The Photoshop CS3/CS4 Wow! Book [Paperback]

When the second edition of PS WOW! came out I simply couldn't wait to drool all over the amazing work inside, and spent hours honing my skills late into the night. I wore out my early editions from heavy usage. Now the long awaited WOW! CS3/CS4 Book is everything we as designers (and students, teachers, computer geeks and people drawn to shiny objects) have come to expect. From the beginning of the book to the end there are many tricks, step-by-step demonstrations, and great explanations of both difficult and easy concepts.

The predecessor to this volume has been used heavily in classrooms all over the world and in several languages, and this one should see just as much use as it's simply the premiere book in its class. Dayton and Gillespie have carefully sorted through each exercise as well as writing a lot of new material to make sure the updates of Adobe's developers have all been perfectly covered.

The WOW! book doesn't just tell you how to make Layers; it gives you multitudes of ways to leverage them. It doesn't simply talk about type; it provides tricks and tips used by the best designers in the world to get the most out of the powerful tools PS offers. Channels, Brushes, Groups, 3D, Styles, Actions, Video and far more things than any one Photoshop user ever will get into are covered in great detail. Chances are that if it's a trick that's not here you'll have trouble getting your hands in greater detail anywhere.

For those who are concerned about the lack of CS5 materials in the book, and it's a valid concern, nothing in the book is now outdated other than some of the screen shots of the tool palette. Everything that is in CS3/4 is also in CS5, so the material is completely relevant. The most interesting new items for most users are some selection and editing tools, and some of the more artistic users will get excited about some of the artistic brushwork that is now possible. Those are all well explained within the application itself, and while they are kind of neat the lack of those few items shouldn't make anyone feel less inclined towards this edition.

After all... there's -nothing- else like The Photoshop CS3/CS4 WOW! Book in existence.

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And for the three-star and one-star reviewers, one of whom merely noted CS5 was out but didn't actually look at this book before his "review," I don't think I could be convinced to disagree with your assessment more than I already do. Perhaps I'm not understanding your concern, but the WOW! series has never been strictly for beginners, it has hundreds of pages of meticulous step-by-step instruction and nothing about CS5 makes this book incorrect about a single method. I just don't get your reviews at all - they're like you put the review on the wrong book's page!

The second I opened it I understood why it was called the WOW book. It's the most information packed publication on Adobe's Photoshop that I have seen. My first reaction was "Yikes! Information overload." Once I calmed down and took a closer look at how the sections were structured, working through it became much easier than I originally thought.

I found the whole book valuable on many levels. The first four chapters of the book are devoted to Photoshop basics and start out with how Photoshop thinks. Although I thought I was past the beginner stage, I learned quite a bit there. There are both "Quick" sections which are short and informative and "Find Out More" boxes that lead to extensive information. When I stayed focused on a section, I was able to study in depth. Other times I would jump from one topic to the next and end up far from the original subject but that was fun too. It was very similar to surfing the web. When actually working on my photos it was easy to skip around to find exactly what I needed.

The tutorial files were clearly written and easy to apply to my own work and there are lots of full color images and shots of Photoshop tool panels which are great for visual learners. The companion DVD that comes with the book not only contains lesson files but also a wealth of goodies like presets, actions, patterns and textures. That in itself was worth the price of the book.

Whether you want to learn Photoshop in depth or just have a great reference book to grab when you need help, I highly recommend the Photoshop CS3/CS4WOW Book.

First, a confession. I am not a photographer, I'm an artist who specializes in the human figure and in inked illustrations. So my remarks may not apply to digital photographers, although I do use digital photographs as reference and source material.

I am very impressed with this book. I wish that I had bought this book before I bought my other Photoshop books. There are detailed explanations of a huge variety of Photoshop techniques and the Actions included on the DVD are very educational. If I could only own one Photoshop book, this would be the one.

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