Photoshop for the Web is the second edition of Mikkel Aaland's excellent instructional text on Adobe's powerful image manipulation program. This time, the book focuses on version 5.5, as well as ImageReady 2, which accompanies it. Aaland's 10 years in new media production, combined with the book's added contributions from different Web designers, results in confident and clear guidance on topics ranging from how to configure Photoshop's preferences specifically for the Web to using ImageReady to create quick rollover buttons.
The opening chapters deal with tuning Photoshop appropriately for Web production (for example, optioning out of image previews for JPEG images) and adjusting photos for the Web (including using the new Web Photo Gallery feature). The middle chapters detail working with GIF and JPEG images. The last section of the book helps resolve specific problems like creating tiled and nontiled background images and navigational icons (for example, beveled buttons and bullet balls with light effects). And there is an excellent chapter on using ImageReady to create GIF animations and rollovers. Black-and-white screen shots and illustrations appear on every page, not to mention 160 color illustrations throughout the text. Appendices discuss the PNG file format and complementary third-party software.
This would be an excellent choice for beginners; a lot of the instruction is very basic. But intermediate-level users and anyone just upgrading to version 5.5 will also find that hopping around within the book can be a fast way to get acquainted with the new features of both applications. --Angelynn Grant
Topics covered: Instruction on using Adobe Photoshop 5.5 and ImageReady 2 for Web image production, including adjusting preferences appropriately, preparing photos for viewing on the Web, saving images as GIFs or JPEGs, creating background images, working with type as image, creating navigational icons, GIF animations, rollovers importing vector files into Photoshop, and using Photoshop to design Web pages.
Product Description
In this second edition, author Mikkel Aaland updatesPhotoshop for the Web to include important new techniques and workarounds for the latest release of Photoshop--version 5.5. The first edition was loaded with step-by-step examples and real-world solutions from some of the world's hottest Web sites. The second edition adds coverage of Photoshop 5.5's newest features, including a compression tool that ultimately leads to faster download times and higher quality Web graphics. This edition also details features new to version 5.0, including the changeable type tool, color profiling, and the history palette.
If that's not enough, Photoshop for the Web, 2nd Edition also covers Adobe's ImageReady 2.0 Web graphics production software, now part of the Photoshop 5.5 package, and includes 64 pages of color inserts. You'll find information on ImageReady 2.0's image slicing, animation, and JavaScript rollover capabilities.
Topics include:
- Using 5.5's powerful Save For Web feature
- Automatically creating an interactive web photo gallery with 5.5
- Image manipulation and processing with 5's history brush
- Working with browser-safe colors to create stunning images regardless of platform or hardware
- Using Photoshop 5's contact sheet feature to organize digital photographs
- Quickly building Web backgrounds, buttons, and graphical type
- Creating JavaScript rollovers with ImageReady 2.0
- Streamlining Web production with Photoshop 5's changeable type tool
- Using Photoshop 5.5's new color decontamination features
- Using Photoshop as a Web layout tool
- Customizing Photoshop for Web production, including 5's color profiling
- Improving photos taken with a digital camera
- Controlling anti-aliasing with custom brushes
- Getting rid of the dreaded halo syndrome
- Optimizing images for JPEG compression
- Coding layout information in a Photoshop layer
- Changing Photoshop's matte color to match your Web page color
- Importing vector graphics into Photoshop
- Straightening scans with Photoshop 5's ruler tool
- Working with browser-safe colors to create stunning images regardless of platform or hardware
- Integrating PS and ImageReady to create the most efficient web production environment
In its first edition, "Photoshop for the Web" has received praise from press and readers alike: * The Canada Computer Paper picked it as one of the 10 best computer books of 1998. * Hewlett Packard's E-Business Web site called it "one of the most useful Photoshop books I've ever picked up." * And My Mac magazine said, "Aaland knows Photoshop inside out and how to maximize it for Web creation."
Readers were even more effusive: * "This is the first book that gives me both ready-to-use recipes and enough information to experiment with and learn my own solutions. Highly recommended!" * "Aaland has provided an excellent and detailed analysis of using Photoshop to produce web pages ... a must-read book!" * "Within minutes of perusing Aaland's book, I found exactly 4 new tricks that I immediately applied to improve my web site." * "This book now rests on my most hallowed piece of real estate - on my desk next to my mouse."
Photoshop for the Web, Second Edition shows you how to use the latest version of Photoshop to create Web graphics that look great and download blazingly fast.
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