best books on photoshop

[tami]

i want to learn how to use photoshop beyond its sharpening filter, crop, and resize (among other miniscule functionalities).

does anyone recommend a book for such learning purposes? i did a search on amazon.com but read mixed reviews about each book out there (especially the ones from scott kelby -- however, after seeing the ipod flea advertisement, maybe i should get a book from him after all), so i'm looking for the opinions of ATOT on how to proceed.

(i'm using CS2... i guess i'd prefer a book that is updated to accommodate the feature-set of CS2)

tia.

 

[tami]

does anyone here use photoshop?

 

[ThePresence]

I use PS extensively. Don't have any books to reccomend though.

 

[tami]

did you learn just by using the program? or did you refer to any tutorials online or take a class or what?

 

[ThePresence]

Originally posted by: tami
did you learn just by using the program? or did you refer to any tutorials online or take a class or what?

I've been playing with graphics programs since I was a kid. I am self -taught. I also picked up many tips over the years from the graphics people I worked with.

 

[FleshLight]

Read online tutorials or press F1

 

[tami]

Originally posted by: ThePresence

Originally posted by: tami
did you learn just by using the program? or did you refer to any tutorials online or take a class or what?

I've been playing with graphics programs since I was a kid. I am self -taught.

you teh genius

FleshLight: i'm looking for more of a technique -- how to do something that leads to something else, etc. F1 tells you how to do the first step, but you may not know how to proceed from there. i guess the kind of stuff i'm looking for is in photoshop user magazine, but the subscription cost for that is rather high.

 

[ThePresence]

Originally posted by: tami

Originally posted by: ThePresence

Originally posted by: tami
did you learn just by using the program? or did you refer to any tutorials online or take a class or what?

I've been playing with graphics programs since I was a kid. I am self -taught.

you teh genius

FleshLight: i'm looking for more of a technique -- how to do something that leads to something else, etc. F1 tells you how to do the first step, but you may not know how to proceed from there. i guess the kind of stuff i'm looking for is in photoshop user magazine, but the subscription cost for that is rather high.

You don't want to learn from PS magazine. Sure, you'll get some cool tips on how to do some cool effects etc., but you won't learn the program from it. I used to get the mag at my last job.

 

[UglyCasanova]

Originally posted by: tami

Originally posted by: ThePresence

Originally posted by: tami
did you learn just by using the program? or did you refer to any tutorials online or take a class or what?

I've been playing with graphics programs since I was a kid. I am self -taught.

you teh genius

FleshLight: i'm looking for more of a technique -- how to do something that leads to something else, etc. F1 tells you how to do the first step, but you may not know how to proceed from there. i guess the kind of stuff i'm looking for is in photoshop user magazine, but the subscription cost for that is rather high.

I'm not sure if that is a good way to go about learning photoshop. What is it you are going to be doing in photoshop? The best way to learn the nitty gritty in Photoshop for me was just to actually use it. Definitely learn about all of the features in Photoshop (a book would be good for this, but I don't have any recommendations. Any should do fine, especially if they have tutorials in each chapter for you to do to help you understand what it is you are learning. Photoshop is just a tool though, the "techniques" you are trying to learn are just how you can creatively apply those tools. You want to start off with knowing the basics of the tool that you are using, not the different tutorials that you find on the net that show you how to make cool mac bubbles and rusted metal (although that could definitely be a good way to learn some of the ins and outs of the tools, but usually they just give you numbers to punch in and not really tell you all about the different things you are using).

 

[tami]

it's hard to figure out exactly WHAT i'm trying to accomplish per picture. i've learned most of the filters, but even with that, there are 2882854328428484 more techniques i can apply to my images, and i have no patience (i guess ) to learn it all by trial and error. that's why i thought a book would be useful. i'm not sure where to go though

 

[UglyCasanova]

Are you making pictures or photo manipulation or doing things for a website or what

 

[dartworth]

The Photoshop CS2 Book for Digital Photographers
by Scott Kelby

 

[wfbberzerker]

try the tutorials adobe has on their website.

 

[akubi]

may be helpful if you posted on a forum like cgtalk

 

[tami]

thanks dartworth. is he really good? he seems to have talent ... that ipod flea commercial was hilarious (and i'm still looking for a local copy of it)