newbie book recommedation

P
Posted By
phil2phil
Aug 9, 2005
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hi,
does anyone know if either of these two books are good for people starting out with photoshop cs?

1. Adobe Photoshop CS One-on-One
2. Adobe Photoshop CS2 Classroom in a Book

i read the reviews on amazon, but the site did not have chapter titles, so i wasn’t sure if they covered material for beginners or were more of a reference guide.

i’ve played with photoshop before, but want to try to learn it better for work, mainly taking photos of new products, cleaning up the image, removing the background etc.. and making a catalog out of it.

thank you.
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BH
Bill Hilton
Aug 9, 2005
does anyone know if either of these two books are good for people starting out with photoshop cs?
1. Adobe Photoshop CS One-on-One
2. Adobe Photoshop CS2 Classroom in a Book

I’ve taught several people how to use Photoshop with "Classroom in a Book", which is by Adobe btw, and it does a nice job of bringing you from raw beginner to low level intermediate without too much pain or stress. Highly recommended … dunno about the other one you mention, not familiar with it.

i wasn’t sure if they covered material for beginners or were more of a reference guide.

CIB is a step-by-step tutorial starting at the beginning, with easy-to-follow lessons. Just what you want when learning on your own.

want to try to learn it better for work, mainly taking photos of new products, cleaning up the image, removing the background etc..

CIB will teach you the basics but it doesn’t go into photo-specific workflows very well (maybe changed with the CS version but this was true for earlier ones). You’ll need a second book more specific to digital photography and Photoshop to get really adept but CIB is the right one for learning the basics.

Bill
P
phil2phil
Aug 9, 2005
thank you, would you be able to recommend a book that goes into photo-specifc workflows?
BH
Bill Hilton
Aug 9, 2005
would you be able to recommend a book that goes into
photo-specifc workflows?

There’s a recent still-active thread called "Book recommendations for CS/CS2" or similar that discusses this … basically I learned much of what I know from the Barry Haynes "Artistry" book (V 4 for me but it’s been kept up) so I’m partial to that one. The Martin Evening book is good but maybe aimed more toward studio photographers. Lot of people seem to like the Scott Kelby book, others aren’t as impressed … ideally there’s a large bookstore near you with copies of these on the shelf so you can thumb thru them and get a feel for what suits you best. If not then maybe read the reader reviews on amazon.com or bn.com (barnes and noble). Make sure you get one with a CD with the lessons on it so you can work alongside the text (or at least a site you can download the lessons from).

Bill
P
phil2phil
Aug 9, 2005
thanks again for the responses, will try to stop by my local barnes and noble and go through some books.
DM
Dick Muldoon
Aug 9, 2005
phil2phil wrote:
hi,
does anyone know if either of these two books are good for people starting out with photoshop cs?

1. Adobe Photoshop CS One-on-One
2. Adobe Photoshop CS2 Classroom in a Book

i read the reviews on amazon, but the site did not have chapter titles, so i wasn’t sure if they covered material for beginners or were more of a reference guide.

i’ve played with photoshop before, but want to try to learn it better for work, mainly taking photos of new products, cleaning up the image, removing the background etc.. and making a catalog out of it.
thank you.

The three books I’ve found useful — and I use PS mostly for processing photos/image scans — are:
(1) the Adobe CIB book (a very good introduction)
(2) Katrin Eismann’s Photoshop Restoration & Retouching (the most dog-eared book in my library)
(3) Martin Evening’s Adobe Photoshop for Photographers (a good general-purpose tour of photo-specific processing)

If you’re really just learning, you might find CIB and Evening a nice complement. The Eismann book is harder, but I find it ultimately the best resource of the three for solving problems..
H
hugh
Aug 10, 2005
To my mind, a conspicuous omission in the discussion of
Photoshop-related books here is the "Photoshop WoW…" (Davis/Dayton) series of books. I bought two of these, for versions 4 and 5/5.5 of PS, respectively. The book is now at v7 and is, I understand, due out for CS2.

Despite having bought those two books four or five years ago, I still frequently use many of the techniques described in my daily – and intensive – work with PS CS2.

They are *excellent* books with a huge amount of information, albeit somewhat "dense". I would have no hesitation whatever in recommending "Wow…". I learned an incredible amount from them.

Incidentally, I also have Evening’s book. It, too, is good, although a bit on the "wordy" side. He certainly knows what he’s talking about, though.

For someone starting out, I’d say "Wow…" is better with clearer (pictorial) illustrations of PS techniques. By the way, Eismann’s book is great, too. That’s got a good airing in this discussion – I just wanted to mention Davis to introduce another option.

As a point of reference to the OP, I’d consider myself an intermediate to advanced user of PS. I’ve been using it almost daily for the guts of a decade, since version 2.5 (on a Mac, with a brief – but ill-considered – six-month spell on PC five or six years ago. But that’s another story…)

Hugh
C
Clifford
Aug 10, 2005
Hi

Having spent a lot of money on books I would suggest a tour of the web looking at Russell Brown, Ian Lyons and Clive Haynes. Also About. COM has loads of tutorials that are great and free, a strange combination but one that works! In fact your friend Google will help you whenever you are stuck.

Cheers

On 10/8/05 11:21 am, in article
, "hugh"
wrote:

To my mind, a conspicuous omission in the discussion of
Photoshop-related books here is the "Photoshop WoW…" (Davis/Dayton) series of books. I bought two of these, for versions 4 and 5/5.5 of PS, respectively. The book is now at v7 and is, I understand, due out for CS2.

Despite having bought those two books four or five years ago, I still frequently use many of the techniques described in my daily – and intensive – work with PS CS2.

They are *excellent* books with a huge amount of information, albeit somewhat "dense". I would have no hesitation whatever in recommending "Wow…". I learned an incredible amount from them.
Incidentally, I also have Evening’s book. It, too, is good, although a bit on the "wordy" side. He certainly knows what he’s talking about, though.

For someone starting out, I’d say "Wow…" is better with clearer (pictorial) illustrations of PS techniques. By the way, Eismann’s book is great, too. That’s got a good airing in this discussion – I just wanted to mention Davis to introduce another option.

As a point of reference to the OP, I’d consider myself an intermediate to advanced user of PS. I’ve been using it almost daily for the guts of a decade, since version 2.5 (on a Mac, with a brief – but ill-considered – six-month spell on PC five or six years ago. But that’s another story…)

Hugh

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