Preface

Welcome, gentle reader, to the Photoshop CS2 Bible, Professional Edition . Of course, this book is a "bible" only in the dictionary sense of "a book considered authoritative in its field," not in any religious sense. We don't want to make any assumptions about the religious persuasion of you, the prospective buyer, standing there in the bookstore, because as it happens, the hard reality is that we know almost nothing about you, except that there's a strong possibility you have some sort of interest in Adobe Photoshop. Nevertheless, and futile though it may be, we want you whoever you are to feel that this book was written especially , specifically and solely for you . Every time you turn a page, we want you to think,"Gosh, I feel like they're talking directly to me," because we are.

Don't believe it? Check out these you-oriented stats: The Photoshop Bible is the longest continuously published title on Adobe Photoshop, so you know it's steadfast and tenacious . With more than a million copies in print worldwide, the Photoshop Bible is the bestselling reference guide on Photoshop, so you know you're getting an established, dependable standard. The Photoshop Bible ranks among the most award-winning and widely recommended books in the design industry, so you know it's a title you can trust.

But although the Bible 's pedigree clearly suggests a family and cultural heritagethat's compatible with your own, that's hardly a reason to fall in love. Which is why we handcrafted this particular edition, the Professional Edition, with your specific needs in mind:

  • Your time is valuable . The Professional Edition is streamlined, around 400 pages shorter than the softcover edition.

  • You're a visual thinker. The Professional Edition places emphasis on carefully rendered illustrations and informational graphics. Loaded with more than1,000 separate illustrations grouped into around 550 figures more than most books twice its size the Professional Edition never tells what it can show.

  • You already know your way around Photoshop. The Professional Edition skips the basic, boring stuff (preferences, file formats) in favor of pages upon pages of exciting and inspirational high-end techniques.

  • You have work to do. The Professional Edition explains Photoshop's most practical and powerful capabilities in everyday English. After all, just because a command is complicated doesn't mean the discussion has to be.

  • You're not cheap, but you don't say no to value. Unlike the softbound standard edition, the Professional Edition is printed entirely in full color on glossy paper stock. And yet it costs less per page than other full- color titles.

  • You appreciate craftsmanship and quality. Every photograph and illustration in the Professional Edition is printed at 300 pixels per inch or higher. (Go ahead, count 'em!) Even the most casual screen shots are meticulously diagrammed so you're never left wondering how an option works or where it's located.

  • You want brand new information. If you've purchased previous editions of the Bible in softcover, you may not recognize this one. More than half the content is unique to the Professional Edition .

Needless to say, this edition has been combed over, fine-toothed-style, to weed out the old info , pour in the new, and make sure everything is totally up to date with Photoshop CS2. But the guiding principles established in the previous century with the first edition of the Photoshop Bible remain very much intact. It is our mission to address every topic head on no cop-outs, no apologies. When we don't know how something works (which happens more often than I care to admit), we do the research and figure it out, sometimes discussing features directly with the programmers, sometimes taking advantage of other sources. Our job is to find out the answers, make sure those answers make sense, and pass them along to you as clearly as we can.

We also provide background, opinions , and occasional attempts at humor. A dry listing of features followed by ponderous discussions of how they work doesn't mean squat unless we explain why the feature is there, where it fits into your work- flow, and on occasion whether or not it's the best solution. We can be alternately irritated by, excited about, and just plain giddy in the presence of Photoshop, and make no effort to contain our criticisms or enthusiasm . Reading this book is like having us sitting there beside you, walking you through the program as subjectively as we can.

Which Testament Should You Choose?

The appearance of the words Professional Edition in the title of this book may lead you to suspect that there is at least one other edition. And so there is. The Photoshop CS2 Bible (called the "standard edition") is a softbound publication that was published a few months prior to the Professional Edition and remains available throughout the life of Photoshop CS2 and beyond indeed, as long as anyone is willing to purchase it. Weighing in at more than 1,000 pages, the standard edition is a great deal longer than the Professional Edition and covers territory left unexplored in this book. Not only that, it costs $20 less. All of which may leave you wondering:"Why two books? Why does the shorter one cost more? And which one is right for me?" Here are the answers:

Why two Photoshop CS2 Bibles?

Over the past decade , the number one request from readers has been, "More color!" Little did you know, you were preaching to the converted. The publisher had been petitioned for increased color since the second edition of the book after all, there are certain topics that you simply cannot cover in adequate detail without color.

Why does the Professional Edition cost more?

If you're familiar with the financial demands of the print world, you know that color printing on glossy paper costs more than twice as much as black-and-white printing on uncoated stock. What you may not know is that printing is the driving factor in the high cost of creating a book. Editorial, art, and production all take a back seat.

Which Photoshop CS2 Bible is right for you?

As mentioned earlier, this book was written for you unless you're not who we think you are, in which case, the best Bible for you depends largely on your skill level.

The standard edition of the Photoshop CS Bible is an invaluable, cradle-to-grave resource guide with emphasis on text description over graphics. The Professional Edition is likewise a resource guide, but with emphasis on creative techniques, graphics and imagery, and the new capabilities of Photoshop CS2. The Professional Edition assumes more knowledge on the part of the reader, but in return, it delivers more interesting, more exciting information.

If you're looking for specifics, topics that receive either exclusive or dramatically expanded coverage in the Professional Edition include: Levels, Curves, the Camera Raw format, the Lens Blur filter, hue and saturation adjustments, the Channel Mixer, layer styles, history, the Render filters, actions, batch renaming and processing, arbitrary and displacement maps, the Custom filter, digital photography, red eye reduction, Web graphics, the sRGB color space, and ImageReady. As alluded to earlier, half the pages in this book appear nowhere inside the standard edition.

That means there's a lot of stuff covered in the standard Photoshop CS2 Bible that isn't covered in this edition. The standard edition alone provides the popular shortcuts table as well as coverage of navigation, preferences, tool presets, workspaces, resampling and resolution, file formats, color channels and models, the Eyedropper tool, gradients, the common selection tools, paths, text, Color Settings, and CMYK printing. The goal was to create two independent books with as little overlap as possible. We're not advising that you get both books, but some readers will, and we want them to be absolutely satisfied.

Our advice is that, if you've never read a previous edition of the Photoshop Bible or if you're relatively new to Photoshop, you may prefer the standard softbound Photoshop CS Bible . On the other hand, if you own one of the previous editions or you're reasonably adept at Photoshop, get the Professional Edition instead. Of the two Bibles, the Professional Edition is far and away the deluxe model, blessed with high production values, real-world techniques, detailed screen graphics, full-color photography, and scads of information that most working professionals we've come in contact with are not aware of.



Photoshop CS2 Bible
Photoshop CS2 Bible
ISBN: 0764589725
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 95

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