributing writer for The Adobe Illustrator CS2 Wow! Book by Sharon Steuer.

Bruce Fraser is a widely recognized authority on digital imaging and color reproduction. He is the author of the best-selling Real World Camera Raw with Adobe Photoshop CS2 and the co-author of Real World Color Management, and was a principal and co-founder of Pixel Genius, LLC.

Product Details

• Paperback: 768 pages
• Publisher: Peachpit Press; 1 edition (December 20, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0321518683
• ISBN-13: 978-0321518682
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.6 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #408,009 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best There Is, March 21, 2008

By 

Russell S. Lewis "Russ Lewis" (Manitou Springs, Colorado United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Real World Adobe Photoshop CS3 (Paperback)

There's nothing else out there that comes even close to this book as an encyclopedic reference to Photoshop CS3. Losing Bruce Fraser is a terrible blow to all of us who've relied for decades on his ability to make complicated subjects understandable, but David Blatner is keeping up the tradition and it appears that Conrad Chavez is a valuable addition to the lineup.

The chapter on color settings in this book is worth the price of admission all by itself. If you do serious work with CS3 you NEED this book. Sit down and read it all the way through, highlight revealing passages, and make notes on the blank parts of the front pages. When you finish you'll have the whole story at your fingertips. Like most CS3 users I work with a subset of Photoshop most of the time, but when I'm faced with an unusual problem I can dive into this book and come up with the solution in a minute or two. Once you've done your homework on the book you won't want to be without it.

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A real winner, March 3, 2008

By 

Dean W. Wilkey (New Mexico) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Real World Adobe Photoshop CS3 (Paperback)

Very in-depth explanation of Photoshop CS3. A lot more detailed and advanced than most Photoshop books. This is really a resource or reference book and not a book that you can just sit down and read through like Scoot Kelby's book on CS3 for digital photographers, but it is far more informative and in-depth than Kelby's book.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing learning!, June 7, 2008

By 

Shendel Schichvarger (Brazil) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Real World Adobe Photoshop CS3 (Paperback)

This book surpassed all my expectations, it was made for serious professionals, and that's what I wanted. Although I'm only an amateur photographer and Photoshop enthusiast, I'm enjoying the book, but because I'm very curious and exactly because I love Photoshop so much I wanted to understand everything about it.

If you are also an enthusiast/amateur but don't care about how this marvelous program works, you better get an easier book with canned "how toos". This book also has step by step guides, but on the top of it they explain every single detail of how everything works.

The authors give very in depth explanations on color theory, color management (I had a hard time on this), color spaces, exactly what is a digital image, etc. Although I found this all fascinating, as I already said I had a hard time trying to understand some concepts about color management, but my guess is that if you are a professional you will understand it better.

They also explain Bridge and Camera Raw. I understand why they included these 2 programs in the book (they work together, although CR is actually a plugin), but I could live without it, mostly because there are more in depth books about CR, like Real World Camera Raw with Adobe Photoshop CS3 (Real World), by Bruce Fraser and Jeff Schewe (I love this guy, check out his videos on CR at the Luminous Landscape website). If you don't plan on buying a specific book on CR, then the chapter about it is a good introduction.

The most fun part is of course on Photoshop itself, covered in a brilliant, flawless way, with everything you could wish for and more.

The book is massive, more than 700 pages, and is written in a nice, light but serious way. They won't waste your time and patience on endless silly jokes like Scott Kelby. For someone like me, whose mother language isn't English, I could understand everything and the reading flowed smoothly.