Anyone who relies on Photoshop to meet tough production challenges knows that when a new version arrives’especially one as chockfull of enhancements as Photoshop CS ($649; upgrade, $169)’there’s no time to fool around. You RG1need to get up to speed on it, and you need to do so now! This book will get you there! In this copiously illustrated volume, best-selling authors David Blatner and Bruce Fraser offer scads of hands-on production techniques as well as clear explanations of the concepts that drive them. Readers will learn about managing color, correcting colors, getting great scans, and more. They’ll also find complete coverage of Photoshop CS’ new features: its support for 16-bit editing; improved File Browser; super-tight integration with the rest of Adobe’s Creative Suite; and more. Throughout, the emphasis is on efficiency: the timesaving tips and professional shortcuts that will allow readers to work faster, smarter, and more creatively with Photoshop CS.

David Blatner is a Seattle-based graphic arts consultant specializing in electronic publishing. He has authored or co-authored several books, including the award-winning bestseller The QuarkXPress 4 Book, InDesign for QuarkXPress Users,and Real World Adobe Photoshop 7. Bruce Fraser has authored or co-authored several books, including Real World Color Management, and Real World Adobe Photoshop 7.

Noodling around with Photoshop to create interesting composite artwork is all well and good. But if you rely on Photoshop to meet tough production challenges in a fast-paced professional environment, noodling won’t cut it! You need results, and you need them now: This book delivers! In this copiously illustrated volume, best-selling authors David Blatner and Bruce Fraser offer scads of hands-on production techniques--as well as clear explanations of the concepts that drive them--so that you can get the best results possible on your own Photoshop CS projects. You’ll learn about managing color, getting great scans, correcting tones and colors, and more. You also find complete coverage of all of Photoshop CS’ newest features: an improved File Browser; nonsquare pixel support; cool, new Photomerge technology (which allows you to create seamless panoramas out of multiple images); and more. Throughout, the emphasis is on efficiency: the time-saving tips and professional shortcuts that will allow you to work faster, smarter, and more creatively with Photoshop CS.

Professionals in visual media face the "real world" every time their work goes to press. As authors Blatner and Fraser point out in the introduction, "In this new age of desktop prepress, there’s simply no one you can ask [what values you should enter in the Color Settings and Proof Setup dialog boxes]." You need to be able to find the answers yourself to this and other critical Photoshop questions; the technology is changing too fast to rely on the guys at the end of the project to fix your errors. The authors want you to develop your "spidey sense" which is where, "in a crunch, you’ve gotta have an intuitive, almost instinctive feel for what’s going on in Photoshop, so you can finesse it to your needs."

That’s the philosophy behind the Real World series: finding the solutions to common problems and preparing your work so there’re no unhappy surprises when you go to output, whether that’s print, PDF, or Web/multimedia. First, this book goes over the essentials: the work environment (tools, palettes, preferences), working with images (resolution, mode, up- and downsampling), and the huge area of color management.

Once readers have those issues under their belts, they can work on techniques: tonal and color correction, selections and channels, using adjustment layers to have the perfect digital darkroom, and a variety of ways to sharpen an image (not just a blanket application of Unsharp Mask). Later sections cover spot colors and duotones (essential to every print designer’s workflow), capturing images (effectively using your digital camera and scanner), and building a digital workflow using the new Camera Raw capabilities in CS and the improved file browser. And there are some great final chapters on compositing, retouching, typography, automation, outputting, and the Web.

Throughout the book there are tips and tricks that help you work more efficiently in Photoshop, for example, holding Shift while using the Move tool to take a selection from one image to another of the same pixel resolution allows you to pin-register that selection, landing it in the same location in the second image that is was in the first. This isn’t a step-by-step lesson-style book. It’s more the essential resource you’ll read through when you first get it and always keep on hand when your "spidey sense" needs recharging. --Angelynn Grant

Noodling around with Photoshop to create interesting composite artwork is all well and good. But if you rely on Photoshop to meet tough production challenges in a fast-paced professional environment, noodling won’t cut it! You need results, and you need them now: This book delivers! In this copiously illustrated volume, best-selling authors David Blatner and Bruce Fraser offer scads of hands-on production techniques--as well as clear explanations of the concepts that drive them--so that you can get the best results possible on your own Photoshop CS projects. You’ll learn about managing color, getting great scans, correcting tones and colors, and more. You also find complete coverage of all of Photoshop CS’ newest features: an improved File Browser; nonsquare pixel support; cool, new Photomerge technology (which allows you to create seamless panoramas out of multiple images); and more. Throughout, the emphasis is on efficiency: the time-saving tips and professional shortcuts that will allow you to work faster, smarter, and more creatively with Photoshop CS.

No other book can dig deeper!

As an Adobe Certified Expert in Photoshop I think I can talk about this book with some soft of knowledge.

Well, this book is awesome. No doubts. From a certain point of view it’s even embarassing: I’ve read things never seen elsewhere, small tips, too small even for the manuals (but sometimes really helpful), and Big concepts explained really well. Every single page of this book hides something useful. This might be not a good thing to say if you’re a certified expert, but that’s it.

Of course this book is not for everyone: you will get the greatest experience if you’re an expert Photoshop user and you work daily with it, as it concentrated on productivity issues and professional tasks. Forget this book if you’re a Photoshop enthusiast and you’re just looking for pseudo-creative tips&tricks: there are no special effects recipes, no step-by-step tutorials and no bundled clipart CDs.

This is 800 pages of deep Photoshop production techniques. I think no other book, except for Dan Margulis’ "Professional Photoshop", can teach such a lot of things to already-expert readers.

When your ready to move beyond the basics, this is the book

First off let say this. If you just beginning to used photoshop cs, this is not the book for you. This book is aimed at the experience user who not only want to know more advanced photoshop techniques but also want to know why photoshop does what it does, in other words how photoshop thinks. Its not an encyclopedia that cover every little feature methodically, instead it covers advanced concepts in themes such as Color management, image manipulation and output. Great book, very informative, like a textbook in some respects. Until you’ve read it, you dont’ really understand photoshop.

The best there is

This book is absolutely, no doubt, without question, surely the best book on Photoshop CS out there. It’s a real pleasure to read a book by people who actually know what they’re talking about. Scott Kelby’s "The Photoshop CS Book for Digital Photographers" is an exceptionally fine book if you’re just starting with CS and trying to get your photographs under control and don’t have time to read about the finer points, but once you’ve begun to get the hang of it and want not only to know "how," but "why," this is the book you absolutely have to have.

The Right Stuff

Blatner and Fraser have the right stuff. This book is based on what photographers need, unlike many of the Photoshop after market manuals. This is the text to use for digital photographers. Inspiring (technically) for the students and the instructor.

Very in-depth

This book gives extremely in-depth coverage to topics that cover the gamut from the basic of images and color spaces, through to image editing, filters, typography and finally output. The coverage is very in-depth. This is not a step-by-step book. The idea is to give you a fundamental understanding of the technology and then show it’s application in Photoshop. The sections on building selections and using the sharpening features are particular standouts.

If you are the type of person who learns by understanding the fundamentals and not a raw process then it’s a tossup between this book and Photoshop CS Artistry. The latter is a little more terse in it’s style. This book is more relaxed in style so it’s a little easier to follow.