I’ve always been a fan of the Dummies books. I’ve used the books for computer certification study, to get a heads up on software applications; I even bought one to teach me how to make homemade beer. My wife wasn’t so happy with this last title… I think I ended up selling it on eBay before I even got the first chapter. I like the Dummies books because the book does a good job of walking you through things step by step teaching to the lowest level of any given audience without insulting your intelligence. I also like most of the attempts at humor mixed in with the teaching.

Photoshop CS for Dummies lived up to my expectations. The book starts with 4 pages of quick tips or “cheats” which are handy to say the least. There are plenty of screenshots with words and arrows actually telling you what the pictures are pointing out throughout the book, making it easy to understand what it is the authors are explaining. The authors even included 16 full color pages so that they could show readers what Photoshop CS can do with colors and I said “Wow!” more than a few times.

I have attempted to make good use of Photoshop for the last 2 or 3 versions and still do use it for simple photo editing. I have never maximized Photoshop to it's fullest potential and probably won't with this edition either but Photoshop CS for Dummies as it turns out is a great reference to turn to when you have tasks that you want to do and have not yet gained that knowledge otherwise. As usual, this dummies book has a great table of contents in front and an excellent index in the back making navigation smooth and easy.

From going through this book I can tell that Photoshop CS is as powerful as I thought it was. If I were to take this book along with a computer with the software loaded and go through the exercises in the book, I would become pretty useful with Photoshop CS. Like anything else it helps if you have a general knowledge of the subject, in this case, computer graphics. With some time and this book I believe you can come away with the skills needed to do a lot of graphic editing. The book has 21 chapters each covering its own subject from “Selections and Layers” to “Slicing and Dicing Images.” If you are new to Photoshop and have spent the money on the software I would definitely consider picking up this book.

Photoshop CS for Dummies is priced at $24.99 on the cover and sells for $17.49 on Amazon. The book is 436 pages, published by John Wiley & Sons, Oct 2003 ISBN 0764543563