A little disappointed in Kelby's latest CS3 book...(review?)

So I have his Lightroom book. Not a bad read but I only got through it halfway and I lost interest - but still a good book. It helped me integrate Lightroom into my life. His book was Lightroom 1.0 though, he could have been better off with a Lightroom 1.1 edition.

Now on to my tiny rant. I Canada books are pricey. Ok, swallow that one. I bought is CS book for Digital Photographers back in the day and it was a key piece in me getting to that next level of Photoshop editing. POTN helped a lot as well.

So I order his new CS3 book, with the intention of giving my CS book away to Gujustud who could use it (still will). I was hoping for a bevy of new tips I hadn't found myself and some ideas I hadn't quit grasped to come to the fore.

Uh no. I already read in his first book how to email pictures. I already knew how to resize pictures (from his first book and well duh). Watermarking? He already covered that before. I'd say his latest offering at the same $50 CDN shipped price has about %10 new info and %90 regurgitated filler.

I would really like to move on to an advanced book of his next time. For someone who is new to CS3 and doesn't own any of his books, it's stellar.

That's the problem...He's not writing the new revisions as simply upgrade books from the previous books (otherwise, you'd have to have all the previous books to get the full benefit). Each one has to cover the entire program, and realistically, there's only so much "new" stuff in each release. Since I don't own any of his books, I'll probably pick it up...along with the "Killer Tips" book.

Yup, his books are not meant for those folks that are already familiar with a version of the product. But for a person new to editing they are great. I got my first Kelby book when I got CS2 and it helped tremendously. I still use it occasionally. Then I got his Lightroom book and again it was great and I still refer to it often.

BTW, Jason do you know that you can get the PDF to his 1.1 update from his website?

Agreed. I have the CS2 book and from what I learned and from working in PS for about 1.5 years almost daily, I basically have gained my expertise in PS from many books because all authors have different ways of accomplishing the same tasks and you never know which one works best on the pictures you take. Scott pretty much writes his books like this for the new user who at least understands the concept of layers and masks.

For those that are more accelerated, I suggest Vincent Versace's Welcome to Oz, Dan Margulis's books on LAB color and Photoshop, and Scott Kelby's channels book.

What I do like about Vincent and Scott is that they explain everything and give you the exact numbers so you can tweak from there.

All in all, I am not surprised by your critique of the book based on your level of photography and expectations.

P.

cosworth wrote in post #3744617
For someone who is new to CS3 and doesn't own any of his books, it's stellar.

That's me. I just got the book, and have not read it yet.

I am curious -- does it cover ACR 4.1, too, e.g., the Clarity and Vibrance controls?

It does.

I also noticed that there was much that was already covered in the CS2 version, but with different images. I guess that's to be expected. I did however, download some xtra chapters from his site. Not sure if you have it, but here it is anyway...

http://www.scottkelbyb​ooks.com/cs3book/


JA

cosworth wrote in post #3744617
So I have his Lightroom book. Not a bad read but I only got through it halfway and I lost interest - but still a good book. It helped me integrate Lightroom into my life. His book was Lightroom 1.0 though, he could have been better off with a Lightroom 1.1 edition.

Now on to my tiny rant. I Canada books are pricey. Ok, swallow that one. I bought is CS book for Digital Photographers back in the day and it was a key piece in me getting to that next level of Photoshop editing. POTN helped a lot as well.

So I order his new CS3 book, with the intention of giving my CS book away to Gujustud who could use it (still will). I was hoping for a bevy of new tips I hadn't found myself and some ideas I hadn't quit grasped to come to the fore.

Uh no. I already read in his first book how to email pictures. I already knew how to resize pictures (from his first book and well duh). Watermarking? He already covered that before. I'd say his latest offering at the same $50 CDN shipped price has about %10 new info and %90 regurgitated filler.

I would really like to move on to an advanced book of his next time. For someone who is new to CS3 and doesn't own any of his books, it's stellar.

Jason, if you don't have them already (the older versions,I mean), I highly recommend you get the "Real World Photoshop CS3" and/or the "Adobe Photoshop CS3 Studio TEchniques" books when they become available sometime later this year. They'll easily take you to the next level passed Kelby's books and then some.