Others say...

"Photoshop CS3 Bible"
The book touches on everything I need to know for working with Photoshop. The authors share tips, tricks, and workarounds. If something works well or does not do what the user would expect, the authors say so. The topics are covered throughout the book in a clear, thoughtful manner. Unlike some other books on Photoshop, and I have several, this one is definetely worth every penny.

"Best if you know PS already"
I bought this book based on my memorable experience with the Filemaker Bible. I still have a nice warm fuzzy for that book. As a complete neophyte, I jumped into the FM book, and soon found myself creating some fairly complex and useful databases to manage client data for my business. Not exactly the same experience with the CS3 bible.

The best approach, for a newbie, would be to buy a different book with more step-by-step examples, and then reference this book, as needed. I'll definitely be keeping this book, and remain confident that it will rise to the occasion of answering nearly any future question I can concoct.

PROS

- The authors obviously know their stuff.

- The book has a kazillion pages, and it totally packed with information. For me, it will serve as a great reference guide for years to come.

- Seems to be indexed pretty well.

- I like that it comes with a hands-on CD, but frankly, I have not used it yet.

- I have to hand it to the authors, for tackling such a difficult subject to write about.

CONS

- Organization. As you read a chapter, it touches on a subject and then sometimes again on the same subject later. It can be hard to correlate how this fits into the big picture. I found myself turning to the table of contents to figure out what the current paragraph was addressing. The sub-headings in the chapter are not always helpful, and sometimes I found myself having to read a paragraph or two to find out what was being discussed. Paragraphs do not often start with a a transitional sentence, forcing the reader to follow the course of discussion.

- I'm not a big fan of the authors' writing style. In order to comprehend many sentences, I had to read them 2-3x. Often, it can be like reading a patent or a college math textbook. You can't really spring from sentence to sentence. Time consuming to digest. Admittedly, it's difficult subject matter to write about.

- The book is in serious need of more diagrams, indexed by arrows and labels. With much discussion of menus and sub-menus (admittedly necessary, due to the subject matter), it is easy to get lost. What menu are we discussing, and how to I reach this function again? I annotated some diagrams on my own, for example, to label which menu was which. Otherwise, all the menu discussion can get pretty dry, while at the same time disorienting-- a bad combination.

- The book would benefit with some step-by-step examples. Perhaps, addressing some common tasks in PS and how you perform them. Honestly, though, that might not be the proper the role of this reference tome, although some more examples would go a long way.

- The early chapters go into great detail about setting preferences. If you've been using PS for years, this is probably important right off the bat - making the program comfortable to use. But for me, there was much more important subject matter to discuss up front. Perhaps an overview of the some different components, such as color, selections, layers, masks, etc.

- Some foundation concepts (like file format, color, compression, and resolution) appear scattered throughout different chapters, making it hard to assimilate the material quickly. Some of this material is repeated, nearly verbatim, in different places.

- Tiny font. I guess this was a necessary evil, to avoid dividing the book into multiple volumes. But again, it's like reading a patent.

"VERY USEFUL MANUAL FOR PHOTOSHOP CS3"
I AM A PHOTOGRAPHER, SO I NEED A MANUAL THAT GOES INTO DETAIL, BUT IS CLEARLY WRITTEN; IF YOU ARE NEUBIE OR EXPERIENCED I RECOMMEND THIS TEXT.

"Superlative"
One of the best birthday gifts I ever bought myself.As an amateur I have found this edition most helpful, the authors have gotten it right, with clear, concise, and easy to follow direction. You could use the program (Photoshop) right out of the box but without this book you would never realize the full potential. No doubt, a boon for all Photoshop users.

"Photoshop CS3 Bible extremely helpful and informative"
I found the Photoshop CS3 Bible to be both enjoyable to read and really informative. It has helped me improve my photos, and I've learned a lot about features I'd never used before and I've found better ways to use the tools I thought I understood! Photoshop's such a big program, you can never know everything, but this book has gotten me closer to that goal than any other book I've read or seen. The tutorials on CD are a great addition to the book, for people like me who need to see something done in addition to reading about a procedure. Unlike the other reviewer, I prefer the lack of a voiceover in the tutorials - any instructions someone might say out loud appear onscreen, so you can follow the tutorials anywhere, anytime - and not need sound to use them - and we're spared any jokes or unnecessary comments that most voiced tutorials seem to include. I'm using the sample images (and there are plenty of them) from the CD for practice, and they're really helpful. All in all, it's a great book, and I highly recommend it!