Intrigued by the title's promise, I recently checked out a book called "Sam's Teach Yourself Adobe Photoshop CS2 in 24 Hours" written by Carla Rose. I design newspaper and magazine ads, brochures, fliers, posters, web pages and newsletters for an art museum. I've learned to use most of my software programs by the seat of my pants with only a handful of one–day workshop training programs. The trouble with 8 hour workshops is they are only effective, for me, if I can return to work and immediately apply the new knowledge to my daily tasks.

I've been using Adobe Photoshop for about two years, to crop and resize photos and to change them from color to grey scale. Most of the other skills I brought back from my workshops were quickly forgotten. Trying to retrieve this information, months later, for a special application was extremely frustrating and usually resulted in me altering my designs to accommodate my limited skills.

I don't know how long it would actually take for me to find twenty–four free hours in my busy job. But, what I did find in this book is a very clear and concise primer on "How to do just about anything you'd ever need to do with Adobe Photoshop." Even if you don't have time to actually "do" the chapter lessons, this format makes it easy to access information and directions on how to do anything you want to do in Adobe Photoshop CS2.

The book is divided into 24 "hour" chapters that start with a bulleted list of what you'll learn in the hour along with "Did You Know" and "By the Way" tips presented as sidebars which are easy to ignore or access depending on your skill level. The chapters end with a summary along with a short Q&A workshop, a quiz and applicable exercises. Again, making it easy to skip information if you don't need it or don't have the desire, or time to become an expert. The lessons are loaded with illustrations, conveniently placed near the explanatory text, making it unnecessary to flip through pages. It also includes a "Color Gallery", a group of plates that clearly illustrate some of the important color applications.

The book starts with the basics of learning how to create a new image, finding out what's in your toolbox, along with an excellent shortcut chart, and what all the menu options are. The book ends with an appendix of illustrations for each of the 17 program palettes.

I would recommend "Sam's Teach Yourself Adobe Photoshop CS2 in 24 Hours" to anyone who uses Adobe Photoshop. Even if you don't have the latest version of Photoshop, you can still find clear directions for how to select areas, transform images, adjust colors, use layers, create paths, work with text, apply masks and filters, repair and enhance photographs and prepare your documents for printing or the web. For serious Photoshop users there are 2 chapters devoted to special effects, plug–ins and add–ons.

Compared to my New Rider's thousand page tome, "Adobe Photoshop: Limited Edition" written by Gary and Barbara Bouton, accessing information in this book felt like a walk in the park. I especially appreciated the author's straight forward style with none of the cutesy, made–up characters and scenarios that I find so tedious in the popular "... For Dummies" books.