Scott Kelby is the world’s #1 bestselling Photoshop author, so you’d expect his latest book to be in the same caliber as past books including past editions of Down & Dirty Tricks. So where does this one land?
Before you jump in and read my review you might be interested in checking out the video version of this same of this review at the CampPhotoshop youtube.com channel or you can view my video review and read other reviews of this book at amazon.com.
The first thing I noticed about the book is how colorful it is. Tons of color examples that help walk you through the various steps. The book has 9 chapters and 41 tricks by my count. There’s also an introduction called “Nine Quick Things You’ll Wish You Had Known Before Reading This Book.” The introduction is actually very useful and includes a link for downloading practice files (a must for a book like this).
If you’re a regular view of Photoshop User TV or reader of Scott’s blog some of these tricks and images will seem familiar. This book adds depth to what you may have seen and read. Of course there are many tricks that are completely fresh. Including a section on 3D authored by Corey Barker. You’ll need CS4 extended to work in 3D.
The book covers basically two types of tricks, photo enhancement and graphic creation. So some tutorials will take average images and make them extraordinary. Other tricks show how to create graphics completely from scratch. Since some of the photo tricks require shooting the image correctly Scott offers a few pre Photoshop ticks on how to shoot your images to make them easier to edit in Photoshop.
You can jump in anywhere in this book and it written for the beginner and advanced user. As a Adobe Certified Photoshop Expert I found many new ideas that I can apply to my work. When I say this books is for beginners I should qualify that a bit. If you have never opened Photoshop before then you will get lost very easily, so you should have some basic understanding of Photoshop and the names and locations of tools and menus.
I like everything about this book. I’m giving it five stars and will locate it within arms reach of my computer for quick reference.
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