Adobe Photoshop 5.0 Productivity Kit

Reviewed by: Tim Ferrill, send e-mail Published by: Peachpit Press, go to the web site Requires: N/A MSRP: US$39.99 The Adobe Photoshop Productivity Kit was written for people new to the wide world of Photoshop. With in-depth projects, including project files and extensive examples, the Photoshop Productivity Kit is a must for people wanting to learn essential techniques for use with Photoshop or any other photo editing software. Adobe Press was created as a way for people to learn and master Adobe graphics programs. The Photoshop Productivity Kit is one of several books on Photoshop, Adobe's flagship product. Photoshop has long been a leader among graphics manipulation and paint software. The Photoshop Productivity Kit is geared toward Photoshop v5.

The Productivity Kit includes lessons on designing web graphics such as interactive buttons, backgrounds, and also animated graphics such as ad banners. More advanced chapters teach methods for color manipulation in images as well as editing or removing backgrounds from photos.

Along with teaching Photoshop, the book includes instruction on other Adobe products such as PageMaker and ImageReady. These together make up an excellent foundation for anyone trying to get involved with computer graphics or desktop publishing. Project topics included in the book are designing video and CD covers, scanning techniques for print and the web, blending photos, creating letterheads, and reducing file sizes. The techniques taught in this book can be applied to many different photo and image editing software packages.

The included CD contains project files from the book and also an assortment of templates, backgrounds and actions for creating your own images. It also contains demo versions of ImageReady, ImageStyler, PageMaker, and PageMill. Do not expect to earn Photoshop overnight. To document every aspect of Photoshop would take a volume of instruction manuals several feet thick. That said, the Productivity Kit teaches techniques, not procedures. Instead of step by step instructions on how to accomplish individual objectives, the book gives you a foundational basis for you to start on and grow from, a much better and more practical approach to the world of Photoshop.

This is a great book for beginners but would also be a great buy for anyone looking to gain knowledge and experience with Photoshop or other related software. The Adobe Press staff has created a book that can be helpful to a wide range of users from beginners to Photoshop professionals.

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