Photoshop CS

Photoshop is so vast that it can be intimidating. This friendly, compact book only skims the surface of PS CS, and if this is all you're ever going to learn about the program, you should probably have saved several hundred dollars and gotten Photoshop Elements (or some other program) instead. However, PS CS QuickSteps may be just what you want if, for instance, you are forced to use full Photoshop for simple tasks in an office environment, or if you want a quick introduction to the broad swath of capabilities before delving into a 'thicker' general Photoshop book (such as Deke McClelland's "one-on-one" series), or one of the numerous books devoted to particular topics such as Kat Eismann's "Photoshop Restoration and Retouching," or before going online to search out tutorials and forums. At the level dealt with here, there will be little problem applying this book to the newer CS2 version, except for the File Browser which has been entirely replaced with Adobe Bridge. There do seem to be a few minor errors or omissions. For instance: -- on pp. 8-9, "actual size" never seems to be defined (it doesn't actually mean actual size, inches on screen corresponding to the size in inches of the file; it means actual *pixel* size, one display pixel per file pixel). -- on p. 129, in a very brief discussion of 8 bit per channel vs 16 bpc images, and when you might want to use the latter (when doing a lot of processing such as levels, to avoid posterization), the aside is made that "When you print a 16 bit image, the results are stunning." This is simply not true in the vast majority of cases, unless of course the 8-bit image also prints stunning hardcopy ;-).

PhotoShop can be overwhelming to learn, and I think this is a superb book for the beginner. It is clear, and it is practical. The instructions are well-illustrated, and logically presented. I learned a great deal from this book, and it helped me to move forward in this extremely complicated software. As a response to the previous reviewer who blasted the book because it was not Mac-exclusive, I'd like to say that if you substitute the Windows CTRL key for that funny looking squiggly apple-whatever key on the Mac, there's very little difference between the two Photoshop programs. I think this book could be useful to users on both platforms.