looked in several book stores for a good ref book on Photoshop. have several o'reilly ref books already and was glad to find this one at a reasonable price... and received it in 3 days with standard shipping! nice...

This is the second Photoshop tutorial by Deke Mcelland that I have purchased and well used. The first was on the CS version of Photoshop. He is easy to read and has an easy to follow format. The CS3 book is well illustrated and comes with sample photos and a very helpful "show-me" video tutorial disk. Altogether, I highly recommend the book (and the author) to anyone who is seriously interested learning PhotoShop. : - )

This book reveals how to use many valuable tools in Photoshop. I've been using Photoshop for many years, but this book surprises me chapter after chapter with all the hidden tools I never knew existed, or tools I didn't know how to use such as the variations tool in adjustments and the quick select tool. Adobe Photoshop CS3 one-on-one is a "must have" reference book for photographers.

The book comes with a disk that contains videos and lessons, very helpful. However it is still difficult to do the lessons. I would be lost if I were not taking a college course with an instructor and lab assistants for help.

I am very happy with how quickly this product got here! Thanks Amazon. Would order directly from Amazon again. But not their used/independent dealers. (The used dealers are not worth the tie and trouble they put you through).
Amazon did a great job.

A great book for anyone who is learning Photoshop, either at home or at school. I recommend it to anyone who is new to Photoshop.

Only reason I don't give it 5 stars is there is little content on graphic creation. There is a chapter dedicated to it, but I was hoping for a little more. The chapter is very helpful though. As far as learning how to edit photos with Photoshop- it could not be more helpful- it covers everything! And the CD that comes with the book is incredibly helpful as well.

Deke McClelland has provided much needed details on "how to" that Adobe does not. The book's illustrations are very clearly explained, concise and the examples are great. This book is the answer to anyone's questions about InDesign. It is well worth the money and the illustrated DVD is an added bonus plus. I would recommend this book to anyone just starting out learning InDesign.

A very effective tutorial for learning a complex system, Adobe Photoshop CS3. Thorough and easy to follow exercises--learn by doing.

Deke has long been the #1 Photoshop guru in the world, and I've depending on his sage advice to introduce me to each new version as they are introduced. This one is especially good at showing you how to manage color, which has always been one of my weaknesses. Highly recommended.

I have bought about ten CS3 help books, most are good, this is the best. I don't think Deke has missed anything, and I use this as a handy reference. I don't think you will be disappointed here.

This book is very detailed and easy to follow. The videos before each chapter ease you into this great learning curve.

It didn't take long after installing my new copy of Photoshop for me to feel a bit overwhelmed with the software. I kept finding myself saying things like "I KNOW Photoshop can do this, but I can't for the life of me figure out how." I visited various web sites, read little blurbs here and there, and picked up lots of good tricks, but I still didn't feel like I really knew how to use this tool. I decided to get this book. I LOVED it. There's still plenty of Photoshop functions that I haven't explored yet, but all of the really useful ones are covered in this book.

There are a few things in this book that even an experienced Photoshop user may not have known, but only a very few. Most of the book is for people like me who need to start from the ground up.

Deke is a great technical writer--his instructions are easy to follow, there's lots of information packed into each lesson, and he still manages to be entertaining. If I had any complaints about the book, it would be these two things: 1. I enjoyed the lessons so much, I want to know more--500 pages is a good start, but let's have some more (even if it is less useful)! 2. This book came from earlier versions of Photoshop and as such, every now and then there will be a screen shot or a picture of a button or something that looks slightly different than what shows up on my screen. Not a big deal, but it threw me off for a few seconds. Despite these 2 things, I still rate the book 5 stars for a beginner audience, like I used to be.

I thought this book was fantastic and worth every dollar. The book is a "you-do-it-yourself" tutorial book covering navigation and Bridge, adjusting contrast and color balance, making selections and masks, cropping and sizing, filters, how to paint and heal, using text and shapes, along with chapters dealing with layers and layer adjustments and effects. And that's just some of the topics. It doesn't cover every tool and feature in CS3 - just the most useful - and thank goodness or it would be a massive undertaking to get through!

I spent well over 80 hours watching the 3+ hours worth of high quality video, reading the text and explanations, and following through all the detailed exercises. A DVD accompanies the book and includes the videos and all photographs that are used in the exercises. The DVD worked for me with no problems. The full color book includes photos of what your work should look like during various stages of the exercises so it's easy to get positive reinforcement that you're doing it correctly. All my exercises were successful in the end.

I probably loved this book so much because it was just what I was looking for: a hands-on method for a Photoshop beginner to learn about the tools and features in Photoshop CS3 as a whole. Those who are interested in looking for a step-by-step workflow to, say, touch up digital photos will probably want to look for a different book. This book definately covers some of those techniques, and you'll know how to do it in the end (plus a lot more), but it's goal is to cover the entire gamut of Photoshop software features.

The full color book is well organized and easy to follow. I went in order from Chapter 1 through Chapter 12, starting with how to navigate through Photoshop and finishing with how to print your images. At the end of each chapter is a written test to see how much you learned. Also throughout the book are many keyboard shortcuts which really speed things up. In the dozens of hours of exercises and detailed explanations, I found only 2 or 3 typos/errors and these were in the keyboard shortcut commands and I easily figured out the correct ones.

I highly recommend this book for anyone that has taken a quick look at Photoshop and doesn't know how to start learning it.

I've been playing with Photoshop for a couple years now, but not really understanding what I was doing.
The book started out strong, and I even learned a few things about what makes an image work in the first place. I also like how he walks you through everything step by step.
But then it starts to fall apart.
The first place I had issue was with the chapter/section on coloring and painting. The basic exercise was to color a line drawing of a butterfly which is fine.
The problem starts when he wants to make the butterfly more interesting. He has the reader going through all sorts of other steps that make use of very powerful (and often complicated) Photoshop featuers (layers, masks, etc). This does absolutely nothing to enhance the lesson and just made the thing feel tedious. In his defense, the images you load do come reasonably pre-set for all this. But the introduction of a new feature only serves to muddy the waters and delay the reader from getting on with things.

It gets worse when we get to quick masks. At this point, the step by step exercises start to degrade in quality and clarity and take on a random feel to them.
At this point (around half-way through the book), I just got tired of the whole thing.

The fact is that many topics in Photoshop require actual explanations, not simply walk-throughs. While his videos do some of that, the further you get in the book, the less actual information is given.

I am now using the chapter organization to find online tutorials. There's a number of video tutorials out there that will serve you MUCH better than this text will.

It is possible, I suppose, that in the later chapters, where he introduces some of the more artistic aspects of Photoshop, he gets his act together. But I'm not going to waste my time on that hope.

I seriously suggest making use of the FREE online resources out there and not paying for this book.

A clear and well-presented book. Easy to follow and every step is clearly defined.
I am sure would suit beginners (with some experience) and professionals alike
J.R. UK

I found this book interesting but not of much use for a photographer. His exercises were too unrealistic and delved too much into art rather than photography for me. Where he did use real life work, he offered specific settings without sufficient underlying explanation or information to allow me to generalise them into my work.

Adobe Photoshop CS3 One-On-One
by Deke McClelland
Published by O'Reilly
ISBN-13: 978-0596529758
March 1 2008
First let me say I'm not a writer.But Adobe Photoshop CS3 One-On-One by Deke McClelland is the best book I've come across. I have of other books that teach you one on one but no other one teach in a simple clear out line. first we read the lesson, then we which the video presentation(10-15 mins.). Then we work through the lesson. The best part of it is you can do the lesson at your own pace(a hour or a day).
Deke has also given you the same art for you to follow along and to see if yours look as good as his.
These is one book that you need for you library.
Its Great

Its a great book. Im taking an online photoshop class but you dont really need to with this book. It can teach you everything you need to know without any outside help. The videos provided with the Disc are great also.

I have been using Photoshop since version 5.0 and have taught classes to small groups for the last 4 years. One-on-One has given me some new insights, especially to the new tools that CS3 has added, but I wonder how effective the book will be to new users. Perhaps I am a bit prejudiced but new students need to go a bit slower and I would say that a slightly different approach would work better. The book would definitely be an excellent reference for classroom lessons however.

Can anyone tell me is this a rehash of McClelland's CS2 one-on-one with updates for CS-3 or does it include all new illustrations and excercises?
TIA

Can anyone tell me is this a rehash of McClelland's CS2 one-on-one with updates for CS-3 or does it include all new illustrations and excercises?
TIA

I have tried many cs3 books to use to get started in the photoshop world. This book is the only one that introduces it and teaches it in a way that is perfect for one who has never used photoshop before. But, it also has great advanced techniques for the virtuosos out their. The vidoes included with the book help out a lot as well.Great Buy.

I have longed for a book, with tutorials, just like this one. It is chock full of information that is organized well and presented in a way that I, a non-expert, can understand. I think that I have never rated a "textbook" this highly and I am not one to lavish praise, but this is a REALLY excellent book

I bought this book because I liked the focus on special effects for the beginner level. To learn how to fix your photos in Photoshop, get Kelby's 7-Point System, to learn what you can do once the picture is where you want it, use this book. He teaches some fun effects as well as photo touch ups. Great collection of photos in the book and on the CD. I like the video training. He has a completely different approach than other training books so it is very useful to me when I want something explained a different way to help me learn.

I've used several photo-editors such as Elements, Photo Impact, and the like, and read instructional books on these programs because frankly I was intimidated by the prospects of dealing with a massive photo-editor such as PhotoShop... However, after purchasing this book, I not only learned a wealth of background information on subjects such as histograms, color wheels and the like that other books just glossed over, but I gained a comprehensive 'way' to process my photos thru Photoshop. His grasp of the subject is incredible, pointing out the original darkroom origins of many of the photoshop functions he addresses. His instruction is not reduced to click this, then that, but moving thru many well-designed lessons that give you the REASONS why you use this function or that one, and WHY it does what does, and why you should make this change or that one based on a base understanding of the RGB origins of your photograph..

The three hours of video are tightly integrated into each lesson, then he walks you thru each of those areas step-by-step in the associated lesson.

Cannot adequately explain how impressed I have been with his attention to detail, how well organized his approach, how comprehensive are his lessons, and the depth of instruction interwoven in so well-conceived a lesson plan. This book simply 'ROCKS'.... But let me point out that of the many books I've purchased thru Amazon this is the FIRST book for which I've been moved to write such a glowing recommendation.

No book can you teach you everything, but his knowledge of the subject focuses your attention on the areas within Photoshop where most amateur photographers will spend the majority of their post processing time.
Cannot recommend this book too highly. Deke McClelland clearly is an expert in his field.

This is perfect for those just starting with CS3. I've been using photoshop for a while now and its nice to learn more while refreshing what I have forgotten.

I love this book. Lessons are presented well. Deke is an excellent teacher, and he makes the lessons engaging and fun. Accompanying DVD-Rom with excercise files and introductory videos makes for an excellent approach to learning this sometimes daunting program. Book includes a free trial to the Lynda.com website where you can find a ton of additional video tutorials featuring Deke. I definitely recommend this book to both the Photoshop newbie and experience user.

Adobe Photoshop CS3 One-On-One
by Deke McClelland
Published by O'Reilly
ISBN-13: 978-0596529758
Reviewed by Donna Sellers, member of the Eureka Photoshop Users Group, Nov 17, 2007

Topics covered:
Open and Organize
Highlights, Midtones, and Shadows
Correcting Color Balance
Making Selections
Crop, Straighten, and Size
Paint, Edit and Heal
Creating and Applying Masks
Focus and Filters
Building Layered compositions
Text and Shapes
Styles and Specialty Layers
Printing and Output

I can fully appreciate why this author was inducted into the Photoshop Hall of Fame. Not only does he know his material backwards and forwards but he has the gift of writing in a way that is easy to understand. He includes many colored images that demonstrate what he is teaching. His book is appropriate for both the beginner and the more advanced user of Photoshop.

I loved how he organized the book, chapters and topics and made it so user friendly. Each chapter number and name is located on the bottom left side of each page and the specific topic is named on the bottom of the right-hand page. At the end of each section he has a review page of what the reader learned in that chapter and a way to test what concepts have been understood.

While I have been using Photoshop for a number of years, I found his review of Photoshop and all the additional improvements added with the latest CS3 version to be exciting and immediately applicable to increasing my work flow.

I found the examples the author provides on the CD, and the way he walks you through each exercise, easy to follow and helpful in translating what he is teaching to the practical level. His Chapter on Correcting Color Balance was my favorite and worth the price of the book. Within this section he gives the reader a great tutorial on using camera raw images, the most effective ways to colorize images, and explores the advantages of High Bit Depths (24 bits). He reviews how powerful and fast the Variations command (under adjustments) can be to correct color casts and shift saturation levels.

I find in my use of Photoshop that I have often used the same approaches over and over again and haven't always taken the time to discover newer, faster and more effective ways at getting to the results I am seeking. I fully appreciate having a great resource book available to quickly remind me of more effective and/or efficient ways of getting the results I want.

*Overview*

I had zero experience with Photoshop when I opened this book. However, I had used restricted aspects of PaintShop Pro, so some of the concepts were no doubt a bit easier for me. In general, though, I approached this text as a total beginner.

Calling this a book is a misnomer. It is an integrated teaching system, including images stored on your computer, settings loaded and saved into Photoshop, and videos. In the Preface, you set up and learn how to use the non-book elements. Especially critical are the included image files; the lessons require that you be able to open the included images into Photoshop. If you skip or skim the Preface, "you'll be sorrr-ry..."

The teaching is linear. You can't skip around, and in fact (if you are a newbie) you can't skip a sentence or even a word without risking total disorientation.

After the Preface/setup phase, there are 12 chapters called "lessons", although they would more accurately be termed chapters or sections, as there are a number of discrete (and sometimes only tenuously connected) lessons in each one.

*Summary Rating*

I rate the book 4 stars, "very good", as an introductory text. I feel quite satisfied to have used it as my introduction to Photoshop and it was worth the price I paid for it and the time I invested in it. I have completed the entire book (although I just skimmed the last chapter, on printing, because I don't currently need to print graphics to paper).

I hope you'll keep the four-star rating in mind when reading the criticisms, so that you can put them into an overall context.

*Approach*

Deke (Deke McClelland, the author) is very personal in tone. The lessons begin by loading one or more images (copied from the DVD). Deke then leads you through a series of steps to accomplish a result, such as a) selecting part of one image and moving it into another, then cleaning up the composite to make it look more realistic, or b) creating adjustment layers or layer masks to change the appearance.

This basic approach takes up about 80% of the book. There are a considerable number of sidebars or bordered paragraphs to explain tangential points, some of them comprising several distinct pages.

There are also an abundance of illustrations of both the image you are manipulating, and the Photoshop controls you are supposed to be using, to make sure you are up to speed at any given point. If the book errs, it is on the side of too many rather than too few illustrations, probably a good thing for beginners. Photoshop is huge and complex, and on the rare occasions when you get disoriented, you can just go back a few paragraphs, study the text and illustrations, and get back on track.

The 12 chapters at least touch on all the basic concepts and actions in Photoshop. In all, it gives you a good springboard for advanced learning.

*Criticisms*

1. My biggest gripe about the book is that it too often leads you through the steps too fast, learning "how" to accomplish a very specific task without a sufficient explanation of "why". For example, one of the blend modes you are supposed to use repeatedly is "Multiply". Information about how Multiply works and what it accomplishes are scattered rather randomly among the instances when it is used. The book would benefit from a single explanation of how it works, with perhaps a simple example and a comparison to the closely-related "Darken" mode.

Similarly, the various sections where masks are made (which are mostly quite good) would benefit from a page of introductory "why", rather than scattered bits and pieces of information. I spent at least five minutes wondering "why in the h____ is the thumbnail for this vector mask gray".

2. At the worst, I was unable to accomplish a couple of lessons. There are one or two lessons that are just not very good, especially "Using the Vanishing Point Filter". Following the steps does not get you to the result. I really would have just thrown up my hands in despair, except that there is an excellent sidebar -- really a separate lesson -- called "Enhanced vanishing Point 2.0".

A related, less serious criticism, is that often the lessons bite off too much in one segment.

3. The O'Reilly website has an "errata" section that is completely empty. There is no forum that I have found. In short, support for users of the book is severely deficient. There aren't a lot of errata that I found, compared to some other programming books I have read, but there are some.

4. A lot of space is wasted by fully repeating utterly simple procedures. How to rename a layer is fully explained a dozen times, and the difference between Mac and MS keyboard commands (such as Ctrl for MS versus the cloverleaf key on a Mac) is repeated, in full, at least a hundred times. Other basic procedures that are much more likely to cause confusion are sometimes not explained or repeated adequately, especially the baffling world of dragging, clicking, and double clicking with various ctrl/alt/shift combinations.

5. The tests are good, but often involve concepts too difficult to extract by normal straight-through study: e.g. terms mentioned once in a sidebar or comprehensive definitions never really fleshed out in the text.

*Plusses*
Besides the basic four-star rating, there are some extras. You get a free 7-day promo trial to Deke's video course site. And the book is full of his delightful grade-school-wacky humor.

I did not find the videos included on the DVD to be particularly helpful, although they were interesting enough. They just don't actually teach you anything.

*Summary*

I have to say, the sheer amount of work that went into this book is mind-boggling. Writing a comprehensive introduction to Photoshop is unbelievably difficult. I think it's a good job overall; I'm glad I bought it and followed it from first page to last; and I would recommend the book to a beginner with decent underlying computer skills.

Over the last few weeks I have been watching photoshop training videos available from lynda.com. Out of all the trainers, one stood out among the rest...Deke McClelland. So as I was searching for a good instructional manual, this book seemed like the perfect choice and indeed it was.

Deke does a terrific job of taking you through such an exhaustive program. The layout of the book is clear and concise. Like every good teacher should, he tells you the goals at the beginning of each lesson, then he explains how to accomplish them.

I highly recommend this book!!

I am a Photoshop newbee. I had gone through another book while waiting on this one. The book is great for new users with in depth explinations of almost every step used. At times there was little to much of Deke's personal comments which I felt was a waste of my time. I did not find the videos on the DVD all that helpful. All in all it was highly educational for me and increased my learning exponentially. I would give it 5 stars but the other book i got from Amazon, Dynamic Learning Photoshop was much more to the point.

I've been using Deke McClelland's books and courses to learn Adobe products for about ten years now, and I don't think it's an underestimate to say that this book and its author are treasures. Like all of Mr. McClelland's works, this book is both crystal clear and loaded with both advanced content and brilliantly constructed projects so as to have equal value to both beginners and professionals, and presented with wit to boot. I'm really looking forward to the forthcoming InDesign CS3 One-On-One and Illustrator CS3 One-On-One, and only wish that there were equivalent books for all of the Adobe programs. Thank you, Deke.

I am new to Photoshop and very interested in webdesign and Photography. This book helps me a lot in understanding a great deal about Photography and the new Photoshop CS3. I am still in Chapter 6 and doing wonders already. My Friends think I am some sort of a Genius. Great Book !!!

As a person who has been familiar with various aspects of Photoshop for years, I was unsure if this book would give me the information that I wanted to learn. I've been able to learn various tasks that can be done in Photoshop, but these have been very limited and I've wanted to take my skills to a higher level. Also, as someone who dabbles in digital photography, I'm also interested in learning new skills to help me reproduce my images.

This book is excellent! Not only is the book flat out gorgeous to look at and thumb through, with full color on virtually every page, I found the addition of the DVD tutorials extremely helpful and well done. There are almost 3 hours of video, and for a visual learner such as myself I found it invaluable to watch the video first and then follow along with the book at my own pace.

As you likely already know, Photoshop is an extremely complex software and it is not a very intuitive one at that, at least until you get to know your way around. Adobe CS3 one-on-one will help you tremendously if you are new to the program. I found that I learned a ton of new stuff and had a great refresher for things I had already learned in the past.

When I'm asked by friends or family what book to use to learn Photoshop, this is the one! You will not be disappointed.

Any looking to learn Photoshop CS3 from basics to advanced must have Adobe Photoshop CS3 One-on-One: it's a virtual classroom in a book and pairs real-world projects and 12 self-paced tutorials with color photos, diagrams and screen shots which lend to quick examples and easy learning. It's taught by a Photoshop expert with over 20 years of experience and it includes quizzes in each chapter to help test knowledge, making it both a handy reference and the perfect classroom text, alike. A top pick for any library catering to Photoshop CS3 learners.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

Go buy 'Photoshop CS3 One-On-One' by Deke McClelland if you use Photoshop CS3. Go ahead, I'll wait for you to get back.

Haven't bought it yet? Shoo shoo go buy it, I promise I won't leave.

...

Good job, you've just ordered one of the best technical books you will find in the market today. Not finished by a long shot, uber Photoshop extraordinare Deke McClelland has written the opus resource for the magic that is Photoshop yet AGAIN. With 500+ pages of material wrapped into the kind of book that is an absolute pleasure to read, this book will take you step by step through everything that PS has to offer, along with all the new goodies and yummies that come with the latest version.

If you want a book that can be used by newbies to pros alike, this is the ONLY book you will need to learn everything about this amazing application. For recreational users, digial photog hobbyists, and/or professionals that use Photoshop every hour of every day, this is THE book for you. Slick layout, clear concise writing, wonderful approach, and a seasoned guru at the helm, this book will make you feel like you have taken a week long seminar and you enjoy the ride.

Now stop reading my review and start playing with Photoshop so you'll be ready to hit the ground running when your book arrives.

***** HIGHEST POSSIBLE RECOMMENDATION

Go buy 'Photoshop CS3 One-On-One' by Deke McClelland if you use Photoshop CS3. Go ahead, I'll wait for you to get back.

Haven't bought it yet? Shoo shoo go buy it, I promise I won't leave.

...

Good job, you've just ordered one of the best technical books you will find in the market today. Not finished by a long shot, uber Photoshop extraordinare Deke McClelland has written the opus resource for the magic that is Photoshop yet AGAIN. With 500+ pages of material wrapped into the kind of book that is an absolute pleasure to read, this book will take you step by step through everything that PS has to offer, along with all the new goodies and yummies that come with the latest version.

If you want a book that can be used by newbies to pros alike, this is the ONLY book you will need to learn everything about this amazing application. For recreational users, digial photog hobbyists, and/or professionals that use Photoshop every hour of every day, this is THE book for you. Slick layout, clear concise writing, wonderful approach, and a seasoned guru at the helm, this book will make you feel like you have taken a week long seminar and you enjoy the ride.

Now stop reading my review and start playing with Photoshop so you'll be ready to hit the ground running when your book arrives.

***** HIGHEST POSSIBLE RECOMMENDATION

Go buy 'Photoshop CS3 One-On-One' by Deke McClelland if you use Photoshop CS3. Go ahead, I'll wait for you to get back.



Haven't bought it yet? Shoo shoo go buy it, I promise I won't leave.



...



Good job, you've just ordered one of the best technical books you will find in the market today. Not finished by a long shot, uber Photoshop extraordinare Deke McClelland has written the opus resource for the magic that is Photoshop yet AGAIN. With 500+ pages of material wrapped into the kind of book that is an absolute pleasure to read, this book will take you step by step through everything that PS has to offer, along with all the new goodies and yummies that come with the latest version.



If you want a book that can be used by newbies to pros alike, this is the ONLY book you will need to learn everything about this amazing application. For recreational users, digial photog hobbyists, and/or professionals that use Photoshop every hour of every day, this is THE book for you. Slick layout, clear concise writing, wonderful approach, and a seasoned guru at the helm, this book will make you feel like you have taken a week long seminar and you enjoy the ride.



Now stop reading my review and start playing with Photoshop so you'll be ready to hit the ground running when your book arrives.



***** HIGHEST POSSIBLE RECOMMENDATION

Deke McClelland accomplishes the very difficult task of teaching the core functionality and features of Photoshop. With every new version, Photoshop brings new abilities to the digital graphics and photo professional; and with those abilities come added complexity. For someone getting started today, the idea of learning this unparalleled program is daunting.



PS CS3 One-On-One itself is someone daunting if you simply pick up the book and flip the pages. The book is long at just over 500 pages, primarily because each task taught is presented in painstaking detail, step-by-step. With plenty of visuals, the book does an outstanding job of walking through advanced techniques with enough detail and description so as to not lose the reader.



There is absolutely no way a Photoshop user can learn a feature or technique simply by digesting a few pages of a book and calling it good. With that in mind, PS CS3 One-On-One is presented in a quality lesson format with all the necessary elements for students to succeed. Visual learners will be jazzed to view the well designed pages with plenty of screen shots and cropped examples. Visual and auditory types both will find the included DVD of complimentary training videos from the famed Lynda.com site invaluable.



At times the detail included with each lesson does drag on a bit, but in reality that is representative of what it takes to accomplish desired effects in Photoshop; not everything is a quick filter and done. In fact, most quality effects Deke teaches require multiple steps and a combination of tools to create an impressive final output.



PS CS3 One-On-One is an interesting combination of a medium to advanced users manual for Photoshop melded in with some great recipe-esque how to like guides for effects. Typically these two approaches are seen disparately in various books.



As you utilize this guide in your learn of Photoshop, you will feel like you have a personal tutorial and reference guide wrapped into one. Whether you are learning to improve images or create from scratch, you have it covered. If you are looking to master the essence of Photoshop as working professional, make this book part of your required reading.

Deke McClelland accomplishes the very difficult task of teaching the core functionality and features of Photoshop. With every new version, Photoshop brings new abilities to the digital graphics and photo professional; and with those abilities come added complexity. For someone getting started today, the idea of learning this unparalleled program is daunting.

PS CS3 One-On-One itself is someone daunting if you simply pick up the book and flip the pages. The book is long at just over 500 pages, primarily because each task taught is presented in painstaking detail, step-by-step. With plenty of visuals, the book does an outstanding job of walking through advanced techniques with enough detail and description so as to not lose the reader.

There is absolutely no way a Photoshop user can learn a feature or technique simply by digesting a few pages of a book and calling it good. With that in mind, PS CS3 One-On-One is presented in a quality lesson format with all the necessary elements for students to succeed. Visual learners will be jazzed to view the well designed pages with plenty of screen shots and cropped examples. Visual and auditory types both will find the included DVD of complimentary training videos from the famed Lynda.com site invaluable.

At times the detail included with each lesson does drag on a bit, but in reality that is representative of what it takes to accomplish desired effects in Photoshop; not everything is a quick filter and done. In fact, most quality effects Deke teaches require multiple steps and a combination of tools to create an impressive final output.

PS CS3 One-On-One is an interesting combination of a medium to advanced users manual for Photoshop melded in with some great recipe-esque how to like guides for effects. Typically these two approaches are seen disparately in various books.

As you utilize this guide in your learn of Photoshop, you will feel like you have a personal tutorial and reference guide wrapped into one. Whether you are learning to improve images or create from scratch, you have it covered. If you are looking to master the essence of Photoshop as working professional, make this book part of your required reading.

Adobe Photoshop CS3 One-on-One
This book is a great way to learn Photoshop CS3. The book has twelve lessons, which are essentially the like the chapters of most books. A DVD comes with the book. It contains all the sample images used in the lessons, and 13 tutorial videos, which are more than a replay of the info contained in the book. They have a lot of information packed into them, and you will need to pay close attention. They are of great value in showing you how to call up various commands in the Photoshop window.

The book is printed in color throughout, on quality paper, so you really can see those subtle differences described in the text. but the book is more than just a series of lessons-there are extensive explanations of many important aspects of digital photography and image manipulation. I especially appreciated the discussion of color.

To learn the program effectively, you will need to work through the lessons. You can also spend many leisurely evenings just browsing the book, and also viewing the video tutorials. If you are serious about your image work, yet want to avoid the tedium of endless study, get this book, written by Photoshop expert Deke McClelland.

Adobe Photoshop CS3 One-on_One is intended for independent learning of Photoshop, for a student in a a classroom, or for use by a classroom instructor. It works for Windows as well as Macintosh computers. I recommend it highly for all three purposes.

At the beginning of each of the 12 lessons you watch a 10 to 17 minute video lesson showing the key concepts. They make more sense when first seen in action. Deke McClelland has prepared these videos with lynda.com so their quality is the highest. The DVD also contains the material for all the lessons.

First watch the video which explains major concepts, second do The lesson following step by step procedures, third review and test your knowledge. The projects are interesting. The step-by-step tutorials are easy to follow. And, the explanations oI important concepts are clear and easy to understand.

The instructions for the new Bridge are, like the rest of the book, excellent. Following them, I created a new workspace that I use daily. Did you know that if you reorganize your thumbnails, Bridge automatically saves this sort? If you then do a sort, say by filename, you can use View > Sort > Manually to return to your custom sort.

The newest CS3 things are included in this edition, such as the ability to convert Shadow and Highlight Adjustment to a smart filter and use in nondestructively in a layer as if it were a layer adjustment.

When I first reviewed Photoshop CS One-on-One for our NVMUG user group, I used Photoshop Elements for the review. As soon as I was able to upgrade to Photoshop CS I bought my own copy. It was a great way to learn, and is one of my most prized books.

I should not have been so eager to start the next tutorial when I was studying the book, and shoould have stopped to explore using each lesson on a project of my own.

I did find a couple of what I believe are very minor errors. Page 13 says to" select Automatically Export Caches to Folders When Possible under Advanced" - I found it under Cache. And, some of the Navigation techniques talked about in the video were not accompanied by screen shots.

This book is intended for someone who wants to learn Photoshop, not just to upgrade from earlier versions, so it does not distinguish between what is new in CS3 and what was in earlier versions.

This is a great book to study if you want to learn Photoshop CS3.

This book provides excellent instruction in the use of Photoshop CS3 for those who've never used Photoshop before. The book includes a CD, with quick time movies, and images to use in conjunction with the lessons in the book.

The book's method is to introduce each chapter with a movie of about fifteen minutes. The author then provides tutorials on each subject, such as say, masking, that require the reader to upload one or more images into Adobe Photoshop CS3, and then to perform a series of steps to process that image, with emphasis on the use of the tools covered by that chapter. McClelland writes clearly and is easily understood, and the book is profusely illustrated, with screen saves that show almost every step along the way. To benefit the most, you must follow the tutorials from beginning to end, working at your computer. This is made even more important by the fact that Photoshop techniques that don't fall into a major category, like moving all or part of an image, are introduced in the chapters on the major categories, like creating and applying a mask.

One of the main problems of any Photoshop book is that that a single image will usually involve several different functions, like tone adjustment, color correction and sharpening to optimize. Yet the material must be presented one step at a time, so that it may take many hours of work before one understands how to process a single image. This is even more true in this book's case, where McClelland will discuss a single process in progressively more complex variations in a single chapter. The beginner who is anxious to show his work may find it difficult to labor through all of the exercises before he can present a picture.

A second problem is created by Photoshop itself, which is a tool for both photographers and graphic designers. The author often presents matters that are of little interest to the former, but of high concern to the latter.

Moreover there are certain tools that are of special interest to photographers that are not covered in great detail, like the use of Adobe Camera Raw, Adobe's front end to Photoshop.

If you are a photographer interested in quickly learning to get images processed, you might be more interested in one of the PS CS3 books aimed specifically at photographers, like Tim Grey's "Photoshop CS3 Workflow". If you are already an experienced Photoshop user who just wants to learn what's new in CS3, Ben Willmore's "Adobe Photoshop CS3: Up to Speed" is for you. What's clear is that you probably will need to read many books before you feel you are getting the most from Photoshop.

Finally this book does not cover the 4.1 update to Camera Raw.

If you want to learn PS CS3 in all its variations, this is an excellent book, providing one recognizes that it will require a commitment of time and effort. If that is your goal, this book will do a fine job.

Personally I was a little disappointed with this DvD. Not because it was a bad training guide, but because I knew most everything in it already. I've been a creative retoucher for 17 years and thought this DvD would get me up to speed on the new features in CS3. Which it did a OK job of.

All in all this would be a excellent training DvD for a Photoshop beginner or even a newer user. If you've been working in Photoshop as a Professional for many years, you might want to try a different book or DvD. One thing I did love was learning some newer keyboard short cuts. Deke McClelland is a smart guy, I hope he comes out with a much more advanced DvD in the future.
Cheers

"Adobe Photoshop CS 3: One on One," is a lavishly-produced book providing an introduction to the main features and tools of Photoshop CS 3. It is part of a series of "One-on-One" books published by Deke Press/O'Reilly and is geared towards the beginner-intermediate user and is designed to mimic hands-on instruction from computer graphics master, Deke McClelland, and it is as close to a personal set of lessons from an accomplished professional as can be imagined. Each tutorial sets out step by step instructions and explanations using simple comparison images, program screenshots, and clearly-expressed text. The text is enhanced by a companion DVD correlated with the step-by-step process of the tutorials.

A dozen lessons cover the major elements of Photoshop, from manipulating luminosity, making color corrections, selections, masking, layered compositions, text and shapes, and more. The book contains hundreds of full color photographs and screenshots. Every step of each tutorial is expressed in clear, concise prose, punctuated with professional insights and the author's mostly self-deprecating humor. McClelland is candid in his assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of the Photoshop tools used in the tutorials.

The tutorials are complemented by "Pearls of Wisdom" spread throughout which are topical tips on how professionals like McClelland use Photoshop tools in the real world. There are sidebar "Extra Credits" providing bits of advanced instruction, or reference to Web sources were extra material can be found. Many of the tutorials include separate, but related, sections emphasizing concepts and theory like color channels and the math and logic behind various Photoshop tools. There are simple "tests" at the end of each chapter designed to help reinforce the lessons in the tutorials for the introductory user.

The author acknowledges that Photoshop is a complicated program, difficult to learn, and can be intimidating, nevertheless, he does a fine job motivating the reader to continue through the instruction (even though a particular process may have up to 23 steps to complete!) I think this book is a standout among the many Photoshop guides available. Certainly, it's production values equal or exceed those of any competitor.

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It has been a long while since I have been as enthusiastic about a book as this one. Deke McClelland has targeted my demographic with a practiced eye: people who use Photoshop and who want to use it more -- but who are completely intimidated and lost in the bowels of that "vast and ungainly behemoth." It helps that the author, who clearly loves this tool, maintains a refreshing irreverence toward it.

The book is organized in a "Read - Watch - Do" way. The "watch" part comes from the 3 hours of instructional video that is included with the book DVD. The DVD also contains example files and other material that McClelland shows how to use to set up your copy of Photoshop in the most useful manner.

The instructional videos blew me away with their information density. There is incredible content here. So far going through the book, I found it valuable to watch each more than once. The video material does not repeat the written instruction -- it complements it.

The book itself is beautiful and well-organized. It has a wide format that lies flat to make following along while at the mouse or keyboard easier. It is 500 pages long but is not overwhelming, like a reference. All the material is encompassed in 12 lessons. These 12 lessons teach the basic skills needed to use the tool effectively whether your focus is the Web or print.

A note of interest to those who have not upgraded to CS3 yet: I noticed in sharing this book that people with CS2 will be quite comfortable following along. The author clears away whatever obstacles may come up for you.

One last note: I know the editorial review above says there are only 2 hours of video with the book, not 3 as I stated. I have no idea why they rounded off 2 hours and 54 minutes that way. I guess they figured, as I do, that the features of this book could be understated and still be worthy of superlatives.
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