Focal Easy Guide to Photoshop Cs2: Image Editing for New Users and Professionals

I have been a serious photographer for many years and a photoshop user since Photoshop 5. I learn by reading and following examples and have a library of many different guides to photoshop. I came across this book only recently, and in spite of having a fair knowledge of most of the areas that it covers, I found myself reading it from cover to cover and making notes and highlights. It is short and to the point and designed to be very practical. It does not simply provide a cookbook approach, but gives just enough theory to make concepts understandable and help to fix them in your memory. It is designed for the photographer (as opposed to the graphic designer)and uses a work-flow approach in a step by step process from input to finished picture. As a result of having read this book I will incorporate new techniques into my photo editing, and simplify several of the ones that I have been using up until now. If I were to recommend just one book to a photographer wanting to learn how to use Abobe photoshop, this would be the one.

Brad Hinkel is more than a photoshop jock; he's a real teacher. He isn't interested in producing another--even larger--photoshop manual. Instead, he distills the almost infinite number of choices and options photoshop embodies into a coherent body of knowledge that is both useful and expansive. Bewildered by the numerous ways to change brightness in photoshop? Brand Hinkel tells you which one is best and, most importantly, why. His ability to get below button-pushing for effect mode into easily understood explanations of principles and terms (of pixels, of how the grey point slider affects the entire histogram, of why 255 is the highest value in photoshop scale) is the great gift of this book. It allows the reader to understand not only the effect of buttons, but also the causal mechanisms rendering those effects. The concentration on effect at the expense of cause is the gaping hole in most photoshop manuals, which have evolved primarily from software demonstrations. It's easy to see that Hinkel's book derives from classroom experience, where the why's can't be overlooked. The result is a way of learning as well as of knowing, a book for students in the deepest sense of the word. The only reason this book received four stars is the unusual number of typos. This is unfortunate, because the production quality of the the book (especially paper stock) is quite high (though some of the pallete illustrations are a bit small). Like many people my age, I learned much of what I know about photography from Focal Press publications. It's great to see them back in the forefront of instructional manuals, but that doesn't make skimping on proofreading acceptable. Focal Press could do better and has.

I want to stress first: Brad Hinkel has put together the perfect concise introduction to Photoshop CS2. He speaks directly to the reader in a personal style and I really appreciate the informal, friendly tone of the book. He generously shares with the reader the best part of his knowledge and experience. In looking for a book I was wary of the many "encyclopedias" available at the bookshops. This is a detailed Photoshop book that is NOT an encylopedia. You can actually carry it around conveniently. Even (especially) if you're a computer savvy person like me but unaware of the intricacies of Photoshop, this is the perfect book. Thank you Brad Hinkel!

It is hard to believe that a book this concise will be of any use. Surely it won't contain enough information? Well it does! The book swiftly takes you through the basics of the tools, commands and filters using a wealth of illustrative material, all presented in an attractive easy to read manner. For anyone wishing to have a quick but useful introduction to Photoshop I would recommend this as a good place to start.