Dynamic Learning: Photoshop CS3

Features

• Cover Type: Paperback with 360 pages
• Published by: O'Reilly Media, Inc.; Pap/Dvdr edition July 16, 2007
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 0596510616
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-0596510619
• Book Dimensions: 9 x 7.3 x 0.9 inches
• Weighs: 1.6 pounds

Product Description
Dynamic Learning: Photoshop CS3 is part of the O'Reilly Dynamic Learning series, a comprehensive, integrated learning environment that combines books with video tutorials and online resources. Written and produced by product experts and trainers who have produced many of Adobe's training titles, the book, along with the Digital Classroom video tutorials on the DVD, takes you step-by-step through the process of learning to use Photoshop CS3 like a pro on your Mac or PC.

This full-color book is organized into lessons, with easy-to-follow instructions, tips, examples, self-study exercises, and review questions at the end of every lesson. Each lesson is self-contained, so you can go through the entire book sequentially or just focus on individual lessons.

Topics covered include:

• What's new in Photoshop CS3
• Bridge
• Camera Raw
• Making Selections
• Painting and Retouching
• Layers, Smart Objects, and Smart Filters
• Creating graphics for video and the Web

The companion DVD included with the book includes video tutorials and all of the lesson files, with starting images, additional elements, and the final, completed image files. A free Instructor's Guide is available online in PDF format.

About The Author
The AGI Creative Team (Aquent Graphics Institute) is a highly experienced group of authors and instructors with a strong track record for developing and delivering best-of-breed books, video content, seminar series, and conferences.

Reader Reviews
Maybe it's because of the split personality that Photoshop has, being designed for use by both graphics professionals and photographers. Maybe a book that explains Photoshop for graphic artists is different from a book for photographers. I don't think so. And this book is not for photographers. For a while now I've been thinking that there must be a better way to teach beginners how to use Photoshop. This book, part of a new series by the publisher, looked like it might be a better way. It's not. First the good points. The book is made up of tutorials that require you to load an image file from the CD included with the book and then perform various operations on the file. The book is written in the simplest, easy to understand language and the tutorial instructions are crystal clear. There are videos tied to each chapter that run on a computer. Now the bad points. The organization of the book is ill considered, placing information in the beginning of the book that is inappropriate for beginners. The book doesn't provide essential information, particularly for photographers. The videos are a mere repetition of material in the text. Consider the organization. The book starts out explaining the significant differences between Photoshop CS2 and CS3. But if you are a beginner, the differences are irrelevant. The following chapters deal with compositing pictures. That is one of the last things a beginner needs to know. He or she first needs to know how to manipulate a photograph for tone and color correction. There is nothing that tells a reader how to get a picture from a camera into a computer, which is a major function of Bridge, an essential element of PS CS3. There is nothing that explains the nature of tonality, the manipulation of which has been essential to successful photography almost from photography's beginning. There is scant instruction on any of the basic controls to manipulate the tone and color of an image. My first instinct was to give this book the poorest rating possible, but I must confess that some of the chapters on more advanced techniques, like the nature of levels, were quite good (although not good enough to make up for the shortcomings, at least as far as a beginner is concerned.) As far as I can see, there is no magic bullet for photographers who want to learn Photoshop. A serious beginner might want to start his or her Photoshop learning with Barry Haynes "Photoshop Artistry: For Photographers Using Photoshop CS2 and Beyond (Voices That Matter)", following the book's suggested outline for beginners, and as one's skills developed, to return to the intermediate and then advanced outline. It will be slow going but you will learn what you need to process pictures well in Photoshop. If you've mastered Haynes version of Photoshop you can fill in the upgrade to PS CS3 with Ben Willmore's short and concise "Adobe Photoshop CS3: Up to Speed". By the way, this volume doesn't cover the latest upgrades to PS CS3, but given the cursory treatment of tone and color controls, that scarcely seems to make a difference to an evaluation of this book.