Macworld Photoshop 5 Bible

This well-rounded guide to Photoshop 5 for Macintosh and Windows helps beginning, intermediate, and advanced users learn essential image-creation, -editing and -retouching techniques. The author, Deke McClelland, starts off with help for novices, including an introduction to Photoshop and digital-imaging concepts such as resolution, file formats, color and color management, and printing. Next you work with the paintbrushes, the Brush palette, the smudge and sponge tools, Fills, Strokes, Arrowheads, the Pattern Stamp, the Rubber Stamp, the Eraser, and the History Brush and palette as you create, retouch, and restore photos.

McClelland also teaches you how selections work, how to make selections using everything from the magic wand to the path tools, and how to move and duplicate selections. You create masks, work with layers and transformations, and add and format type. The section on filters covers corrective filters for improving the look of photos as well as creative filters, such as Distortion and 3D Transform. You even construct effects of your own with the Custom and Displace filter. The final section covers color-mapping and color-correction features such as Hue/Saturation and Brightness. In this section, you work with adjustment layers to help you apply and manage your changes. You also work with Opacity and Blend modes and Channel operations to create interesting effects. Finally, you create graphics for the Web, fine-tuning the size and color of your images.

McClelland does a fine job of teaching you how to do each task, sometimes by showing you what he's done and sometimes by stepping you through an image of your own. He carefully explains the technology behind a lot of the advanced features, such as the Custom filter and color-mapping tools. An appendix helps beginners select the best hardware for their image-editing needs. Two full-color sections show you images from the book's projects and examples of the application of filters and color-management techniques. The included CD-ROM has images from a variety of artists; a demo version of PC MacLan, a PC-Mac networking program; demo and full versions of third-party plug-ins; a sample Photoshop lesson and course information from a Web-based training company; and images from a variety of digital cameras (so you can compare their output). --Kathleen Caster