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Rating: 
Summary: Buy an up-to-date edition
Review: Fine book, but the edition on sale by Amazon is not the current edition. If you own, or intend to buy, Photoshop CS, buy the current edition, ISBN 0240519531. Or, like me, you'll waste time and money buying and returning the wrong edition, then buying the new one somewhere else. Hope this helps.
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Summary: This book is excellent!
Review: I must say that this book is definitely one of the best Photoshop advice books I have see. Steve Caplin is very thorough and addresses topics everyone can relate to. Many questions of mine about how to produce clean edges, make perfect selections, and wrap text were presented very straight-forward. There is so much content in this book, along with the HOT TIPS in the margins of about every page.
At the 36.99 list price, no Photshop user should be without it.....
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Summary: A Great Photoshop Toolkit
Review: One of the best books written on Photoshop to date. I have read many books on Photoshop in the past, and I could never find one piece of material that put together all of the things that I was looking for until I bought this book.It is definitely not a "How-to-use" Photoshop book, which there are numerous to chose from, but an outstanding guide to the techniques used to make great photo montages. These techniques are applicable whether you are actually in the business or just like to explore the depth of Photoshop as a hobby. I consider myself an intermediate user of Photoshop, and I can honestly say that there were many things that I didn't even know that Photoshop could do until I read this book. The examples are detailed enough to easily follow if you know your way around the program. All of the photo files are included with the attached CD along with Quicktime movies of some of the projects. In addition, Steve Caplin provides some of his own insights about Photoshop and the photo montage business between chapters. I agree wholeheartedly on using the Wacom Graphire tablets. They are wonderful and come with some nice software. Overall a great book. I am always going back to reference it.
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Summary: Great Photorealism Book!
Review: This book is very well done. The work examples are very good.., not the amaturish examples found in many other books. Almost every page has full color pictures on it, not just a few pages in the middle. This book is not for beginners at Photoshop. You would be very frustrated. You need to have a good grasp of the tools in Photoshop before you are ready for this one. More advanced users will really appreciate it though. The author, Steve Caplin is a professional Illustrator for MacUser magazine. His book examples are oriented towards creating photos for magazine ads. I really like this book. I also recommend looking at Photoshop 7 Studio by Bert Monroy for a good photorealism book. This one is better though.
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Summary: Why you should buy this book
Review: This is my 24th PS book. I've been through all the page by page manuals from the CIAB books through the Real World types, the Magic Series, WOW Series, etc. I'm at that stage where Photrealism is a challenge I would like to conquer. I have both books by the photorealistic guru Bert Monroy, and they are both excellent. Steve Caplin's book "How to Cheat in Photoshop" is a joy and can proudly sit right next to Berts books. While Mr. Monroy's books go into step by step detail, Steve Caplins book shows the shortcuts that become invaluable time savers when working in this type of medium. And there are serious plusses here. Beside the standard CD with images to use to work through the lessons, some of the more complicated lessons have video instruction that make what he is trying to convey much easier to follow. But my favorite thing about this book is that it is set up as a reference book. If you need to "match the head to the body", there is a heading and a two page "how to". Sections include: Selecting, Hiding and Showing, Composing the Scene, Light and Shade, Heads and Bodies, Shiny Surfaces, Metal, Wood and Stone, Paper and Fabric, The Third Dimension and Hyper Realism. But again, this book is set up like a reference book. It's not really intended to be started on page one and worked through. It's like Scott Kelby's great "Down and Dirty" books. So who should buy this book? If you are not into Photorealism, stay away. And although the lessions are well written and some even have video instruction, I am not sure if I would recommend this book to PS novices. The book is definitely written with the assumption that you have a certain level of knowledge of PS. But I really am enjoying this book. I can't remember thinking a book was this cool since I read Photoshop Channel Chops! This book is going to get used a lot.
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Summary: Excellent! From start to finish!
Review: What a FANTASTIC book this is! I actually have the newer version of this book that was just released for Photoshop CS this month, but since I cannot find it here at Amazon I thought I would add the review to this older version....simply because it is such an excellent book! I HIGHLY recommend it to everyone else....middle to highly skilled PS users.....perhaps even beginners...they might struggle a bit in the beginning but it is a valuable book to have in the library that you can refer to. I am an advanced PS user but find this book invaluable for referring to for quick tips and ideas and quick methods for doing things that one might normally do habitually in a much more complicated & roundabout way. GREAT for inspiration too!! And there are so many things I have learnt about...new methods....new ideas....THANKS FOR A REALLY GREAT BOOK, STEVE!!
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