CS2 books - necessary or not?

Hi,

 

I've recently upgraded to CS2. I have both Martin Evening's "Photoshop

CS for Photographers", and Bruce Fraser's "Real World Camera RAW with

PS CS"

 

Do the updated books by both for CS2 offer much new stuff? I've learnt

the basics of the new features in CS2 through Russell Brown's site, so

would you recommend investing in the CS2 books, or should the CS

versions along with freely available online tutorials suffice?

 

I'm not a pro photographer, and my PS skills are intermediate. I

cannot buy either of these books locally, so a casual browse at a

local book store is not possible.

 

TIA,

 

Craig

How about a casual browse on the Internet? Every piece of info (plus tons more) in any CS2 book is <a href="http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&rls=GGLD%2CGGLD%3A2005-17%2CGGLD%3Aen&q=what%27s+new+%2Bin+cs2&btnG=Search">available on the Internet</a>, for free. But if you prefer books....

Walter,

 

<p>That's not really helpful, considering how i said <i>I've learnt the basics of the new features in CS2 through Russell Brown's <b>site</b>, so would you recommend investing in the CS2 books, or should the CS versions along with freely available online tutorials suffice?</i>

 

<p>I know there's good stuff on the net. As I alluded to by mentioning Russell Brown. There's also a lot of crap. If I need to know how to do something in PS, whether it's new to me, or I simply don't remember all the steps in the process, it's a lot quicker to open a book written by an expert, look in the index and turn to the page than it is to google and wade through the crap to find the answer.

> ...it's a lot quicker to open a book written <br>

> by an expert, look in the index and turn to <br>

> the page than it is to google and wade through <br>

> the crap to find the answer.<br>

<br><br>

Maybe for you. Sorry, I guess I don't get it.

<p><em>>>I know there's good stuff on the net. As I alluded to by mentioning Russell

Brown. There's also a lot of crap. If I need to know how to do something in PS, whether it's

new to me, or I simply don't remember all the steps in the process, it's a lot quicker to

open a book written by an expert, look in the index and turn to the page than it is to

google and wade through the crap to find the answer.</em>

 

<p>My sentiments exactly! It is less frustrating and time consuming to pick up a good

book than to wade through Google.

 

<p>I always get the new version of Martin Evening's book when it comes out. If you want

to get an idea of how much new material is in there compared with the previous version,

you can look at the sample pages on that book's <a href="http://

www.photoshopforphotographers.com/pscs2/sample.htm">web site</a> or use the

Amazon <em>Search Inside</em> feature. While quite a lot of material is carried over

from the previous edition, I felt that there was enough new material to make it worth

buying (e.g. the video tutorials on working in Camera Raw and with the Reduce Noise

filter). I would describe my PS knowledge as intermediate/advanced, but I find I always

learn new things from Martin Evening.

 

<p>I only have the CS2 version of Bruce Fraser's Real World Camera Raw book, so can't

comment on the differences with the previous version. I definitely learnt a lot from it, and

would certainly recommend it to someone who didn't have the previous version. Maybe

getting both this and Martin Evening's book is overkill, but that is up to you to decide.

 

<p>Hope I have been of some help. Since I have both books I'm willing to answer more

questions about what's in them.

It's not so much that they're necessary, as that they're useful. Rather than spend a fortune on PS books, you can check them out from your local library. I don't usually read them cover-to-cover, but skim them for new stuff that seems especially useful.

 

steve

Having used Photoshop for 13 years now I tend to buy one new book a year and read it cover-to-cover. The <a href="http://amazon.com/ames"><u>Kevin Ames book "Adobe Photoshop CS: The Art of Photographing Women"</u></a> was last year's read (great book by the way.)

<p>I don't think I ever bought a book just because of an upgrade though, the documentation and help files that come with Photoshop have always been sufficient.

<p>I highly recommend the "Classroom in a book" series though. I buy or borrow one of those every couple of years.

Just yesterday I was looking through the Bruce Fraser "Camera Raw with Adobe Photoshop CS" book that's been sitting on my shelf for many months. I've just started to shoot in RAW mode. I quickly realized that this is probably one book where the CS2 version will be worth getting - the change from the file manager to Bridge renders useless lengthy sections of the CS book.

 

I'm with you: I like books! Much easier to study while away from the computer, much easier to follow when actually working through a problem on the computer. Might be a generational thing, I dunno...

Thanks for your ideas guys.