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Adobe Photoshop cs Down & Dirty Tricks


Book Review by Victoria Maciulski

Here is another great book from the legendary Scott Kelby, Editor-in-Chief of Photoshop User Magazine. For those of you who bought his Adobe Photoshop 7 Down & Dirty Tricks, this is not a repeat. He says he trashed every technique from the Adobe Photoshop 7 version and started from scratch with this one.

I really like the layout of it. It's like two books in one. The pages are white with tan vertical strips almost two inches wide. In the white sections are the step-by-step, how-to instructions, with plenty of images that show the progress of each step. The tan sidebars contain Quick Tips.

I love the one on page 74. It says, "Want some cool metal gradients? You've already got 'em!" Then it goes on to explain how to access them.

There are some really cool lessons, such as the one on popping out of a photo on page 23, Edge Collage technique on page 39, the one on making a filmstrip template on page 192, and the one on how to make a photo cube on page 230.

There are multiple lessons on different 3-D effects, lots of cool type effects, and Advertising effects, like fancy product shot backgrounds, adding a window to another place and dividing a photo into puzzle pieces.

This book is fine for beginners, as the first time he has you do a new task, like create a layer, he tells in detail how to do it. But he doesn't tell you how to do it in every lesson, so the more advanced folks won't get bogged down and bored. And the Quick Tips in the sidebars alone are worth the price of the book.

Other books by Scott Kelby:

Adobe Photoshop cs Down & Dirty Tricks
Scott Kelby; 336 pages; list price: $39.99 - click here save up to 30%. (Requires Adobe Photoshop); 0402-09; Click above for more details or to purchase.

Reviewed by Victoria Maciulski

 
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(c) 2004 Victoria Maciulski, Newsletter Editor, Conejo Ventura Mac User Group (CVMUG) This review may be reproduced with proper attribution. Please notify author of placement and provide a copy/URL for reference. All trademarks are property of their respective owners.
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