Praise for previous edition:

"Breaks down a monster programme into its essential elements and communicates them in an easily understandable way. Geoff Franklin, photographer, UK

"A must for any photographer, whether an absolute beginner or one in advanced mode... memorise every other word and you will be the king of your camera club." - Amateur Photographer

This book provides excellent coverage of Photoshop as a digital darkroom tool as well as covering a truly amazing amount of background information. It is very readable and is truly a gem. Mark Lewis, Director of Technology Training, Mount Saint Mary College, USA

Mark Galer is a Senior Lecturer in photography at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Australia. He is also co-writer and teacher on their new online photography courses. He has lectured in photography in the UK and Australia and has worked commercially as a freelance photographer on corporate and editorial assignments. He has written numerous top-selling photography books, including Photography Foundations for Art & Design, Adobe Photoshop Elements 5.0 Maximum Performance and Digital Photography in Available Light. He is an Official Adobe Ambassador for Photoshop and Photoshop Elements.

Philip Andrews is Adobe Australia’s official Photoshop and Elements Ambassador. He is an experienced photographer, author, magazine editor and online course creator. He was previously a lecturer at the Queensland School of Printing and Graphic Arts, Australia and Nescot, England. He is a beta tester for Photoshop, an alpha tester for Photoshop Elements and a Photoshop specialist demonstrator for Adobe Australia. Philip is also co-founder of photo-college.com an online photography training college. He’s a regular contributor to several magazines including Shutterbug, Amateur Photographer, Australian Photography and Better Photography, he is senior contributing editor for Better Digital, columnist for What Digital Camera and Co-editor and publisher of Better Photoshop Techniques magazine.

Brimming with beautiful pictures, this successful book guides you through a project-based, progressive curriculum so that you can build all the essential skills to enhance photographs creatively and professionally with Photoshop CS3. If you are an aspiring professional, enthusiastic amateur photographer, or a student learning photography, digital imaging, art and design, or design graphics, you’ll be amazed at the stunning results you can achieve!

New! DVD is included FREE. Additional learning materials include * full-resolution, royalty-free images to download for trying-out your new techniques * 5 hours of QuickTime movie tutorials to support the practical projects * Presets from layer styles to curves, shapes, and gradients * indispensable RAW files for editing practice

And dont miss the companion website with updates, practice material, and more at www.photoshopessentialskills.com!

"The perfect companion guide for Photoshop users of multiple levels."
Photoshop Creative Magazine

"This book provides excellent coverage of Photoshop as a digital darkroom tool, as well as covering a truly amazing amount of background information. It is very readable and is truly a gem."
Mark Lewis, Director, Mount Saint Mary College, USA

The Essential Skills Photography Series from Focal Press uniquely offers a structured learning experience for photographers of all ages, with both the underlying theory and loads of invaluable ’how to’ and real-life practice projects - all from the most talented photography practitioners/educators in the world.

Each subject includes:

* learning objectives for each section for class use or self-study
* color images of student and teacher/author work
* activities to check learning outcomes
* assignments to put theories into creative practice
* full glossary of terms

Other titles in the series:
Studio Photography: Essential Skills by John Child, Photographic Lighting: Essential Skills by John Child and Mark Galer and Digital Photography in Available Light by Mark Galer.

*An affordable resource that distills the complexity of Photoshop CS3 to the essentials
* Retouch photographs, create makeovers, produce sophisticated montages, and create special effects with clear, step-by-step projects
* Practice with activities that show the ’why’, along with the ’how-to’
* Follow a structured learning approach to gain fundamental skillsand more

Excellent but demanding in places
I wanted a book that would take me from coarse manipulating images in Photoshop to lifting out the richness of detail. This book does it! Unlike many similar books on Photoshop, there is no padding, no overuse of large images to extend without adding value, this book is to the point. I learned many tricks and valuable techniques.

That said, it can be demanding and sometimes it is too tight. It would have helped if the key steps were relegated each to a single line to reduce risk of missing a step in a long sequence. Sometimes the steps are many such as project 1 beginning page 250 and the background or reason for doing it is not spelled out (what is "Apply Image" and why? page 253). It would help if the introduction to the recipe covered key steps and what will happen with cross references.

It is also not empathetic to the reader. For example page 252 it takes steps to duplicate a blue layer and after a levels adjustment it is called "this mask". What "mask" I ask? Then in step 3 (page 253) it refers to a "layer mask". Is this the copied blue layer or the black and white mask? An explanation of the blue layer copied would have helped and if somehow a mask, please say so.

It is however one of the best reference books and goes highly recommended with a decent index and support CD. Well done.

Lack of Detail
There were several times where I had to seek alternative sources to have my questions answered about Photoshop. So, I do feel this book could have addressed topics in more detail. If you are a beginner in Photoshop, I don’t recommend this book.

A must have for the library.
I have both the photoshop Essential Skills CS2 and CS3 editions and I used both...although there is some repeat from edition to edition there is always some really good and needed info in each of them. I also like the tutorials on the cd. Mark Galer and Philip Andrews write easy to understand, step by step informative books.

PS Essential Skills
Good but this book came a little later than the the other even though I ordered them to be posted together. Otherwise very happy.. Thank You.

Disappointed
I bought this book because the DVD material sounded promising. However, the book introduces complex concepts but fails to provide explanations that make any sense. Probably my biggest complaint is that the book is absolutely geared towards Mac users - the author comments that "the UI is the same irrespective of the computer platform you are working with." However I was unable to locate several of the menu items that he references and many were in a different location.

I do realize that most digital photographers use the Mac platform, but if you’re going to offer yourself up as supporting both platforms, then you need to live up to that, because not ALL photographers use Mac.

I am going to try another book - trying to follow this one is a HUGE waste of time.

Photoshop CS3 Help
Photoshop CS3 is such a gobsmacking programme, particularly if you are new to it (like me), that any help is useful. However, this book is much more than that. Clear pictures, projects, signposted sections and an excellent accompanying CD with the base images, projects and demonstration videos is a of real value. It is well written, in relatively plain and accessible language, with only the odd slip into jargon (that you can find). It develops from beginning to end, and you can skip backwards and forwards through it with ease. Handy reference for later work as you progress. Better value than many books I’ve had of similar type in the past - this is presently my handrail and guide to learning.

Was a good choice!
I have the Scott Kelby book for CS2 and I was debating between this and the Scott Kelby for CS3. Glad I chose this. I am kind of in the learning mode for the PhotoShop and Scott’s book though good, lacked some of the basics that this book covers well. I loved the videos on the DVD which takes you through some of the techniques also given in the book - but as they say "a picture is worth a thousand words" - so the video should be worth more - it is!
Highly recommended for beginners as well as advance level photographers/enthusiasts.

A different view
Sorry, but I can’t agree with the other reviewers. I think this book is pathetic: do not be enticed by the fact that it contains lots of pretty colour photos. It has a reasonable run through the very basic background material you need to use a photo editing program (resolution, image types etc). But thereafter it just seems to wander aimlessley through different areas of functionality. If you knew Photoshop before you read the book then it might help (why are you reading the book then?), but otherwise you’ll be confused by the use of new concepts before they are explained, and the seemingly random walk through different ’things to do’ to photos. It is neither task oriented nor logical in my opinion: and when faced with a photo that I need to work on the book leaves me no better informed as to where to even start.

A fair bit of criticism has to go to the amateur nature of the publisher as well. It doesn’t help when headings all share the same style, so you can’t tell sub-headings from sub-subheadings... and the use of pictures BEFORE the supporting text is utterly confusing. Some degree of consistency in showing before AND after images, just before, just after, small before image, small after image etc. are what the publisher should be sorting out. Also, just throwing the supporting images on a DVD with no direct link from those in the text is just plain lazy. Very amateur.

information not updated for cs3
I am a new Photoshop user and thought I was getting a Photoshop CS3 starter book, like the title states. But on the SECOND page they say to use Adobe Gamma to calibrate my monitor. After 45 mins of looking and searching, I find, at Adobe, that they don’t use Gamma in CS3. What a crock. Now I don’t know if I can trust the rest of the book. Looks like they wrote a book for an older version and failed to update anything but the cover.
TED

So far so good
I received this text a few weeks ago. Still a novice at PS, it has been helpful. Still working with using the DVD. The text is concise. I still feel there could be better definitions into the purpose of various editing tools rather than simply instructing in their use. However, I am just getting started and perhaps that may unfold

Great book, easy to use
I really enjoy the way this book is laid out, and the way in which it teaches. The accompanying DVD is also very helpful.

Great book - especially for beginners
I have finally found a book which suits my needs the most.
The book is well organized. And very friendly for beginners.
I strongly recommend it.

The DVD is no good.
The book is all right, but not outstanding. The DVD would not play. I emailed the publisher about this, and received a reply that suggested I should uninstall the latest version of Quicktime and use an older version. Now why would I want to do that?
Amazon accepted return and gave me a refund. Amazon is a great place to shop.

Photoshp CS3 Essential Skills
This book is a must for anybody new to CS3. Can’t speak highly enough for it. Buy it.

Good foundational book
This was a required book for a Photoshop CS3 class I’m taking. It has proven to be a very good book for building a working knowledge of all the features in Photoshop CS3. If you are fairly new to Photoshop then this is a good book to have.

Finally . . . ! Just what I needed.
I have read four other books on the new Photoshop CS3 - all of which I found too complicated. After all, I want to produce excellent pictures with my Nikon 80D SLR, and am learning Photoshop CS3 from scratch, but other writers seem compelled to include, in books labelled as introductory, the most arcane or esoteric features of this magnificent software. They do so while neglecting basic issues like capturing and enhancing a RAW picture for transmitting across the web.

So I was relieved to find this 430-page book, which begins with "Digital Basics" and waits until P375 to deal with "Posterization" and suchlike. Check Amazon’s "Search Inside" feature and look at the Contents. You’ll see that this is a book for photographers, rather than professional web designers, for example. I could have saved myself many hours of needless study of those other books. This one is even more attractively designed than most, and is accompanied by a DVD with loads of useful information (readily accessible in spite of one odd review here).

The step-by-step instructions are easy to follow, and contain no glaring errors of fact or syntax. The authors have clearly taken care to avoid the sloppines of others I have read- people who clearly rushed their books into production without careful editing. Hence my gratitude extends to taking the trouble to write this complimentary review!

Finally . . . ! Just what I needed.
I have read four other books on the new Photoshop CS3 - all of which quickly became too complicated. After all, I want to produce excellent pictures with my Nikon 80D SLR, and am learning Photoshop CS3 from scratch, but other writers seem compelled to include, in books labelled as introductory, the most arcane or esoteric features of this magnificent software. They do so while neglecting basic issues like capturing and enhancing a RAW picture for transmitting across the web.

So I was relieved to find this 430-page book, which begins with "Digital Basics" and waits until P375 to deal with "Posterization" and suchlike. Check Amazon’s "Search Inside" feature and look at the Contents. You’ll see that this is a book for photographers, as well as professional web designers, for example. It is even more attractively designed than most, and is accompanied by a DVD with loads of useful information (readily accessible in spite of one odd review here). The DVD has more than eight hours of instruction by the authors in subjects ranging in complexity from the use of simple hand tools to montage and special-effects.

The step-by-step instructions are easy to follow, and (unlike other books on the subject) contain no glaring errors of fact or syntax. The authors have clearly taken care to avoid careless editing. Hence my gratitude extends to writing this complimentary review!

total junk
I thrive on instructional DVDs so I bought this product because of the DVD and was very disappointed when I tried to open it in my Mac book, it would not play at all, just a hodgepodge of files, so I tried to open it in Windows XP and no luck there either, if the writers can not create a functional DVD how can they be qualified to write a book about CS3.

Comprehensive Teaching Tool
Galer presents a really useful set of teaching tools: A fine set of DVD movie tutorials and exercise images accompany a well-written book. I cycle between the book, the movies, and doing the exercises--all of which are complementary. Be prepared, however, to go over the same material multiple times. Some of the concepts are not easy, but there is a real sense of accomplishment when you see how something works. I have several CS3 books, and I like this one best.

This book does exactly what the title says that it will do.
I found this book to be well written for the newcomer to Photoshop as well as for those of us who want to learn about the nuances of the new bells and whistles in CS3.

The disk that comes with the book is a real plus and the tutorials are great.Photoshop CS3 Essential Skills

An essential buy if you are new to CS3
This book is worth purchasing for the DVD alone - it is an excellent way to learn CS3. I keep referring back to it and have it open as I learn new techniques. The book itself can be a bit confusing if you are new to digial photography and image manipulation, but the DVD more than compensates. I find I use the book as a back up.

I would recommend it if you want to learn essentials and new techniques in CS3.

Very good
Like other other focal press books this book is very good the book’s construction quality and content is superb

Excellent Book for every Photoshop users !!!
This book is very well featured and user friendly. It definitely provides great coverage of Adobe Photoshop CS3, mastering every techniques covered in a project by project basis which is very simple to learn.

A free DVD is also included with lots and lots of great short movies to support the practical projects, and also great royalty-free images for you to practice your photoshop skills. I’d certainly recommend it to everyone, and at that very cheap price, it’s a steal !!!

excellent book BUT
Please be aware that is book is totally focussed on digital photography and post processing, in this it is comprehensive, articulate and clearly and can thoroughly recommend it. But i purchased it for my young up and coming artist daughter (based on the info here) expecting from the title a general book on all aspects of learning and producing art with Photoshop. For this it is unsuitable.

An excellent book...
I have been using Photoshop for many years but from the perspective of digital imaging. PS rather like MS Word, is a product with massive potential of which most users will only utilise 10-20%. When I upgraded to CS3 I thought it was time to buy a general PS book if only to make sure I wasn’t missing out on "new features" that would be really useful to me so a book with "essential skills" in the title sounded right. I would strongly recommend this book because the content is excellent and the supporting DVD, totally brilliant. As most people do, I was getting by with my personal tried and tested techniques but I not only picked up new ones that I can build on but also got quite motivated and excited by some of it sure, maybe I should get out more !