The Photoshop 6 Wow! Book

List Price: $49.99 Discount Price: $2.96

Customer Reviews:

Lots of fun [Posted on 2003-05-12]
This is a virtual candy store for a Photoshop enthusiast, and one of my two favorite Photoshop books. The effects are fun and occassionally challenging. If you work through a decent portion of this book you will learn the program. Since most of the examples will work just fine in Photoshop 7, I probably will skip the next edition unless it has a lot of new material. If you know the basics of Photoshop and want to go to the next level this is a good place to start.

Marvel of Art is Inspiring [Posted on 2003-09-28]
There are many examples within this book that are just amazing, and this book will introduce you to ways to recreate such beautiful effects. In the process, you'll learn to unlock the power of PhotoShop.

Be warned though, this is not a book that will hand hold you and walk you through "What is a pencil tool" and "how to use it". If you know PhotoShop a little, or an intuitive knack to figure things out, then you can learn a lot from this book.

I found at least one of the guides not to work correctly across platforms (Mac OS vs. Windows), but fortunately with the CD, there were some styles that I can plug in and use immediately. I was able to add some spice to my dull web pages.

So in summary, this is not a general purpose tutorial. It will show you some spot techniques and tricks that give you inspiration and bring some techniques of the trade into your mental palette as well as increase your PhotoShop knowledge.

Not recommended for Photoshop beginners [Posted on 2004-11-19]
I purchased this book several months ago, having no experience in Photoshop. From the first I found the book overwhelming and confusing. Maybe it's my style of learning, as I was expecting a more linear style. Something like, "Okay, here's what you need to know to get started" and "Now that you know this, here's how you do that."

But this book, to me, is needlessly complicated. While it's excellent for detailed descriptions, I wouldn't recommend it for beginners. I found myself reading and re-reading descriptions and information, breaking out the highligher pen, trying to glean the basics from pages and pages of details that were, for a beginner like me, irrelevant. I say irrelevant because I was given information on things I hadn't learned yet.

I wound up purchasing other resources to learn Photoshop. Now that I have a basic understanding of the software, this book is a little more useful, though still too complicated for my taste.

Three years later and I still use this book! [Posted on 2005-08-29]
Photoshop 6 Wow! has proven to be my primary source of learning Photoshop, and I own plenty of other books that I could have used instead. What's great about it is that you can open the book to any page and see something of interest, as the book is chock full of how-to illustrations and examples. It does not have to be read cover to cover or in sequence. The companion CD has all the tutorial files, plus presets for styles, brushes, custom shapes, gradients, and more, which you can copy to your hard drive and use from within Photoshop.
Two criticisms:
1. Certain files on the companion CD can't be opened on Windows pcs, such as \Wow Project Images\Chapter 9\454-Wow Button Samplers\Wow Button Sampler HTML\Open in Browser. The "Open in Browser" file shows no file type in Windows, and can't be opened.
2. You need to set aside time (hours, not minutes) to do the book justice. If you're in a hurry, and need to figure out a Photoshop feature or technique in 5 minutes while the boss is breathing down your neck, this book might not be your best choice. But other than this, I recommend Photoshop 6 Wow!, even to those who have upgraded to a newer version of Photoshop.

Hard to follow but worth it. [Posted on 2006-05-17]
This book takes a nice example and then leads you quick step by quick step on how to get there. I recomend getting a book with cd (if getting a used book) to benefit from the lessons. It probably needs a companion idiot guide as it tends to asume some knowledge its steps are like a recipee not a learn to cook book; but like a wonderful book of recipees you'll either make art or some kind of mess...

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