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Author: Ben Willmore

Publisher: Peachpit Press

ISBN: 0-321-33050-1

Pages: 176

Price: USA - $24.99 / CAN - $34.99 / UK £17.99

For what it's worth, I've been waiting for this book for as long as I can remember. Not necessarily this book in specific, but this type of book. "uptospeed: Photoshop CS2" deals exclusively with only the new features found in Photoshop CS2. It does not tell you how to do anything in a feature that came out before PSCS2, but the book excellently breaks down, explains how, and informs how and when to use PSCS2's new features. Thus, if you already have one (or more) of Ben's previous books, you do not have to pay the $50 for much of the material you already have, but rather just pay $25 for the material you do not have. Why did it take so long?

There is no doubt that Ben Willmore is one of the best writers of "how to" books on the market today. I guess the bad news is that he only writes about Photoshop. Chances are if you purchased any of his past books, such as Photoshop CS Studio Techniques (see my review), you already know that. I have no way of knowing whether Ben will be writing a "Photoshop CS2 Studio Techniques," and if not, those who have not purchased an earlier book might consider doing so to compensate for the focus on this book. Your choice.

Perhaps one of the interesting aspects about this release of Photoshop has enough new features that it warrants a new book. As you can see in my review of Photoshop CS2, there are an incredible number of changes and new features, and I didn't cover each and every one. By covering all the changes, Ben not only introduces the reader to these new features, but also assists in the transition of all the changes.

Ben breaks down the book into three sections: Foundations covers such issues as the new "Bridge," "Menus," "Color Management" and "Preferences" changes. Surprisingly, he also includes the new Warp feature in Foundations—I would have placed that in the next section: Design.

Design covers such topics as the new "Layers Palette," "Smart Objects," "Variables" and (as he puts it) "Small Gems for Design." [This is where I would have placed the information on Warp.]

The last section is Photography which covers "Camera Raw 3," "High Dynamic Range Imaging," "Retouching" and "Filter Enhancement" and "Small Gems for Photography."

Because a number of these features had a previous life in previous versions of Photoshop, and because most users of Photoshop might have used some of these in the past, the first part of each section starts with "Where's my stuff?" This is where the feature used to be located (if moved) and where it is located now, what it was called, what it is called now (assuming it's changed), and how it's different (if it is different).

Throughout each section of the book there are numerous side comments, tips, suggestions and personal observations to assist you to your goal of Photoshop mastery. And pleasantly, there are also personal comments such those referring to some of the changes that seem to be more of a change for change's sake than for any real benefit.

To warn you, two things are not covered...well, sort of not covered. The first is Version Cue, which is only relevant to the full CS2 Suite, and is beyond the scope of a book solely covering Photoshop. The 2nd is ImageReady—this is because there were essentially no changes in ImageReady in the CS2 version of Photoshop. However, Animations, which used to be in ImageReady, has been moved over to Photoshop, and this is covered in the book. [Keep in mind that this is the last time that ImageReady will be released by Adobe as a number of its features have been ported over to Photoshop already and as there is less and less reason for its existence, the door on ImageReady will officially be closed the next version of Photoshop.]

One last comment on this book; it's beautiful. The font is eminently readable, the images are amazingly clear, and the colors are, well, beautiful. Even the quality of the paper is better than usual. It's not often that the general appearance of a book becomes striking, but in this case, it is. I hope that whatever Peachpit did in the printing of this book is not overly expensive because they have set the bar very high in how a book should look. I hope/expect more of Peachpit's books to be this beautiful.

If you are a Photoshop user who wants the best update on the new and/or changed features in Photoshop CS2, this is the book to get. Enjoy.

___________ Gary Coyne has been a scientific glassblower for over 30 years. He's been using Macs since 1985 (his first was a fat Mac) and has been writing reviews of Mac software and hardware since 1995.