Photoshop CC: The Missing Manual Review In Few Words (Mini Review)
Photoshop CC: The Missing Manual is the manual that should have been bundled with Photoshop CC 2014, cutely enough, the book takes a form of a friendly manual that tried to teach you how to use Photoshop with a good amount of details.
If you plan to use Photoshop for Photography, this book can be useful for you, as it outlines a roadmap for those interested in Photography, but I still think you need to check out some other Photoshop book that is dedicated for Photography. Like The Way of the Digital Photographer: Walking the Photoshop post-production path to more creative photography.
If you want to learn the core Photoshop tools, you may be interested in my book Learn Photoshop CC With Picture, which explains the most important Photoshop features in one of the easiest ways possible.
See more Photoshop books in Amazon.
Learn Photoshop CC With Picture.
Pros
- The steps shows you what you should do in bold, then explain it in details after that.
- Explains the order of chapters for those interested in Photography
- Covers a lot of topics in Photoshop, as you can see below in this review.
Cons
- If you are totally new to Photoshop, you may feel thrown off at times while you are reading this book.
Photoshop CC: The Missing Manual is more suitable for
- Beginners who have an idea on how to use Photoshop, and want to fully learn how to use it.
The missing manual series is based that expensive programs like Photoshop should at least come with a good manual to teach you how to use it. And since no such manual comes with the program, they are providing one for you.
Even for a manual, Photoshop CC: The Missing Manual is a serious book, it is huge and very detailed, and it covers a lot of topics in Photoshop CC 2014 (I talk about that in details below). If you read one of the Missing Manual books before, you have a good idea what I mean.
One of the good things I like about the missing manual books, is that the steps shows you what you should do in bold, then explain it in details after that, which will suit both who want a short explanation, and those who wants to be taken by hand and make it easier for them to understand Photoshop. For example, in one of the tutorials, the book tell you to “Using the white eye dropper, click the gray background to make it white”, if you know how to do that, good! You only need to do that then move to the next step. If you don’t, then detailed explanation is presented below the step to tell you what you need to do.
The 6 missing parts
Photoshop CC: The Missing Manual is decided into 6 parts, each covers a certain part of Photoshop, we will go through what this book covers in more details in the next section of this review.
Part 1 – The basics
This part teaches you the basics of Photoshop CC, like the user interface, opening & creating documents before delving into the other more useful aspects of Photosop like layers, masks & channels. I find it very positive that the book introduces layers from an early stage of the book. The same goes for channels, something many new Photoshop users tend to avoid.
Part 2 – Editing images
As the name suggests, this part is about editing images in general, it introduces you to topics like cropping & resizing images, correcting their colours & combining them.
Part 3 – The Artistic Side of Photoshop
The author calls this part “The part that is all about creativity”, like painting & choosing colors for your document. Including a part about create paintings from scratch, something that is very important in case you plan to use Photoshop for painting. In additional to that, you will also learn various other topics from this part:-
- Using the Pen tool.
- Photoshop Typography.
- Using filters & and smart filters.
I found the topics in this part to be kinda not very much related to each other, but that is unlikely to hurt your learning process.
Part 4 – Printing And The Web
This part is exactly like its name suggests, it covers what you need to know on how to prepare your images for printing, so that you will get the same colour on paper as on your screen. Along with how to create different types of images for the web, as well as slicing images, and a few other things.
Part 5 – Photoshop Power
This part is about Photoshop features that you may not use right away, but they are important features that you will totally appreciate if you got to use them right. Like using actions to automate common tasks and installing plug-ins.
Part 6 – Appendixes
It probably should not be considered a part of Photoshop CC: The Missing Manual, but since it contains many interesting things, so I considered it the 6th part of the book. The appendixes includes:-
- Installing & uninstalling Photoshop.
- Troubleshooting tips.
- Tour of the tools panel.
- A grand tour of the 200+ menu items.
Covers widely of topics
Photoshop CC: The Missing Manual gives you a tour on Photoshop’s workspace including different ways on how to customize it.
It also covers how to make selections, something that is an important & fundamental feature to edit a certain parts of your pictures.
Photoshop CC: The Missing Manual also covers layers from the beginning of the book, which is an important feature used to place multiple images or objects on top of each other and edit them separately. And that allows you to create designs or combines images much more easily than if there were no such feature.
In addition to layers, Photoshop CC: The Missing Manual also teaches you the concept of masks, which allows you to cover or hide a certain part of your layer. as well as smart objects, which is a way to help you edit your image without risking losing the original image.
The book will explains how to crop & resize your images to suit the final place where you plan to use them. And how to correct any problems with the colours in your pictures. You will also learn how to retouch & fix your photos, combine them, and prepare them for either print or online use, depending on your needs. When it comes to printing images. the book explain how to prepare your image for printing, so that the final picture will match the one you see on your screen.
One of the interesting topics Photoshop CC: The Missing Manual teaches you is how to manipulate colors, it even get to help you do digital makeup, partial-color effects, and duotones (pictures like this one).
Photoshop CC: The Missing Manual also covers filters, and how to use them effectively, and how to create illustrations & paintings, and how to use different type tools in Photoshop to create & manipulate text.
Besides the techniques I mentioned above, which are some of the most commonly used in Photoshop, Photoshop CC: The Missing Manual alas covers some of the powerful techniques that can save you a lot of time if used correctly, like actions, with is a way to record certain steps, and then to play them again & again to save time, because every time you play an action, Photoshop repeat these steps for you. If you have used macros in Microsoft office or any other program, then you already have a good idea on what actions are.
Photoshop CC: The Missing Manual doesn’t stop at editing still Photos, it also covers animations and videos features, which can be quite helpful if you plan to use Photoshop to create animated pictures, or in case you also use a video editing software like Adobe Premiere. It also covers 3D objects, and how to create and edit them. And how send them off to a 3D-printing service from inside Photoshop, something that is kind of an emerging technology that is nice to know about.
And last but not least, Photoshop CC: The Missing Manual covers how to export web graphics, and how to use Generator to instantly export and resize images—just by using layer names.
And Finally
Photoshop CC: The Missing Manual is one of the best Photoshop books out there, it is backed with a lot of information & lessons that will teach you a lot on how to use Photoshop, even if you know many things on how to use the program, you can still benefit from this book. If you are a total beginner, you may feel a bit confused at times, but you can still work through the book despite that.
See more Photoshop books in Amazon.
Learn Photoshop CC With Picture.
Information About Adobe Photoshop CC Classroom in a Book.
- Authors Name:- Lesa Snider.
- Print Length:- 992 pages.
Photoshop CC: The Missing Manual Chapters List
- Introduction
-
Part One:- The Basics.
- Photoshop CC Guided Tour.
- Opening, Viewing, and Saving Files.
- Layers: The Key to Nondesctructive Editing.
- Selections: Choosing What to Edit.
- Understanding Channels.
-
Part Two:- Editing Images
- Cropping, Resizing, and Rotating.
- Combining Images.
- Draining, Changing, and Adding Color.
- Correcting Color and Lighting.
- Retouching, Removing, and repositioning.
- The Art of Sharpening.
-
Part Three:- The Artistic Side of Photoshop.
- Painting in Photoshop.
- Drawing with the Vector Tools
- Creating Artistic Text.
- The Wide World of Filters.
-
Part Four:- Printing and the Web
- Photoshop and Print
- Photoshop and the Web
-
Part Five:- Photoshop Power.
- Working Smarter with Actions.
- Beyond Photoshop: Plug-Ins.
- Photoshop and Video.
- Working with 3D Objects.
- Using Adobe Bridge.
-
Part Six:- Appendixes
- Appendix A:- Installing Photoshop.
- Appendix B:- Troubleshooting and Getting Help.
- Appendix C:- Photoshop Tool’s Panel.
- Appendix D:- Photoshop Menu by Menu.
See Also
Learn Photoshop CC With Pictures: The Visual & Fast Way To Learn Photoshop.
