Photoshop 5.5 and ImageReady 2.0 Hands-On Training - Softcover

Weinman, Lynda

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0201354675 ISBN 13: 9780201354676

Publisher: Peachpit Pr, 2000

Synopsis

Aimed towards beginning to intermediate level Photoshop users who want to learn all of Photoshop and ImageReady's new Web features, this visually pleasing tutorial guide for computers using MacOs 7.6/+ and Windows 95/98/NT provides concrete training in building sophisticated Web graphics. Includes insiders' tips, detailed graphics, and a CD-ROM with exercise files and QuickTime movies. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

About this title

Review

Once you're finished with Photoshop 5.5/ImageReady 2 Hands-On Training, the latest book from well-known Web guru, Lynda Weinman, you can say, "I've read the book and I've seen the movie." The accompanying CD-ROM has 22 QuickTime movies, some as long as five minutes, that truly give the feel of attending one of her seminars. Those who learn best by watching and imitating will love this feature of the book.

The book emphasizes "hands-on" lessons that take readers through techniques step by step and provide background information on each lesson. For example, you not only see in detail how to optimize GIF and JPEG images for the Web, you also get the theory behind Web-safe colors and the downsides of badly optimized images.

The author does not try to cover all the tools and features of Photoshop 5.5 and ImageReady 2.0, but rather concentrates on those features helpful in Web development. In addition to optimization, tutorials cover type and type effects, background images (including seamless tiling), transparent GIFs, image maps, sliced images, rollovers (buttons and navigational bars), and animated GIFs. You also learn how to create a Web photo gallery and how to automate a series of operations as actions or optimization settings as droplets (both of which can be used in batch processing).

The book has an airy feel with its open layout and typography separated by plenty of white space. It is so beautifully printed, the color images and screen shots practically pop out. (It should be noted that most of the screen shots are from the Macintosh platform.) This makes the book both easy to follow and a joy to look at. The graphics used in the lessons (all included on the CD-ROM) are lively and fun. And it's easy to adapt the lessons to your own artwork.

An extremely useful chapter shows how to incorporate rollovers made in ImageReady into GoLive or Dreamweaver documents. This section also demonstrates how to properly prepare images in Illustrator before importing them to ImageReady, how to export GIF animations to QuickTime, and how to convert a QuickTime movie into a GIF animation. --Angelynn Grant

Topics covered: Step-by-step tutorials on Photoshop 5.5/ImageReady 2.0 cover file optimization, working with type and type effects, creating background images, rollovers, sliced and animated GIFs, image maps, and a Web gallery. Also shows how to incorporate generated HTML and JavaScript into existing GoLive or Dreamweaver documents. Companion CD-ROM includes all lesson files, plus 22 QuickTime movies showing key techniques in detail, Netscape Communicator 4.72, and QuickTime 4.03.

From the Back Cover

Photoshop 5.5 includes a full copy of Adobe's ImageReady 2, much to the delight of Web artists. To learn how to use this powerful Web-tools combo to its fullest potential, you need a teacher like Lynda Weinman, whose years of experience and pure enthusiasm for the medium are evident throughout Photoshop 5.5. and ImageReady 2 Hands-On Training. In it, Weinman demonstrates, using classroom-proven techniques from her training center, how and when to use Photoshop 5.5 and ImageReady 2 to create appealing and quick-loading Web graphics. As with her other Hands-On Training books, Photoshop 5.5. and ImageReady 2 H.O.T. guides you through a series of exercises of increasing complexity, giving you hands-on, step-by-step experience in optimizing and previewing GIF and JPEG graphics, slicing Web images, using layers to create rollovers and Layer Effects to automate buttons, using ImageReady to "tween" animations, and much more. The book includes a CD-ROM with sample files for all of the exercises and QuickTime movies that illustrate some techniques. Even if you're an experienced artist, you'll be surprised at how much you'll learn about Photoshop from this pioneering Web author.

Edition details

• Publisher: Peachpit Pr
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0201354675
• ISBN 13: 9780201354676
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 512