First, he means what he says: You really should have CS5 installed to do the exercises in this book. This isn’t to say you won’t get anything out of it if you don’t (and I don’t), but approximately thirty percent of the book is CS5 specific.

This is a book for beginners through intermediate users; advanced users will find this a nice gift for someone. For instance here is how the chapter descriptions read:

Chapter 1: Opening and organizing files, including the Adobe Bridge, ratings, workspaces, stacks, metadata, keywords, and the Batch Rename command.

Like I said – beginner to intermediate. Still, what I like about his style is that he doesn’t go through stiffly adhering to rote instructions such as, “First, find the menu tab on the tool bar located at the top of the screen, but below … .” In lesson three, for instance, he opens the chapter talking about how different software packages allow you to manipulate objects and compares how Illustrator, Quark Express and other packages (fundamentally) do the mechanical tasks.

 He follows up by saying, “Although Photoshop lets you modify snapshots of the world around your, it doesn’t behave like that world. And it bears only a passing resemblance to other applications. You can’t select a sunflower by clicking it – as you could had you drawn it in, say, Illustrator – because Photoshop doesn’t perceive the flower as an independent object. Instead, the program sees pixels.”

By explaining how the program “thinks,” it makes the tool’s functions more intuitive. There is a lot of step-by-step information, but it’s lavishly illustrated and the examples are used quite well. I guess you could say that McLelland is a good technical writer who displays a great deal of mercy on his audience. By that, I mean he is detailed in his instructions, but writes them in a conversational tone.

Another nice thing are his “pearls of wisdom” sprinkled throughout the book. These pull-outs are often terse sentences or, at best, an abbreviated paragraph that often seem like the author is dropping factoids much as someone might at a cocktail party when they’re trying to impress the crowd with their accument. His “pearls” are meaty and thorough and are mini-lessons in themselves.

As with any how-to book on this level, the examples begin with simple file management and progress through basic tool operations and finishes with more complex operations, like masking, drawing, shading and using channels. While it won’t make you a master, it will give anyone new to Photoshop –especially CS5 – a firm foundation and a great grasp of the basics.

Frank’s Rating:
Audience – Beginner to Intermediate
Clarity of exercises – Very good
Depth of exercises – Very good for this range of users
Quality of illustrations - Very good
Quantity of illustrations – Excellent
Accessibility/use of commonly understood vernacular – Very good
Overall rating (1-5, worst to best) – 4.5

Recommended.