Photoshop CS6 All-in-One For Dummies 1st Edition

I am in the midst of taking a second semester course on Photoshop. Last semester we used Photoshop CS5. Over the summer, CS6 came out. There are just enough differences to drive a neophyte crazy. This book is a good lifeline. I am finally catching up. There is a whole lot of good information.

It is a great book, if you are a beginner and want to learn the basics of PS. I bought it based on some reviews of people, crying about how hard the book was follow along. As a professional photographer, then, I thought it would have something to add, but it turned out to be as the name suggests.

The book looked good but had to return it because we took the Photoshop software program back because of all the trouble we had trying to get it loaded on the computer. With no program we had no use for the book even through the book appeared to be very comprehensive.

I have a lot of respect for this author to have created so many comprehensive "Dummies" manuals. And, in all fairness, she does mention in the very first chapter that the book is not for basic beginners, so the "for Dummies" portion of the title is very misleading. Of course, it would be a challenge to write a manual for beginners, considering that the Photoshop program is not user-friendly, as there are often 5 or more ways to do the same thing. (As a reader, I found it confusing to be shown multiple ways to do the same thing....it boggles the mind!)I bought this book while taking a Photoshop certification course, and even now that I have completed the course and use Photoshop regularly, I have yet to be able to find a complete answer to my questions in the text. I am a former instructional designer (and educator) with a lot of experience designing training manuals, so my perspective is that of someone who understands how people learn. Unfortunately, this book has many of the pitfalls of other technical manuals written by people who think like a "techie," rather than an educator. To me, it would have been more logical to start the book with "The 10 most common things people do with Photoshop." (There is actually a YouTube video that does this.) I would have liked to know, for example, how to cut an image out of one picture and paste it into another...from step 1 (opening the 2 photos) to the final step of saving and closing it. Unfortunately, this book does not do that.Instead, it offers fragments of skills, organized in a way I found difficult to follow. Also, the author often says, "For more details, refer to chapter X in section X," but there are no page number references, so you have to go looking. By the time you find the other section, there may be a further reference to another section for more details, and you lose your train of thought (and have to remember what the previous section was trying to say). Truthfully, this book was not even a 3-star book for me, but I gave it 3 stars because I am guessing that more skilled people might find it useful. Also, it is over 700 pages of technical details, so it must make sense to someone. (Maybe?) I cannot attest to that, though, because I am merely a beginner, with one Photoshop course under my belt. Still, I've ended up finding much clearer answers on the Internet, rather than in the book.In summary, this book reminds me of those mathematics and physics professors who are so intelligent, so detail-oriented, and so knowledgeable in their field that they don't really understand the thought processes of the basic beginner. Alas...and my apologies to the author.

I never actually used the book but my daughter did and she was able to do so much in Photoshop in just a month that I was amazed. I do plan to use it when I have the time.

Loved this book. It helped this Photoshop beginner learn the procedures and processes much more easier. I truly love the "Dummie's" series. I highly recommend this book if you need a play by play breakdown to learning Photoshop.

I bought this book for a 15 year old girl I mentor. She is learning photoshop, and I thought having a book would give her some ideas and also be something just for her, personally. I don't know photoshop, but she said it was very helpful.

This book takes you through every process in Photoshop in plain language and in any order that you want it. It's the perfect fast reference guide for beginners and masters. KD