The Photoshop Cs2 Help Desk Book

From front to back this book is the best book that I've read regarding Adobe Photoshop. It is a wealth of information that describes everything from tools to filters to modes -- it covers it all. If there is a keyboard shortcut, Dave Cross covers it. This book is an encyclopedia of information with regards to Photoshop CS2. I highly recommend this book to anyone -- I know you'll enjoy it.

First my review. This is not the kind of book you would need to read from cover to cover, since many chapters contain "typical" questions. Although you can use those as an occassional reference, I also found it interesting to browse through some of these Q & A chapters and found some answers to questions I'd always woindered about. I also liked the section on customizing Photoshop, particularly the part on personalizing my Contact Sheet. Now, this is probably "not done", by I was surprised by the low rating by one reviewer so I went to read his or her other reviews and was surprised to see that of his 4 reviews, 3 were one star reviews of Dave Cross' 2 books and a DVD. Coincidence? Perhaps. If I sould like I'm defending Mr Cross, I guess I am. I have attended his classes at Photoshop World and he knows his stuff - and this Photoshop book shows it.

I love the way this book is in sections: ones to can read to learn some ways to track down problems, a place to look up answers to specific problems and a section to help customize Photoshop. It will not be far from my computer any time I'm working in Photoshop and run into a problem. I've been using Photoshop since version 6 and have already found lots of useful stuff in the week I've had the book. Plus, the tip on customizing the contact sheet was worth the price of the book! I definitely recommend this book.

This book is divided into sections and each one is packed with ideas and info. I particularly liked the section that included suggestions on how to make flexible documents. I realized that was was doing a lot of things "the hard way" and could start create documents that I can easily edit and change. It's also packed with a ton of common questions and answers. Just glancing through I've already seen some solutions to problems I've encountered. Oh yes, I also love the fact that there's a whole bunch of error messages and their causes: finally someone has explained to me why these things happen! I really like Dave's writing style and would recommend this book to any Photoshop user.