[.ca] Adobe Photoshop 6.0 Classroom in a Book (ISBN 0201710161)

From Amazon.co.uk:
If you're the kind of person who'd rather read the telephone directory than a software manual then Adobe Photoshop 6.0 Classroom in a Book could be just what you need to get to grips with the latest version of the world's best image-editing software. Seventeen project-based "lessons" take you through every aspect of Photoshop. The book starts with the basics--the revamped interface, selection tools and working with layers--and then moves on to more involved projects like retouching, using the new vector shape and clipping path features, advanced layer management and special effects. Each lesson begins with a clear introduction and finishes with a brief review section which is a good way of assessing how much you've learned and whether you need to go over anything. Anyone who is, or wants to be a Photoshop pro must eventually tackle colour management and two lessons are devoted to this difficult subject. "Setting Up Your Monitor For Colour Management" examines the principles of colour management and shows you how to calibrate and create an ICC colour profile for your monitor using the Adobe Gamma control panel. "Producing and Printing Consistent colour" deals with proofing images on a CMYK PostScript printer and creating colour separations for commercial printing, there is also a chapter devoted to spot colour printing. The remainder of the book deals with producing Web graphics using ImageReady 3.0. While it lacks the depth of some of the other Photoshop tomes this is probably one of the most effective courses there is for beginners and intermediate users. --Ken McMahon

Good for "How?" not "Why?" or "What?":
If you want the practice and need a step-by-step lesson, this is a good book. I did want the step-by-step practice, and I'm still glad I bought the book. However, it only tells you what to do. It's not very good at explaining why you're doing it or what exactly the overall effect will be. Also, any tool, filter, etc. that you don't learn about in the lessons, you don't really learn about at all. I think it's a great book for practice, but it's probably best used in conjunction with another book that doesn't have lessons but gives a better explanation of the tools, what they do, and when and why to use them. An example is probably Photoshop 6 For Dummies. I haven't bought it yet, but I've looked through it, and I think it will be helpful if used along with Classroom in a Book.

Good Book:
I found this book to be a good solid hands-on "text-book". The hands-on lessons made sense. The lessons explained what you were doing as you were doing it. This enabled you to really learn the information so that you would be able to fully utilize all the features of photoshop. Although I don't feel the lessons about the web uses of photoshop were as thorough, I had a good enough grasp of photoshop it took very little effort on my part to figure it out. This is the best book you can find explaining how to use photoshop you can find.

An Excellent starting point:
First, let me say that it is very easy to pick apart any book that attempts to introduce a beginner to such a complex application program as Photoshop6. I am not an expert on Photoshop but I have invested a lot of time and money learning how to use it effectively in web development. This is an very cost effective approach to learning some of the useful features that Photoshop offers to the artist both in the Print media and the electronic web pallet. Just remember this is starting point Photoshop is an life long pursuit if you are trying produce original quality work. If you can find a good copy used. It will be a reference book that you will continue to use years after you complete the exercises in it.

it's not bad... but it's not great!!!:
After finishing this book i was some what dissappointed at the fact that a company like Adobe who has created such amazing software would release a book that doesn't live up to the software itself. They must be spending their money on programmers instead of publishers and authors. This book is OK if you want to learn your way around the program at a basic level, but falls short at actually giving you enough content to feel comfortable working with the powers of Photoshop such as layers, masks and channels. For example there is a chapter on layers and one for advanced layers and after going through both chapters and lessons i was still thinking to myself "that's it!?!...there's got to be more to it than this???" The book is still very decent, and it is easy to read and to follow the lessons, but i'm sure there are alot of other books out there for the same money that offers alot more bang for your buck. I didn't buy this book thinking i would become a master at Photoshop after reading it and i hope anyone else who buys it doesn't think that either, at best it will be a good reference book.

CD-ROM with images Accompanying Book Big Plus:
I don't think there is a 5 star book on Photoshop. That could be because no one book could possibly do justice to the whole of Photoshop so the books have to pick and choose where to put emphasis. I teach at a community college in an area different from this. I am taking the Photoshop course there and the book we are using is packed with so much information that I've found it worthless as a starting text, although now that I am getting the hang of Photoshop even it is useful. I now own 5 Photoshop books and they all do different things. This one's plusses are, in order: the images on the CD-ROM to do your lessons with that are in the book; the simple, straight forward style on an unjumbled, uncrowded page format and a logical, orderly way of proceeding and learning. Photoshop is considered a really tough program so I am not surprised that one book does not do it all. I would say if you are going to get more than one book, make this one of them. If you are only going to buy one Photoshop book, I honestly don't know what to recommend to you. It might be better to tackle the lessons in online tutorials in that case. The Photoshop Magazine is also excellent and better than all the books combined because it is chocked full of all color visual tutorials, every single page.