Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:  
Summary: It should be subtitled (for computer experts only)
Comment: I have been a pen & brush graphics artist all of my life. Now that I have retired, I decided to try computer image manipulation. I bought this book in the hopes of learning to recolor, flip, distort, or whatever via my computer (I just got my first one in 2000)and have found it maddening to use. The authors gloss over information vital to a basic understanding of Photoshop and then blithely show highly advanced image techniques that cannot be duplicated without the underlying knowledge. It pretends to being step-by-step, but ignores crucial steps. For example, a complex collage is created using a number of disparate images: how did they select only that portion of the original? How did they make the surrounding parts of the image transparent so the background shows through? This are the most basic maneuvers, but a couple of months with the book left me unenlightened. I have since found another book that delivers on the premise of this one, Photoshop 6 In An Instant by Toot & Woolridge, and am now happily photoshopping away -- this despite the fact that Photoshop 6 for Dummies was more ... and has many pages of color illustration, in contrast to Photoshop 6 In An Instant's reliance on B&W even to show color manipulation!
Customer Rating:
Summary: Not Appropriately Targeted
Comment: This book purports to be about "photoshop 6 for dummies," but it really isn't much help for real dummies. If you assume that most photoshop beginners, dummies if you will, are most interested in working with their own photographs, this book is of limited utility. It's terrific in discussing graphics and technical points; none of which has anything to do with working with photographs that may have red eye, have faded, need touching up in a variety of ways or even more basic information, like how a "dummy" should take advantage of Photoshop's organizational features. It's not that this is a bad book--indeed, the reverse is true. It's just not much help for the group its supposedly targeted.barry anderson
Customer Rating:
Summary: Author Stars In Another Medium; not this one
Comment: I do not care for this Dummies' approach to Photoshop at all. It is very non-visual and it is laced heavily throughout with attempts at humor, all of which should have been editied out of the book. However, I've discovered that this author's, McClelland's, strength is not here but in the videotape series he does for Adobe, some of which can be seen online at Adobe's main site. I've taken some of his tutorials there and they are excellent and extremely visual. My guess is that he got locked into this Dummies' book format, which may have worked for another topic, but does not work for learning the most visual graphics program in the computer world. Bypass this product and investigate this author in other, visual media he uses for teaching you Photoshop instead.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Annoying
Comment: Like almost all Dummies books, this one spends WAY too much time trying to be funny and cute, and not enough time cutting to the chase. For every paragraph that teaches you how to use a tool, you have to read 2 paragraphs of absolutely mindless dribble, that isn't even funny. I used to buy dummies books just because the choice of books can be overwhelming. Now that I've realized (for me anyways) that there are so many better books out there, I will never buy another one again. I guess, they title them appropriately. I highly recommend other books like Lynda Wieman's books, which are succinct in prose, and very effective.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Just got Photoshop? No idea how to use it? Buy this book!
Comment: Photoshop is an incredibly powerful tool. It is industry standard for imaging professionals, and is by far the best image-manipulation software out there. But, all that power comes with a pitfall: if you don't know what you're doing, it is pretty much impossible to get Photoshop to do anything worthwhile. This book is the solution.
I've always been a big fan of learning to do something by fiddling with it, not reading about it. I'm the sort of person who throws manuals away (I suspect a lot of us are). For me, this book allowed me to very quickly (4 hours of reading) reach a level of understanding where I could use Photoshop to produce results. But months later, when I got puzzled by something (like histograms, or color manipulation, or printing), I'd crack out this book and find an explanation. Quickly, easily, without hassle.
And that may be the motto of this line of books. Quick, easy, without hassle. If you got a copy of Photoshop with your printer, or you've got access to a copy but don't know how to use it, buy this book. You'll be fixing red-eye, cropping, and saving for web in an evenings easy reading.
That said, if you already use photoshop, go browse the magazine aisle. You don't need this book (stay away from the photoshop bibles, too. If you needed them, you would already know).
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