Customer Reviews

Real World Adobe Photoshop CS3

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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.

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.

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.

Excellent book for those wanting to set up colour workflows. In depth explanations based on practicle applications. This is not a step by step guide for those wanting to learn photoshop

There are a lot of challenging manuals out there. This one is challenging and well-written. And thorough. I will go back and read it over and over again, not only because there's a wealth of information for the advanced Photoshop user, but because there is more than one can absorb in one reading. Beginning users may be intimidated, but Real World Adobe Photoshop is worth the investment because they will go back to it in the years to come as they get deeper and deeper into it. The one issue I have is that several of the photos they've so carefully demonstrated how to correct don't look significantly better when compared to the original; they may be true examples of retouching in the real world, but more exaggerated corrections would be appreciated.

This book is so much more than a list of Photoshop options. It tells you how to do the things that as a photographer you will probably be doing a lot of, not all kinds of theoretical stuff that you will probably never even think about doing. That said, there's too much pre-press and print industry material for my taste. But the photography-relevant material is first-rate.

I have owned a number of Photoshop manuals. This has been by far the best. You need only remember that time is your friend when working with this book.

An outstanding reference for advanced Photoshop users, this manual covers it all. Alternative methods for applying standard tools and detailed explanations for adjusting images using blending modes provide the tools that work for a high volume photographer. Discussions on Camera Raw image management, typographic enhancements and image output were interesting and proved effective. A great handbook.

This is a great book that is both practical and thorough. The illustrations of screen images and the text narratives are concise and essentially easy to follow. The injection of occasional humor makes reading the material enjoyable. And when you can get results, you know the book is worth the money.

Do not hesitate to get this book to improve your Photoshop skills! It is an incredible tool and you will be happy with all the knowledge that you can squeeze from this book!