Adobe Photoshop CC Classroom in a Book (2017 release)

I found it demoralizing that every lesson in this books starts with the words, "This lesson will take about an hour to complete." Have they ever tested this claim on real people? For example, in one single lesson -- I'm looking at Chapter 5 -- you will learn: (1.) how to retouch peoples' faces, make their eyes look bigger, turn a frown into a smile, banish red-eye, and adjust other facial features, (2.) how to create bokeh or the appearance of motion in a photo by fine-tuning the various types of "blur" available in the filters menu, (3.) how to stitch together multiple photos to create a panorama, and then fill in the blank spaces with "content-aware" imagery generated by Photoshop, (4.) how to crop and straighten images, and again, fill in the blank areas with context-sensitive content, (5.) how to correct distortion caused by short-angle lenses and fix other lens-related issues, (6.) how to take two photos with different depths of field, then line them up and merge them into one photo so that everything is in focus from back to front, (7.) how to turn a small group of ducks into a flock of ducks, or a few flowers into a field of flowers, by learning to "seamlessly" move, copy, rotate, and resize individual parts of a photo, (8.) how to combine a photo of a train taken at one angle with a photo of a bridge taken at another angle, and use the perspective tools to make it look like the train is actually coming right over the bridge at you... It's all great stuff, and 100% worth your while to learn, but name one person on this earth who could learn all that in an hour, including completing all the steps with the lesson files.The Adobe Classroom books are expensive, but not compared to the cost of a CC subscription that you don't use. If you are the kind of person who can sit down and plow through a book from beginning to end, there is nothing better. Except for the unrealistic time estimates, the books were obviously written by people with real experience in pedagogy, with one lesson building on the next, no missing steps, and lots of little forays into advanced topics so you know what you might want to explore further. DON'T buy this book if you aren't going to download the lesson files and do the lessons, because the book is about those files and those lessons. Believe me, reading about how to use vector-drawing tools to trace a photo and create a reusable logo from it is very different from actually creating the paths, subtracting one path from another, converting the paths into shapes, turning shapes into assets, saving color schemes along with your assets, and all the rest. Not for the faint of heart. Good luck.

Can't go wrong here for a beginner who is getting their feet wet on Photoshop. Sure, considering we live in the digital internet age it was hard at times to concentrate doing lessons in a book, but they do have good source files for you to work on so you can drill the program into your head.A tip I would give is to also complement your reading and lessons with some youtube videos for the type of exercise you are doing in the book. This will make your progress much faster.

Inside the book it says that you will have access to the Web Edition which includes videos and quizzes once you register with Peach Pit. I have successfully registered with Peach Pit and no Web edition has appeared in my account. I have also purchased the Illustrator Classroom in a Box and once I registered it with Peach Pit, the Web Edition appeared in my account. Despite multiple attempts to contact both Peach Pit and Adobe about this issue, I have received no response. Good luck trying to get ahold of these people if you experience any problems. I am loathe to make any further purchases of books within this series.

This is reasonably good book. I purchased it for a class I took. It introduces you to many photoshop concepts. My only complaint is that everything is written in a step by step way, and it doesn’t challenge the learner to think for themselves for solve any problems. As a result, the concepts don’t really sink in. Also, I am more of a visual learner, so watching YouTube or Lynda.com videos is much more helpful for me than ready a book.

An excellent resource for learning to use Photoshop. Especially like that there are actually hands-on lessons you can follow along with so you are using the program while learning.

I have Adobe CC, and therefore, always the most current edition. It has built in teaching programs that are far better than this book. But I bought the book before I got the software. I got it used, so didn't spend too much.

Nice way to get your students going in Photoshop. Comes with all of your lesson files to set up in student drives. I think the Illustrator CC book is written way more confusing than this book. I wish the same author was used for both.

Great beginner book or a quick refresh. Easy to follow and comes with all the assets needed to create the projects in the lessons.

I have been shying away from learning Photoshop. I work abroad in places with poor/non existent internet and wanted a book to work from as opposed to online learning. This book also comes with downloadable content that allows you to learn practically rather than just passive reading. I am half way through the book and am really happy with the layout/methodolgy of the content and have found it to be very good at getting to grips with Photoshop. I find it a good balance between not being overly simple nor overly hard or condenscending.

I am competent with a number of photo editing programs and wanted to move from painshop pro to photoshop. This book gives great hands on instruction for getting started with the interface and rapidly moving through the different tools. You get a taste of everything - with enough detail to do things but knowing there is more to dig into to if you want. Some chapters go really quickly through complicated things (e.g. masks and channels) so you need to go through them again and play around after the lesson to get the hang of how they work.

Having been on a Lightroom Adobe course which introduced me to Photoshop I wanted to learn a lot more about the product without spending a lot of money on a course. This book with all its practical sessions was perfect for me to work through and then use to repeat on my own photos. I worked through the whole book and then repeated the areas that I felt I'd use most copying the practical tests but selecting some of my own photos instead which seemed a good way of learning. I still refer to it alongside Adobe/You Tube videos for any particular queries.

Love this book, I was getting so frustrated trying to learn photoshop from watching you tube videos and word of mouth, getting now where fast. This book is a great tool to learn and also a good reference book.

Great book and easy to follow steps to learn how to use the program.