The title of one of Scott Kelby’s most recent books can be misleading. “Photoshop CS4: Down & Dirty Tricks” suggests to me, well, “down and dirty tricks,” which aren’t something that I am particularly interested in learning. However, with this title, Kelby, the well-known “#1 best-selling Photoshop author,” has turned out another great one.
To help you better appraise Kelby’s “Down & Dirty Tricks,” let me suggest a new name for the book:
“Scott Kelby’s Impressive Scope of In-Depth Photoshop CS4 Projects with Easy-to-Follow, Step-by-Step Instructions and Great Graphics To Help You Lean Aspects of Photoshop You Might Never Play With, From Easy and Powerful Type Techniques to Easy and Powerful 3-D Techniques, All Of Which You Can Easily Access in Part OR Whole Using the Great Index and Clearly Organized Structure of The Book.”
Well, it’s not the 1800s anymore, so my long title sucks and Kelby’s wins. But I hope my 1800th Century-style title encourages you consider “Down & Dirty Tricks,” even if you are not interested in “tricks,” or even if you are not very interested in much of Photoshop beyond its uses for “standard” photography.”
Probably the best recommendation I can give for Kelby’s “Down & Dirty” is that, on simply splitting the cover, it invited me to play with and learn functionality that I didn’t know I was missing. That’s cool.
Of course, we need to limit how much Photoshop we try to learn, so if you know you are looking ONLY for “standard” photographic techniques, this book is not for you. This book is better suited for getting beyond the images, working with type and layout and all kinds of “special effects,” which, of course, can influence our “regular” tricks quite a bit.
If you’ve already checked out Kelby’s CS4 version of “Down & Dirty,” what did you think? Rants, raves, best lessons learned?