Adobe Photoshop CS2 Classroom in a Book

This is the 12th or 13th book I have purchased about Photoshop. I wish it had been my first purchase, because I am finally now learning the "ins" and "outs" of Adobe's Photoshop CS2. When I finish the lessons and projects in this book, I believe the other books on the same subject will be easy to understand.

This is THE Photoshop book. It's the official book from Adobe press, the official training workbook from Adobe Systems, it's even written by Adobe (well ... people at Adobe). This new edition is printed in full color, a great improvement over earlier books that were mostly black and white with a small section of full color pages.

Color is important in photoshop because a very small percentage of the work you'll be doing is in black and white. If the book is telling you something about color and illustrating it in black and white, it's hard to know what they are talking about.

This book has sixteen lessons that you can complete very quickly if you know what they are talking about but take longer if you're a complete beginner. The first lesson starts out with a blank work area and takes you upward from there. Primarily in tutorial style, this book is a supplement to the reference type documentation supplied with Photoshop. It provides a good way to get started and to have a complete presentation with logical flow from start to finish.

The CD supplied with the book contains illustrations from the lessons, sample movies, a collection of fonts, and other materials.

All in all, this book is well written, simple to follow, tells you enough to become if not a true expert, at least an advanced intermediate user. What more can you ask out of a book?

I have been using Adobe Photoshop since version 5.5, but didnt really get into it seriously until Photoshop CS (8). When I purshcased CS, i bought Jan Kabili's "Complete Course" title, because I considered the Classroom In a Book series to be too dry and technical. It seems that most PS books are either completely tutorial based (meaning you have to follow that sample projects in order to get anything from the lessons) or a cut-and-dry reference that doesnt go too in depth on explainations. "Complete Course" was the former, a big disappointment, and I never finished it. I have since upgraded to CS2, and wanted to get THE most comprehensive and most importantly, versatile book, that would provide explainations as well as serve as a reference.

I have not been disappointed in my purchase of Adobe Photoshop CS2 Classroom in a Book. From what I have seen, the book has chapters that suit everyone, whether you have years of experience with photoshop or are a complete beginner. I am somewhere in between, but found even the most basic "beginner" chapters contain some very useful information. As the book progresses the concepts become more complex and allow you to greatly expand your knowledge of PS.

But what impressed me most about Classroom in a Book was that it can be molded to fit your learning style. Included is a CD with example files for you to follow along with each lesson, trying out features as you go. However, if you are like me and do not learn as well from following a tutorial step-by-step, you dont have to use the CD. This book is written well enough and includes plenty of color screenshots that you can do just as well without the sample files. I am about halfway through the book, feel very confident in what I learned from those lessons, and have yet to pop in the CD. Using it (at least for the first half of the book) is up to you and depends on how you like to learn.

I also purchased this book, because sometime in the not-too-distant future, I am planning to take the exam to become an Adobe Certified Expert (ACE) in Photoshop CS2. For anyone else considering taking the exam, this is the official Photoshop book. Not only is this the guide that Adobe recommends as preparation for the ACE exam, but it is also highly recommended by many of those who have taken the exam and are now certified experts in photoshop.

This book was definitely one of my best book purchases to date; I am looking forward to the release of Adobe's Classroom in a Book for GoLiveCS2!

Let me start out by saying that I knew nothing about Photoshop when I bought this book. I couldn't even figure out how to make a blue background. I'm now on Lesson 7 (out of 16) and am already comfortable with doing things like editing family photos and cleaning up pictures. This book has been invaluable to me, and I'm only half way through.

The lessons are really easy to follow, step by step with color pictures. It also comes with a CD that contains tutorials and photographs that you work with in the lessons. Each lesson takes about 30-60 minutes, and they're fun :) It starts out easy and gets more difficult with each lesson as it gets more advanced.

Great book.. I'm going to pick up the Illustrator CS2 version when it comes out too.

I'm not a Photoshop beginner or an advanced user, but I found the style of this book very easy to use. As other reviewers have noted - it's not a text book, it really does feel like a series of lessons.

The way the lessons flow together is excellent, but I must admit that I did finish the book hungry for more. If you are looking for something to build up your confidence before tackling an advanced photoshop book - this is the ticket.

Other reviewers have already covered many of the other main points, so I wanted to focus on something that really impressed me - the design effort that has gone into this title. It's clear that Abobe Press took a lot of pride in producing this title, and it is very easy on the eye. Additionally, it has been designed to enhance learning experience with the usual classic things like objectives stated in advance, knowledge reviews and quizzes, as well as the occassional tip from an expert thrown in for good measure. The included CD also contains some nice video sequences of some of the lessons - nice bonus material.

I can only sum up the production of this book in two words - extremely professional. When I wrote to the publisher to report a small error (see the Wiki) they wrote a very polite email back to me and it seemed as though they really cared about producing a quality title. Sadly this is not the case with all publishers these days...

As soon as I finished this book I immediately placed an order for their Illustrator CS2 Classroom in a Book title. I'm sure I won't be disappointed...