Product Description

Travel to a side of Photoshop CS2 you may never have seen before! Here are nearly 50 way-out, advanced effects, colorfully illustrated step by step to show you exactly how to work the magic. Learn to handle some of Photoshop's trickiest commands, including Knockout, Blend-If, and Clipping Masks. Create glass text, submerge a city under water, create mythical creatures, cross-breed your favorite fruits — and that's just for starters. If you have experience using Photoshop, you'll love what you see on this side. Wild!

• Unlock the mysteries of Photoshop's new Vanishing Point filter and Smart Objects
• Learn non-destructive editing and compositing methods
• Experiment with aging effects, transform a photo into a woodcut, or multiply an image in different colors
• Build your dream body without diet or exercise, and turn your friend into a superhero
• Create cool reflections and multiple exposures, or recreate a portrait using text patterns

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #402215 in Books
• Published on: 2005-11-07
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 400 pages

Review
"…the techniques you’ll learn within the steps will transfer to other tasks and will ultimately make you a better imageer." (Advanced Photoshop, October 2006)

From the Back Cover
Travel to a side of Photoshop CS2 you may never have seen before! Here are nearly 50 wild, way-out effects, colorfully illustrated step by step to show you exactly how to work the magic. Learn to handle some of Photoshop's trickiest commands, including Knockout, Blend-If, and Clipping Masks. Create glass text, submerge a city under water, create mythical creatures, cross-breed your favorite fruits — and that's just for starters. You'll love what you see on this side. Wild!

• Unlock the mysteries of Photoshop's new Vanishing Point filter and Smart Objects
• Learn non-destructive editing and compositing methods
• Experiment with aging effects, transform a photo into a woodcut, or multiply an image in different colors
• Build your dream body without diet or exercise, and turn your friend into a superhero
• Create cool reflections and multiple exposures, or recreate a portrait using text patterns

About the Author
Sherry London is a graphic designer, fiber artist, teacher, and author of a number of books on Photoshop, Illustrator, and Painter including Photoshop 7 Magic (with Rhoda Grossman), Photoshop Textures Magic, and Photoshop Special FX How To. Her Photoshop-designed fiber art has been featured in Fiber Arts magazine and exhibited at juried Embroiderer’s Guild of America Fiber Forum group shows nationwide.
Sherry is the owner of London Computing: PhotoFX, a digital art studio. She has taught for the prestigious Thunder Lizard Photoshop Conference and the Professional Photographer’s of America seminars. She currently teaches a number of Photoshop courses via the Internet through colleges and universities worldwide. To find a college or university near you, go to Education To Go’s website at www.ed2go.com.
Sherry writes for a number of magazines. Her articles and reviews have appeared in MacWeek, MacUser, MacWorld, Computer Artist, Electronic Publishing, Desktop Publishing, and Pre- magazines. She currently writes the QuickTips column for Photoshop Users magazine as well as feature articles and reviews for both Photoshop User and Mac Design (now Layers magazine). Sherry’s web site is www.sherrylondon.com.

Customer Reviews

What the $%#@!!!
I am about mid way through this book and I HAD to check Amazon.com to see what in hell other people must have said about this book. I saw what I expected to read. THIS BOOK IS NOT FOR BEGINNERS!! And.. I liked one comment that summed it up, THIS BOOK IS AWFUL!! I will also NEVER buy a $45 book from Borders on a whim.
The directions are VERY hard to follow, there are many typos, and here and there, parts of sentences are cut off right in mid-instruction.
Another big BOO BOO... on the disc that comes with the book, there is a password to get the zip files open. And instructions to GET the password from a file on the disk's chapters that don't exist. I looked for contact info to let them know I had a faulty disc.. I found nothing but London's Website, which led no where except other Websites. I finally contacted Comstock and a VERY nice customer service agent informed me that the password is on the file named JupiterImages EULA.doc. Okay, fine..anyone can make a mistake, even a writer/publisher.. but I work on a Macintosh, as do most graphic designers, and this password is hidden in a Microsoft Doc that I could not open. I had to hunt down someone with a PC to get the .doc open to get the password. This was supposed to be Mac first tutorials!!
WAAAAYYY too much hassel for me having to pay that much money for the book.

The reason for the two stars? The book made me think. I HAD to think. Because the instructions cirtainly are not easily defined in this book. By forcing me to figure it out everything that was missing from instruction, I am learning to put two ends together by winging it and giving it my best shot. I got aggrivated to where I had to put it down and come back to it later.. but so far, I've figured out how to get these projects to work. I am also not a beginner in Photoshop.
So, take what you can from this, I hope it's helpful.

Horrible Book
Thank God I visited my local Borders and went to the publisher's website before purchasing this book. The "wild effects" taught are nothing short of awful looking. Don't just take my word for it, you can actually view the ToC with sample photos at the publisher's website.

http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0764598139.html

CS2 Gone Wild ?
An awful book. As an amateur, my comfort level with Photoshop was enhanced by having used similar books. The formula? Follow the author's step by step instructions to replicate a project. In doing so, learn how and why specific features are useful and how they create a desired result. In addition, I learned to use tools that previously had been unknown to me. This was not my experience with Gone Wild.

The first challenge was selecting a project to replicate. Ninety-five percent of the projects looked to me more like a caricature of a professional's work (proof that creativity and quality are not always synonymous). Okay, so the projects are underwhelming. Perhaps the value would be found in the journey and not the destination? Sadly, I soon discovered this was not the case.

The instructions were often confusing and at times seemed contradictory. Rather than becoming more comfortable with the CS2 features being highlighted, I was becoming more frustrated. Again, I am admittedly an amateur. Maybe those more experienced with Photoshop would have been less frustrated. Which begs the question, why would they use this book?

Bottom line. My Photoshop creative genius was not freed (see cover). My desire to never again purchase a resource book on a whim was definitely freed. Knowing what I now know, I would have avoided this book even if it had been offered to me for free.