Photoshop 5 for Windows and Macintosh: Visual QuickStart Guide

Product Description

Adobe Photoshop is the application of choice for digital image manipulation. Its complexity can be daunting for beginners, however. Photoshop 5 for Macintosh: Visual QuickStart Guide gives users an accessible, how-to reference guide to basic photo manipulation and correction techniques using the latest version of Photoshop. Using this guide, beginners don't need to wander through menus or read a great deal of text. Extensive pictures and captions reassure readers that they are in the correct dialog box, pop-up menu, or entry field to do what they need. Used as a standard textbook in countless classrooms, and as a table-top reference by freelance computer artists everywhere, it's the book that explains Photoshop techniques clearly and quickly. Includes new and revised material on using Photoshop effectively for Web images as well as in multimedia productions. Also covers most of the higher-end changes in this version, including: improved color management, the new History palette, 16-bit channel support, layer effects, History brush, Magnetic Lasso and Magnetic Pen tools, Postscript type layers, and the expanded Actions palette.

Online Review

This Visual QuickStart Guide to Photoshop 5 for Windows and Macintosh is ideal for computer graphics beginners who need thorough help with even the most basic tools in Adobe's image editor. The authors provide step-by-step instruction for each exercise while offering the exact keyboard and mouse operations, plenty of screen shots and illustrations, extra usage tips, and a bit of technical insight. First, you learn the essential options on the menus and in the palettes; approach the issue of color in Photoshop; and explore the significance of pixels, red-green-blue (RGB) and cyan-magenta- yellow-black (CMYK) models, channels, image and blending modes, and color management. To get you started on some real work, the authors show you how to create, open, and save files; scan images; import files; resize and crop images; and use the Navigator palette. The subsequent chapters guide you through the processes of making selections; creating composite images using layers and the Stamp tool; working with History (undo and redo) options; using Adjustment Layers; choosing, adjusting, and correcting color; and working with the line, paintbrush, airbrush, and gradient tools. In the last, most advanced part of the book, the authors show you how to create interesting effects using layers, masks, paths, the type tool, and filters. Finally, the authors show you how to customize your images for output to the Web, Macromedia Director, and Adobe After Effects. --Kathleen Caster