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Average Customer Rating: 
Adobe Photoshop CS Classroom in a Book >
Customer Review #1:
 Step-by-Step Lessons Really Help
In addition to the Lessons folder (which contains the art source files for 20 lessons), there is a Folder with 35 Fonts, so that you can do the lessons.It starts by telling you how to navigate the application, such as understanding the tools and palettes, using the image browser, defining and saving work spaces, and jumping to Image Ready and back. (Photoshop comes with a powerful application for making image maps, animated GIFs, rollovers for the web, etc. Chapters 14 - 18 cover Image Ready and its Photoshop features.)
It tells you how to use the automated features for output. You can create a PDF presentation from the File Browser, save photos into a Web Gallery, make a Photo Package or a Contact Sheet. Lesson 6 is all about masking and its many variations, such as gradient masks. Hidden in this chapter is the Extract command, showing you how to extract an image from its background. It covers retouching and repairing photos, painting and editing, which includes blending images into a background and use of the History Palette. Advanced layer techniques (Lesson 11) include creating clipping paths, adjustment layers, knock-out masks, importing layers from other files, using the liquify tool and more. ThereÃs even a pretty good discussion of Camera Raw (page 64) and the stuff you should know about it.
Adobe Photoshop CS Classroom in a Book >
Customer Review #2:
 Very helpful.
Taught me everything I needed to know, and quickly.
Adobe Photoshop CS Classroom in a Book >
Customer Review #3:
A good starting point for unseasoned Photoshop users
Like many people out there, Ive been using computers for decades, and while Ive dabbled with Photoshop over the years to do layer-based image touch-ups, enhancements, resizes, and related simplistic tasks (making tape/CD covers, greeting cards, etc.), Ive never taken the time to work through a book to learn the other features of the program.Adobe Photoshop CS Classroom in a Book (CIAB) is a worthwhile starting point for users who know how to use their computers, but might only know how to use some of the functions of Photoshop. This book spends most of its time on layers, masks, pen tools, and webpage basics (slices, animation, and image maps). I found the pen tool chapter to be the most useful, since I had never really understood how vector-based drawing worked, and I am now eager to learn the basics of Adobe Illustrator CS as well. The webpage chapters are also good for those who have lots of ideas in their mind about how their webpage should look, but dont have intuitive tools to do it. ImageReady CS (included with Photoshop CS or Adobe Creative Suite) makes creating precise web graphics, image maps, etc. almost too easy. I found several errors in the book that occur in later chapters, but none of them prevented me from completing the lessons. There are some spelling, grammatical, and formatting errors throughout the text. However, these will not prevent the average user from running into roadblocks. The biggest error occurs in Lesson 15, where the image references in the sample HTML file do not correspond with the actual image filenames. Basic HTML/text editing can fix this, but as an official Adobe product, this should have been found before duplicating the CD-ROM which accompanies this book. Otherwise, the lessons are presented well and are very easy to follow. The text is clear and easy on the eyes. I was able to complete all 20 lessons in about 4 days. To get the most out of this book, it would be wise to complete a lesson, and then apply what you learned to your own project to help with retention of the material. Overall, a good first step to other more in-depth texts. Id like to see full-color in future installments, as well as more detailed descriptions on why certain selections and options are chosen. Also, I think the monitor and color calibration chapters should be moved to an earlier part of the book. Its odd that these are the last topics covered, especially since topics like levels and color correction precede it.
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