Photoshop CS5 the missing manual (book review)

By Lisa Snider, one of my less favorite book that I have looked at recently. The book itself is comprehensive enough, and contains a lot of information, I just found it hard work and boring, there's a lot of text if you enjoy a read but not many illustrations compared to some of the other books I have reviewed, it's a good reference book for the shelf.
Would I buy it? No to be honest I didn't like the style.

Adobe stupidity reaches new levels.

Adobe stupidity reaches new levels.
Yes I'm bloody annoyed with Adobe.
As much as I like Photoshop I can't say the same for Adobe, every 18 months or so we get charged nearly twice what those living in the USA pay for the same product. It costs more to ship I hear you say, no it doesn't if your downloading it from their website, not several hundred quid more anyway.
Then theres the recent trend to take out stuff that used to be in it. Oh yes we can download it free and install it ourselves, but some of it is quite complicated to install, and some of it should damn well be in there to start with.
On Friday I needed to scan in some important documents, now I haven't long formatted my main pc after more virus trouble, so I had to re-install my scanner, no problems I have all the disks... well yes a slight problem... photoshop can't see the scanner to import any images. Oh the scanner works fine it just won't talk to photoshop.
I tried downloading the latest drivers and software versions, no difference, after a lot of hassle and time. I eventually found out (thanks DemiLion) that for reasons unknown adobe took out the twain import plug-in. This is a tiny filter in a folder of other filters, it takes up no space really, but without it photoshop won't see any scanner.
How monumentally stupid is that? didn't it occur to anybody at adobe that some photographers/graphic artists just might use a scanner occasionally.

Photoshop CS5 on demand (book review)

Written by Steve Johnson this is an excellent well laid out reference type book, while not specifically teaching you photoshop it does explain everything very clearly and covers a lot of detail and pretty much everything in CS5 you'll need to know.
This is the sort of book you'll reach for to find out how so and so works, like how the pen tool works or whatever, very very useful reference book.
Would I buy it?, yes pretty much an essential book for the shelf, you won't use it every day (especially if your experienced) but when you do need it it'll be bloody handy.

Adobe photoshop CS5 for photographers (book review)

This book by Martin Evening is one of the more comprehensive reference type books, it covers a load of stuff, lots of usefull tips with being complicated, perhaps not quite aimed at the beginner it should still be a good option for your first book.
Would I buy it, yes! without hesitation.

How to cheat in photoshop (book review)

This book by Steve Caplin is a must read for anybody involved in the business of faking pics or swooping heads around, it teaches the reader a ton of special effects tricks like ageing a person, making them younger, working with selections and the puppet warp tool, loads of other useful stuff too.
Definitely on my Christmas list.

Photoshop CS5 for digital photographers ( book review}

This is Scott kelbys latest version for CS5, the book itself is explained simply and the chapters are nicely laid out making it fairly easy to find stuff, the book covers certain things but also misses out other stuff possibly leaving you stumped if your looking for a certain tool instructions.
It's written in a jokey style which I personally find very irritating, but thats Scotts style.
Would I buy it? yes I probably would, it's got a lot of good stuff in it, I learnt a few things just skimming through to do this report.

Photoshop CS5 for dummies (book review)

I thought with Christmas on the way some book reviews might come in handy for stocking fillers for the photographer in your life. I'm using CS5 but most of these book have versions for the different photoshop versions so substitute as needed.
CS5 for dummies, well personally I don't like the horrid yellow colour for a start, and the slightly jokey style started to grate on me after a while.
The book itself is pretty comprehensive, it gives a lot of detail and should make sense to a beginner or more experienced user, it's not difficult to find the various bit's you might need, but I get the feeling it might be better to read it all through from the beginning (I didn't) Would I buy it? well I'd be very tempted to buy it as a reference book in case I needed to look anything up, but I'm fairly advanced in photoshop, if I was a beginner it would be on my Christmas list I think.
Wayne