Complete Idiot's Guide to Adobe Photoshop 5 (The Complete Idiot's Guide)

This book rules! Its illustrative, funny and its ease to learn amazes me. I finished this book in a week and was instantly a Photoshop expert. Buy this book today!

This book is wonderful for anyone who's ever been intimidated by Photoshop and all its tools. The author lays out everything in a style everyone can understand and he doesn't get too technical with his words, although he does present techinical information and words for those who want it. The best thing about this book is that he has an exercise to go along with almost everything he writes about, which enables the reader to sit at their own PC/Mac and use Photoshop while following along with the book. He also has a "put it all together" exercise at the end of the book so you can know how to put a lot of the tools you've learned about into use together to create great art, even for the "graphically challenged" such as myself.

I've owned Photoshop 4 and 5 for awhile but have mainly avoided using it much because of the complexity of the program. I've settled for using a simpler paint program until reading this particular book which makes understanding Photoshop much easier for me. The author has a sense of humour and the contents are well laid out and explained clearly. This book isn't for the Photoshop pro but if you've been intimidated by Photoshop, like I have, this book is a good choice.

I have four Photoshop training videos, six hours of online training classes, and a day long workshop($500) under my belt. This book beat 'em all!

After searching for an intro to Photoshop 5 by comparing various titles at my local book mega-mart for content, indexes, and how succinctly it explains the nuts- & bolts of the program, I chose this title over all the others. Not only is this an excellent entry-level guide to PS5, this is also a handbook/memory-jogger for the seasoned user. More than reasonably priced, and despite the title, does not talk down to the new user unfamiliar with PS5. Offering step-by-step exercises, new terms and concepts are explained clearly and in a linear fashion. The book features a complete index. I give it 5 stars because it has certainly met my needs and answered my questions...if that doesn't deserve 5 stars, I don't know what does. I highly recommend it.