Inside Adobe Photoshop 6

Rating:
Summary: The book with the "aha" in it!
Review: After reading reviews of many different Photoshop 6 books, I decided on "Inside Adobe Photoshop 6" by Gary Bouton. This book does more than tell me what the Photoshop tools can do, but what I can do with them; in other words, it adds the "aha" to learning. There are practical examples with easy to understand explanations and it does it quickly to keep you from getting bored. I highly recommend this book.

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Summary: New to Photoshop? ........Then this book is for you!
Review: Although I had prior knowledge of Photoshop (PS) I had never really used the program to half of it's capabilities so I decided to learn PS's full potential.
Inside PS is a real must for anyone who has just begun with PS for those like me who are a little more experianced it is a fantastic tool full of hints and shortcuts with amazing detailed tutorials that you have lots of fun creating. There is a CD with this book which gives you coloured graphics and further tutorials you can see the work that has gone into this book and the CD to help you the user fully understand what is happening and why with lots of hints to make changes to create different effects.
From front cover to back cover it is really really yes really easy to follow and understand everything. With this book you are going to learn a lot and their images for the tutorials have made my task a lot of fun with their humor!
I have used the book to help others in message boards who needed help - I found the answers for them, opened PS, did it myself as the book suggested and then passed my new knowledge on saving sanity for some.
If you are not sure which book is best going to help you understand or get started with PS then my recommendation is Inside Photoshop 6 it will be money well spent believe me, this is a book that you are going to keep coming back to so keep it handy!

Rating:
Summary: Not for photographers
Review: Altough is extensive on detailed examples for illustrators, is not suited for photographers

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Summary: Inside Adobe Photoshop 6, Linited Edition
Review: As Gary points out, be aware that all reviews before the release date of August, 2001 are not written for this edition. My comments are relevant to this new release.

I am a new Photoshop Elements user (two weeks) and this is my first Photoshop book (two days). The bulk of the features in this book apply to Elements but there are sections in this book that go into more detail on some functions that are limited or removed from Elements.

That said, the books is excellent in every way. From beginning tutorials to complex ones beyond my needs, the book has a "tutor beside me" feeling. I needed a book that covered color management and this was the only one of several that I flipped through that provided any basic coverage on the topic. Personally, I could use even more practical guidance and tips on establishing the scanner, monitor, and printer settings into a integrated color solution. Even though the specifics for each model will be different, a bit more detail would have me really grounded on implementing color management on all devlces in the digital color imaging chain.

As stated before, I am a new Photoshop (Elements) user and learned quite a lot of the features just banging away trail and error and referring to the minimal bundled online help into the early hours on many evenings. I spent a whole cartrige of color getting the scanner, monitor, and printer calibrated. A fair bit of that ink and paper also went to understanding the dpi/ppi confusion and also determining the sweet spots and capabilities of my equipment in terms of resolution and color fidelity.

Many of the tutorials are excellent hands on exercises which really ground you in what can be done and actually how to accomplish them.

Another thing I like about the book that I experienced the hard way is the main list of common keystrokes for commands. There are comments in the book about the reducing the mileage on your mouse and constantly reinforcing the specific shortcut to accomplish the task. I put so much mileagae on my mouse that it needs an overall, not to mention the loss of pointer on the specific work.

In summary, I have covered about six chapters so far and am very happy with the book's comprehensive coverage of Photoshop 6, the hands on material supplied on the two CDs, and the extra CD material. Even though this is my first book on Photoshop, I know enough to claim that this book is now included in my core reference library!

Enjoy

Rating:
Summary: Sadly dissapointing
Review: Between the errors and the fact that the book does not even get into many of the new tools for Photoshop 6 I'm very disappointed in Inside Photoshop 6. The tutorials spend an awful lot of space on 57 ways to make a drop shadow and neato things you can do with the demo software on the disc. In fact I would say a third of the book is really advertising for other software one can add to photoshop - most of it of very little value.
I used Inside Photoshop 4 to convert to Photoshop from Photo-Paint a few years ago and that was a great book. I have the feeling it was fully updated for version 5 and this edition for version 6 was tossed together quickly with the advertorial content outweighing the editorial content at every stage in the process.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent Resource for Everyone!!
Review: Gary David Bouton has done it again! This book is as in-depth and informative as his other works. I consider myself a low- to mid-level Photoshopper, and I find Bouton to be very easy to understand - although the information includes detailed explanations and examples that will be extremely useful and interesting even to the most advanced user. I learn more each time I go through the book. This is a first rate reference book for everyone using Photoshop, whether their experience level is beginner, intermediate, or advanced. A must-have!!

Rating:
Summary: There appear to be reviews here, but there are not
Review: Hi Fellow Readers. I'm Gary David Bouton, the author of both the Standard Edition and the Limited Edition of "Inside Adobe Photoshop 6" by New Riders.

If you are confused about the 18 reviews for the Limited Edition book, don't be. Those were reviews shoveled over from the Standard Edition book. I don't know who did this, but whomever does the book a great disservice.

The Limited Edition was a labor of love. I and my co-authors pushed as hard as we could to offer more comprehensive tutorials, to explain what the difference REALLY means to a user between Photoshop 6 and 6.0.1, and we have a splendid visual round-up of all the latest plug-ins for Photoshop. Add to our writing labors a totally free $89 value: Alien Skin's Eye Candy 3 for Mac and Windows on the Bonus CD (that's right, there's two CDs), clipart, textures, a lot of stuff with which to practice.

I wish a reader would please review the book, and I wish these stale, inaccurate reviews could get deleted.

My Very Best,
Gary David Bouton
[e-mail]

Rating:
Summary: There appear to be reviews here, but there are not
Review: Hi Fellow Readers. I'm Gary David Bouton, the author of both the Standard Edition and the Limited Edition of "Inside Adobe Photoshop 6" by New Riders.

If you are confused about the 18 reviews for the Limited Edition book, don't be. Those were reviews shoveled over from the Standard Edition book. I don't know who did this, but whomever does the book a great disservice.

The Limited Edition was a labor of love. I and my co-authors pushed as hard as we could to offer more comprehensive tutorials, to explain what the difference REALLY means to a user between Photoshop 6 and 6.0.1, and we have a splendid visual round-up of all the latest plug-ins for Photoshop. Add to our writing labors a totally free $89 value: Alien Skin's Eye Candy 3 for Mac and Windows on the Bonus CD (that's right, there's two CDs), clipart, textures, a lot of stuff with which to practice.

I wish a reader would please review the book, and I wish these stale, inaccurate reviews could get deleted.

My Very Best,
Gary David Bouton
[e-mail]

Rating:
Summary: GREAT Reference
Review: I always knew Photoshop was a Power Program and Inside Adobe Photoshop 6 with CD proves this to be true. With over a thousand pages, the authors didn't miss a thing this program can do.

For those of us that are just learning Photoshop, the first chapter provides a good foundation for what can be found in Photoshop. Chapter Three which is approximately 60 pages long goes through Color Management. There are two chapters on images and one on Tools and automation. And all of this can be found in Part I.

Part II contains information on layers and special effects using type. Part III takes the reader through Color Correction, working with pictures and repairing them, using the tools and making surrealistic images.

Part IV brings the reader to the Web itself. Finally, in Part V, there is information on the CD that comes with the book, resources and what wasn't covered in the book. Even though the book is very long, there are graphical examples throughout plus Tips, Notes, and Warnings.

This book is not made for overnight reading but is definitely one that anyone using Photoshop should have on hand. It may not be one that you read from cover to cover, but it will be certain to have the material to answer your questions.

Rating:
Summary: I Can't read it, can you ?
Review: I am a programmer, not a DTP professional - therefore this review might not be good for people who do the living on DTP or photography editing.

This book seems to cover techniques how to do something, but in a strange manner. The book is too slow, which makes me very inpatient and angry, and examples (tasks) often are guided like: press ctrl T, now D, then select pen tool and draw a line (which you can't from some reason), then press this and that, and we have a new path here, now hide a layer by ctrl whatever, and so on.

The book is not organized well. It misses the global definitions at the beginning, e.g. what the path is. What is a layer? When we use it? Then there should be a simple example how and when to use it. When to link or not to link a selection with layer? When to use RGB layers, add a selection layer. And finally the same for some frequently used basic tools and effects (shadows, distortions, and whatever is important).

I have seen many people who really know Photoshop (guys who work for newspapers), and that stuff can't be learned from this book. They use different techniques, more efficient, while this book wastes your time by showing you how to do a shadow, or use a path for such a simple thing that you would never use path for. Also, the author is paying too much attention for tools like lasso, or some other selection tools, while I was interested into details of displacement maps and other effects, mixing photos and etc.

However, I have seen that marks of this book are really great - and therefore I must be very wrong because I am going to mark this book with only two stars, so forgive me on that. But I would really recommend future readers to try to borrow this book before buying it or compare with some other book, since this book is not organized well and is not leading you properly as the good book should.