Photoshop CS6 The Missing Manual – A Review

Photoshop has a pretty extensive help file, and I don’t need to tell you dear TipSquirrel.com reader that there are some brilliant tutorial websites out there. There is however nothing that quite takes the place of a well laid out, indexed manual that can sit quietly on the desk until that day when you just need to know something in a hurry.

O’Reilly publish a whole range of Missing Manual books and for Photoshop CS6 they have once again turned to Lesa Snider. Lesa has penned two previous incarnations of the Photoshop Missing manual, authoring the CS5 and CS4 books as well as the iPhoto ‘11 Missing Manual.

Might one expect that with the new book might come a shiny new layout? Not a bit of it, and that’s great. The beauty of the Missing Manuals are their simplicity to use, while giving a depth of information. Lesa strikes this chord amazingly well and incorporates something that, as a user of this type of book every day, I have come to appreciate; personality.

A quick scan through the book will tell you that many, if not all, the images have been taken by Lesa and as such we are connecting with her. Along with this is the feeling that these are real world projects, with real world techniques and solutions. Each tool, Filter, Pallette has it’s own image to explain what’s happening and how to best use it.

I can’t answer the question of whether a seasoned pro would get much use from this book, I’m not in a position to judge. I’m sure there are some that have full command of Photoshop and find available resources adequate. Me, well, I’m firmly in the ‘I need something on my desk to thumb through’ camp and there are few books out there that cover so many of the basses. The Understanding Adobe Photoshop series by our own Rich Harrington spring to mind of course, and if you’re on a tight budget you may have a tough choice to make.

Photoshop CS6 The Missing Manual
Paperback: 888 pages
Publisher: O’Reilly  (May 2012)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1449316158
ISBN-13: 978-1449316150