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Message from Dean - May 8th 2007
I am currently testing out a new version of the APF Bridge Component - If you notice any errors within this demo store please drop me a line.
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I had been looking for something that taught the basics and purchased the dummies book a week or so prior. I like doing tutorials online but they always skip steps. This book has been a lifesaver because it gives you the tools and practical applications. This is without a doubt, for this person anyway, the best book out there to actually learn how to use PS. I wish I had seen it prior to purchasing Dummies, I haven't even cracked that book since I go this one. I love the lessons and step-by-step instructions!
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Very good self-teaching guide for the most part. Early chapters are easy to follow and the concepts are easy to grasp. By the time chapter 6 is reached the material is more difficult to grasp but the chapter is well written but the material should be broken up into either a separate chapter or into more chapters. This is primarily because the subject matter involves sometimes subtle effects. Have not made it past this point in the book yet but at about halfway through the book it looks good.
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Excellent book for the novice to learn photoshop. The CD has the lessons and the descriptions take you through a step at a time, VERY easy to learn. And it's not necessary to go through in order, you can jump to whatever technique you want to learn next.
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Adobe Photoshop is an incredible tool...if you know how to use it. Like many people, before I read this book, I was able to do some basic Photoshop tasks--cropping, moving, or resizing graphics--and some work with layers and color correction. However, I often left Photoshop wondering why the program wasn't more user friendly. There were many tools I'd never used and others I'd been using incorrectly. The available online Photoshop tutorials I tried often left me frustrated with the level and quality of instruction. Then, I stumbled up on the Adobe Classroom in a Book series and found exactly what I was looking for.
Adobe Photoshop CS3 Classroom in a Book is organized as 14 separate, step-by-step lessons appropriate for Photoshop users of beginning to intermediate skill levels. The book begins with fundamental concepts and techniques to build the beginning user's foundational knowledge of the tool. The instruction incorporates best practice uses for the tools and illustrates multiple ways of accomplishing the same tasks. The procedures for each project are clearly detailed, and, even though some tasks are repeated across projects, the authors never skip steps, helping the user commit basic procedures to memory through repetition. The projects increase in difficulty, building on techniques learned in previous chapters. To appeal to users of different skill levels, the book also provides "extra credit" sections to further explore techniques in more complex scenarios. For difficult concepts, the cd-rom provides QuickTime videos with further instruction.
The true test of any training is how well the learner implements their learning on the job. For me, the transfer of knowledge from the "classroom" to my graphic projects has been seamless. I no longer feel lost when I'm using Photoshop, and the quality of graphics I'm able to produce has greatly improved. Because the quality of instruction in this book was so high, I've begun purchasing other books in this series to build my knowledge of the Adobe Creative Suite.
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I purchased this book as the textbook for a class in Photoshop. In that role it is quite good. It has lessons that are easy to follow along and build on one another. It is better written than many other intoductory texts, and the practical lesson format gets you hands on early.
However, it lacks depth. Two examples: In some of the lessons, the student goes through some steps and sets some parameters (say vibrance) at a specified level without the book explaining why that number was selected, or even what was actually going on. The book does not have any reference or look-up value, if you want to what a particular control or process really is, this is not the book.
The book's intention is to get you going, at a rudimentary level, in Photoshop in a short time. It does that and reasonably well. If this is your first introduction to Photoshop, by getting you hands on, it is very good. However, I also have a very good instructor who supplements and does through the lesson areas in more depth, so I am not sure how good it would be without the classroom time. Without an instructor, you will need a more indepth book to back this one up.
The trick with a piece of software as powerful and complicated as Photoshop is how to get one the basic set of skills to start exploring without getting swamped. This book does that. But you will need more after using this book.
Have fun ...
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