Adobe Photoshop 7, Web Design, with GoLive 6

By Michael Baumgardt

From PeachPit Press
(c) 2003 Michael Baumgardt
ISBN 0-321-11561-9
321 pps
$45.00 (US), $69.99 (CAN) UK £33.99

Review by Gary Coyne [replace the "-at-" with "@"]

Intended user: Intermediate, and Advanced

There are many good computer books out there that are merely updated. That is, when a new version of a program is released, the book's material is updated, the index and table of contents are changed accordingly, and it is sent off to the printers. While there is nothing wrong with that, these authors could have also improved the book as a whole, not just updated the material.

Michael Baumgardt has done the latter and Photoshop and GoLive users are the better for it.

Ironically, his previous incarnation of this book was a good book as can be seen in my past review. As I mentioned then, I don't always read books I review from cover to cover. Either I don't have the time or I don't have the motivation (i.e., the book isn't all that great). Let me tell you, I have just finished this new version cover to cover. It is still a great read and there is much to learn from this book.

One of the major changes in this version of the book is that Michael has broken it down into three major categories: "Web Basics," "Techniques," and "HTML Authoring." By doing this, he has helped the reader, and perhaps himself to follow a more structured format. It was good before; it's better now.

Michael starts the same as the last book: a conceptual philosophic direction with a basic discussion of Web Design and Design Concept. Included in these sections are interviews with various big-time web designers on how they approach a new web project. It's always comforting to read that their wonderful sites come from many hours of development, and do not appear complete on the first draft of an evening's scribbling on a napkin. While not necessary for how to use Photoshop or GoLive, conceptualizing is an important part of web design.

The next section, "Techniques," starts with a Chapter on Photoshop Techniques, and the very first part of this has my only gripe with the book. Michael introduces a group mechanism called "The Interface Blueprint." This has nothing with how to do anything in Photoshop, GoLive, or web design. It is, however, something to consider when working with a group. My only guess is that this should have been at the end of the last chapter and just got cut off at the wrong side of the chapter break.

From then on, Michael provides a wonderful introduction to Photoshop basics that will either be a bit rushed (but good) for a beginner, a quick review for an experienced Photoshop user, and just about right for most intermediate Photoshop users.

One of the things that Michael is very good at is breaking things down and group/blocking them out. Probably one of the more confusing and intimidating features of Photoshop, especially for beginners, are Layer Modes. Here, Michael has taken the 22 different modes and broken them down into 6 different effect types. For each of these types (6) he has a simple paragraph on what to expect and how to work with that type.

For example, the common trait between Darken, Multiply, Color Burn, and Linear Burn is that all of them darkens the underlying image. When experimenting with a photo, and you want the result to be a darker image, you would be wasting your time if you were to experiment with any of the other 18 modes.

That's it. By being simple, Michael breaks down a potentially complex issue leaving you to understand how to experiment and (generally) what to expect.

While there were tutorials in the last book, there are many more in this book (7 versus 18 respectively). Also added to this book are "Step by Step" lessons (not as in-depth as the tutorials) where he guides you how to achieve basic operations like changing an object's color. In comparing the two books back to back, one can see that Michael rewrote and/or rebloked out each of these lessons. I feel that Michael has done a much better job of layout and presentation in this book making it easier to see the "how" to use Photoshop features and techniques.

However, somewhat buried in the book (page 137 to be exact), at the end of the tutorial on creating a photocomposition, he casually mentions that at the web site <www.mitomediabooks.com> you can download the files for this and other tutorials. First off, this is great, wonderful, neat, keen, all Photoshop books should do this. But why does he (sort of) hide this in the middle of his book? Not sure, but I'm glad it's there.

Sadly, if you look at this book's site at Peachpit's web site <here>, you will find no mention of this important material. (Ironically, Peachpit also uses the wrong cover illustration, not sure what's going on here...)

What is fascinating to me is that this book is 22 pages shorter than the previous book, with (seemingly) more information. Fortunately, what hasn't been removed is the arcane information that so attracted me to the previous book. Have you ever wondered what the reason for all the sub-options when saving a GIF and JPEG were? Even more so, have you ever wondered what the effect of all these options have on the size and/or quality of an image? After reading this book and looking at the wonderful charts and photo examples of how an image may look in MSIE and then Netscape Navigator, you will know. You will find out why a blurred image is smaller than a sharp JPEG image. You can see the effects of the type of image vs. image size in GIF, JPEG, PNG, and PNG 24 formats, and how to use alpha channels for maximum optimization.

But this is not only a Photoshop book, it is also an Adobe GoLive book. (GoLive is the powerful wysiwyg web design program that once was GoLive Cyberstudio before Adobe bought it and made it a cross platform work horse.) While Michael refers to GoLive at various times throughout the book, the 2nd to last section focuses on GoLive.

Mostly, this Chapter is devoted on how to implement the images you have created in Photoshop, but there is more. For example, you can't properly place images to match up with a background unless you know how to compensate how specific browsers offset a background image. Michael shows what the offset looks like on various browsers and how to create a level playing field to prevent offset images.

Further from images, Michael explains font tags but then shows how and why using CSS (cascading style sheets) is better. He then presents a strong explanation of the forest of options one is presented with when working with the CSS tabs on the Inspector.

Adobe has developed a variety of Photoshop/GoLive interactions (as well as Illustrator/GoLive interactions) and Michael does explain Smart Objects, Tracing Images, and utilizing Photoshop Layers to create floating boxes or grids. While his explanations are fine, I do feel that this section could have been expanded a bit. The one surprise and disappointment here is that he completely ignores Variables, a powerful Photoshop (ImageReady)/Illustrator/GoLive interaction that provides templates for data-driven data on graphic images.

To complete the web-development experience, Michael finishes the book with Video and Audio basics. For example, do you know which video code (QuickTime, RealVideo, or Windows Media) you should use (and why). This, like the GoLive chapter is such a broad subject that for users with little demand will be satisfied with what is here, but for those who wish for greater depth would be wise to get a book devoted to these subjects. Fortunately, what is here should provide most people enough information to get them going in the right direction.

Overall, what was once a good book has developed into a great book. But, like most things in life, there is still room for improvement. However, to wait until the next book is released before purchasing will only hurt you now.

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