Photoshop CS2 All-In-One Desk Reference for Dummies

For me this book finds the right balance. It's not too dry and not 'cute'. It's the book I had been looking for.

Except for the yellow cover, this just doesn't look like a For Dummies book. As soon as you open it you start to see color printing everywhere. There must be dozens, if not hundreds of four color images, and they are scattered throughout the book. (Even the usual 'For Dummies' cartoons are in color.) This isn't at all like a lot of books that only have a few color plates. It also appears to be a higher quality paper that looks brighter than the other books in the series. This makes sense because Photoshop is a highly color oriented software package. The really nice thing about all this is that they didn't raise the cost significantly. A lot of books printed like this one are twice the price. Of course the real test of a book is not its appearance, but its content. This book is aimed at the beginner to intermediate level user. It kind of combines a tutorial and a reference approach. The first few chapters are really introductory. It doesn't make much sense to jump around in them. But after that the chapters are pretty much stand alone. You can use the index or the general chapter heading to find the particular area that interests you and get the information you need. This is a welcome addition to photoshop literature. While it's aimed at the beginner, even an expert will find a few points that will help him on his next project. The author runs a graphic design studio in Ventura, CA. She has written several other books on Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator and teaches at local colleges. Note that this book only covers Photoshop as part of the CS2 package. You may also want to consider 'Adobe Creative Suite 2 All-in-One Desk Reference For Dummies' to cover the other parts of the suite.

Photoshop is now a huge and powerful graphics editing program. Trying to learn it can be formidable. So naturally, along comes a Dummies text to alleviate the pain. As with all the books in this series, no prior knowledge of the topic is required of you. But perhaps it is telling that the book is over 600 pages long. Even in an introductory text, this shows that you can learn a lot about its "special effects" [if I may use that phrase]. The writing style is deliberately casual, and the use of jargon is minimised. Of course, the reference nature of the book is the main reason for its length. But Obermeier shows that much of Photoshop is understandable even to a new user.