May 1 2002
Photoshop 7 Down & Dirty Tricks
You may have bought this book for either Photoshop 5 or 6. Both versions were
great and they both are still on my shelf of computer books. If you have an
innate need for MORE tricks, cooler effects and just an amazing
amount of Photoshop knowledge this is a must have book. If you haven’t gotten
one of these books before… here’s how they work:
- Most Photoshop/Computer books are a dry read… here’s this box, here’s
that, and here’s how you make a line. Blah blah blah. This just isn’t true
with D&D! It’s akin to a cookbook full of tasty recipes. It gives “recipes”
or directions of how to make various effect. Sounds lame but it rocks. Trust
me. - All the tricks have great screen shots. The publisher says nearly 700 full
color screen shots are included to help the reader. - The sides of every page pack tips that make this book not just a cook book.
For example, on the tutorial for creating wires there is a tip that uses the
part of the tutorial but instead of making wires you mask an image! Neat!
If you added up all of the side bars you’d have another book. It’s literally
two books in one! - Anyone can make ALL the effects in this book. Scott must have done
R&D on people that have never used Photoshop before because the directions
are insanely simple. Even though they are easy to follow, if you are a Photoshop
geek you won’t get bored. Scott’s got a unique way to communicate Photoshop
almost telepathically. If you ever meet him, you’ll gain infinite knowledge
on a slew of Adobe products upon shaking his hand – or at least that’s
my assumption.
Within minutes of getting the book in the mail I had Photoshop 7 open and cool
effects going on my canvas. If you have Down & Dirty Tricks for Photoshop
5 or 6 you should upgrade ASAP. For instance, all of the tips on the side bars
are retooled for 7. There really isn’t another place to find these tips than
in this book so just that little change makes it a must have for every Photoshop
addict. There are also tons of new effects like: adding flames to anything,
quick movie posters, mapping a texture to a person, the Oreo effect, “Band
of Brothers” distressed type, giving depth to a page, torn out of photo,
creating 3D packaging and a bunch more.
Just like in every cookbook, not every recipe looks great. Some effects
are a little cheesy (at least to my picky eye), but most are stellar. Some examples
of the “cheesy” ones in my opinion are: Photo to Line Art Morph, Backlit
Photo Backgrounds, and the Spotlight effect. Those are pretty much the only
ones I would be opposed to using in a real life project.
Just like all modern Photoshop books there are instructions for the cliché
effects like: TV scanlines, aqua buttons, halftone dots, and hi-tech grids.
These aren’t bad effects but most likely you can do them with your eyes closed.
They only take up a few pages and needed to be included so when your non-Photoshop
friend picks the book up and says, “Doood how do you make those way cool
little dot thingys?” you can quickly retort, “Page 140, and they are
called Pop Dots thank you very much!”.
Unlike any other Photoshop book some of the effects are just amazing. Scott
shares some of the techniques that KW
(Scott’s Photoshop empire) has created in house for use in their magazines and
print projects. You can’t just do a websearch and find all of this stuff. It’s
like one huge Photoshop User, “Down & Dirty Tricks” section –
but you could have guessed that 
.
It may seem like a waste to purchase the newest revision of a book that you
already have. Sure, you have 85% of the effects but when your client wants something
in the 15% and is willing to pay top dollar you are going to curse your decision
about not buying it. It’s only $27.99
from Amazon ($12 off the cover price) so most designers can’t afford to not
buy this book. Being able to bill a client 4 times the price of the book for
just one effect you learned from it is a beautiful thing.