reviewed by: Jen deHaan

Version: Photoshop 7

The Photoshop 7 Bible is another offering in this popular series by professional Photoshop guru Deke McClelland. It is a high quality, thorough book by a masterful user offering a complete look inside the high end and industry standard software by Adobe.

This Bible is a quality offering from Wiley. This book offers detailed screenshots to how how the tools are used, and steps users through the many options/settings and preferences found in Photoshop 7. This is very important that the book is not overly bogged down by text, and Deke certainly seems conscious of when to use graphics to support the text. Screencaptures are not extraneous (which is also sometimes the case! I get so irritated by over used or redundant screen shots!). But the useful screen shots along side the text means you don't have to be in front of a monitor to read this book... which to me is always a large advantage. I like to get away from the computer sometimes, or read during commrecials.

The one thing that is important to know about this book is how it does tend to get a tad "reference" like, particularly near the beginning. Knowing the Bible series quite well, I do know that this is somewhat standard across many of the titles. Although you do get some books that are not overly reference, many of them do go through each menu item in order, perhaps to warrant the "100% complete" tag on the cover. This does detract from some of the books though, such as this one and the Dreamweaver Bible. Some people do like this, though. I do feel it is important to note however.

One of the very strong points this book has to offer is the Part on output and Color. I was particularly looking forward to learning more about these subjects in particular, and this book seemed to cover this subject thoroughly, and in an interesting and easy to digest manner. The Photoshop 7 Bible also covers other advanced features thoroughly, that you might not find in many of the shorter books out there, such as complete details Blending and Restoring.

This book also gets a bonus half point for RoboDeke. It takes some confidence and a sense of humor to pull that one off (but I'll leave that up to you. I'm still giving it a bonus half point.)

I was very happy with this thorough and exhaustive book, so I give it a solid (4.5/5).

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