Editorial Reviews:
If you?re a photography hobbyist, would you like to brighten up that gloomy island vacation photo? Slim down without going on a diet? See whether white or green shutters look best on the house? Expunge the ex-boyfriend from family photos? If you?re a pro or semi-pro photographer, would you like to make it snow in that ski resort photo? Replace the old logo in the glamour shot of the corporate headquarters with the new one? Grow hair in the CEO?s glaring bald spot? Freshen up the lettuce in that food shot? You?ve come to the right place. With Photoshop CS2, you have the tools. With Photoshop CS2 For Dummies, you?ll have the know-how. In full color, with all kinds of examples, screen shots, step-by-step explanations, tips, and techniques, this guide takes you from the fundamentals to special power-user tricks! Cross-platform Mac-PC coverage includes: - The basics of getting around in Photoshop, getting images into and out of Photoshop, choosing the right file formats, and setting your preferences
- Working with Adobe Bridge to organize and manage your images
- Working with tonality, including making easy Auto Repairs, making adjustments with Levels and Curves (and the eyedroppers), and using Shadow/Highlight and the toning tools, Burn and Dodge
- Making color look natural using the color adjustment commands
- Taking advantage of the RAW format for maximum flexibility, including using the Adjust, Detail, Lens, Curve, and Calibrate tabs and the Camera Raw buttons
- Fine-tuning your fixes, including making your selections with tools (four marquee tools, three lasso tools, and the Magic Wand tool)
- Masking for both layer visibility and for protecting parts of your images
- The most common problems in digital photos?red-eye, wrinkles, unwanted objects and people, and noise?and what to do about them
With Photoshop CS2, you can go beyond enhancing your images to create ?art.? You have a very powerful painting engine, an extremely complex Brushes palette, and all kinds of painting tools. Photoshop CS2 For Dummies walks you though: - Compositing (combining images into a piece of artwork) and working with layers, including choosing from the almost two dozen blending modes
- Selecting with Extract which is great for making tough selections, such as flyaway hair and various types of fringe
- Using Vanishing Point to ?map? a pattern to angled surfaces
- Creating panoramas with Photomerge
- Creating precision edges with vector paths, including using shape layers and the Custom Shape tool, choosing from more than 300 ready-to-use shapes with the Custom Shape Picker, and using the Pen tool to create paths
- Where to find dozens, or even hundreds, of custom shapes already on your computer ? absolutely free
- Dressing up images with layer styles, including using the Styles palette and creating custom layer styles
- Adding text messages and tweaking your text
- Using the extensive painting tools and the Brushes palette
- Using filters, including sharpening to focus the eye using blur filters or the Unsharp Mask and the new Smart Sharpen filter that give incredible control
- Getting fun effects with the Liquify filter
In a special Power Photoshop section, you?ll learn about streamlining your work, including creating a PDF for both onscreen presentation and for printing. You?ll discover how to spiff up your online images by working with Image Ready to slice, optimize, and otherwise juice up your images for the Web and how to create fancy rollover buttons and fun animations, From basic cropping to complex techniques that can turn good photos into great ones, Photoshop CS2 For Dummies is your guide to exploring all the possibilities that await you in Photoshop CS2.
Customer Reviews:
Displaying 1 to 5 of 21 total reviews (Page 1 of 5):
 It does what is says on the cover.
Any book with a title stating the content is for "Dummies" is going to attract of the type of purchaser who feels they do not possess whatever technical expertise is required to master the subject. That is why I purchased this book.
Technology may be moving ahead at an incredibly fast pace, but it does not mean we ordinary mortals cannot keep up. I mention this because, when I purchased this book, I had already acquired Adobe Photoshop CS3 but this series of books had not yet produced an updated version for CS3. Nevertheless, I am glad I got this copy because it goes all the way back to basic training before bringing the reader forward - step by step, to an area of expertise.
The very concept of digital imaging is explained in a manner which gives those who are new to the subject a fundamental understanding which will then stand them in good stead for all time. The author then takes the reader through a series of progressively more difficult tasks always building on what has been learned so far. These include enhancing digital images, Creating "Art," Power Photoshop and much more besides.
Having, as I said, already purchased CS3 and attended three days of professionally run courses on the subject, I thought I might be coming to this book as a bit of a "know it all." Not so! There is much to learned from this product and it is always interesting to see another approach to the teaching of the subject. Learning from a book also allows you to go back over the same area again and again until you get it right. You can't do that in a classroom!
If you really are new to Photoshop and all the complexities that go with it, a copy of this book really should help you provided you are prepared to sit down and study the content - step by step, and put it all into practise.
NM
 Photoshop CS2 for Dummies
Fantastic book. Has everything I need to know and items are easy to find. I would recommend it to anybody. Photoshop cs2 for not so dummies
This is a very well written book. The author knows his material and how to help others use this program. I would recommend this book.  Not for Dummies
I'm sure this is an excellent resource for those who have used Photoshop already. It hits the ground running and assumes a much more significant base of pre-existing knowledge than the other "Dummies" books I've read.
My expectations for these Wiley books is that they write for neophytes, taking a step by step approach to understanding a topic without assuming any knowledge. That's what has made them so effective and so popular.
That is not the case with this book. I consider myself to be of adequate intelligence but I have never used Photoshop and I was counting on this book to introduce the admittedly very complex application in digestible bites. It really doesn't. It appears to assume the reader already has some knowledge of the program and, moreover, has already used it.
One example I'll cite is the book's treatment of the concept of layers, a central concept for how Photoshop works. It is assumed by the writer that the reader already knows what layers are and how the application uses them. It never presents a simple definition of layers. In fact, the author doesn't even mention them until far along in the text. And, at that stage, the concept just jumps at the reader without any introduction or explanation. I think I know what layers are and how they are used, but it really was a work of interpolation on my part rather than helpful explanation by the author.
Again, it's a fine work, but it's not "Photoshop for Dummies," it's really "Intermediate Photoshop."
Photoshop CS2 for Dummies
I purchased this book after using my local libraries` copy. It is full of information on the basic operational details and procedures of photoshop CS2. It is written in as plain an English as one could expect.
All the "secret" procedures to do various things are explained, things that would take decades of use if you were to try to figure them out without help.
It does not go into the aesthetics of photo editing at all. It only explains the basic procedures of how the various functions work, but it does this well.
It does nothing with the other graphic arts programs that come with CS2 such as In Design, Illustrator, and others. Photo editing is only a small part of the CS2 program.
If you want instruction on how to improve photos, this is not the book. If you want to learn the functions of how photo editing works within CS2, this book does a superb job in easily understood language.
More Customer Reviews:
Next Page
|
(21 reviews)
