Best PS books? Forget the books?

[photoguy6405]

Just upgraded to CS3 from PSE4. This is kind of a non-logical question, but here goes... For those of you that are now familiar with CS3, knowing what you know now but if you were just starting out, which books would you recommend to get yourself going?

I generally tend to like Scott Kelby's books, but his current book on CS3 doesn't strike me the same as his others and didn't jump out at me when I looked at it in the book store. I did buy his 7-Point System book, but I'd like something that also covers individual functions and not just Pt A to Pt B processes.

Or, would you just jump in and start doing it and ask questions along the way and forego the books?

[Kafn8td]

I upgraded a month ago and bought Scott's CS3 book. It's as good as all of the others that I have of his.

[TheSonofDarwin]

For learning the basics rather than trying to learn functions through example, I learned everything I know from Adobe Photoshop CS for Photographers by Martin Evening. I don't have the newer version for CS3, but browsing through it online it appears to be written in the same fashion of explaining the tools and their uses and then showing an example of it in use. I still love the Kelby books, though, for more practical uses of Photoshop.

[ssim]

When I first started with photoshop I bought a few books. I tended to go to them only for specifics rather than reading and trying to learn more at one time.

I did find that I learned more by seeking out video tutorials on the internet and watching them and sometimes working along with them. While some of these are things that you might not do very often you get to understand how the flow of things should happen in this program. Each person is different and I find it much easier if I can see it done rather than read it.

I really like Martin Evening as an author. He seems to really explain things well. There are a ton of photoshop authors out there and in order to get published we have to assume that they have something between their ears.

I wouldn't say that you should forego the books but I don't see a need for more than one book. For me to learn something and retain it I have to do it so there is something to be said for jumping in. The internet is a wealth of knowledge on this program.

[mson]

I would recommend Kelby's books, IMO they are worth the money. Interestingly I have not picked up his 7-Point System because it seemed too much like a "Here is your problem, here is how to fix it" type of book. Take a look at "The Creative Digital Darkroom" I'm only 50 pages into it but it does a good job of starting at square one and explaining the "Digital Darkroom" which includes other programs but has a lot of CS3 stuff in it.

[mtx]

I got Scott Kelby's book for CS3. It is an excellent tool and really easy to read. Example are really easy to follow. Strongly recommended. As a newbie, I found it very useful.

[Kadath]

Try out the free video tutorials at www.kelbytraining.com too, especially if you like scott's books. I signed up for a month and will probably re-up off and on every few months rather than pay for a year at a time. Right now I'm REALLY enjoying the vids by Scott, Moose and Vincent Versace, and gonna run through Joe McNally's lighting stuff soon too.

[doidinho]

I'm going through a large video series by Chris Orwig which was downloaded from Lynda.com. The entire series is something like 20 hours of video. I have completed something like 65% in the last two weeks. The instruction is exceptional, Chris provides some great tips and manages to demonstrate exactly what it is each of the adjustments are doing. One thing that is nice is that even if you don't learn how to do everything the first time through you at least get exposed to everything that PS can do which makes it easier to search for the proceedure in a reference book later. Another thing that Chris manages to do well is help you decide which tool is the best for each task at hand; there are many ways to do the same thing in PS and knowing which tool will be quickest and which will be the most accurate is a large part of working efficiently with the program.