Amazon Review: Paint Shop Pro 6 Power! is a detailed guide for users who want to broaden their knowledge of PSP 6. This book covers layers, animation, filters, effects, vectors, deformations, photo editing, optimization, masks, selections, and channels. It provides detailed discussion of PSP's tools and operations and also gives specific examples of how these features can be used in your own graphics projects. Examples include how to create 3D effects, artistic edges, picture frames, textures, metallic effects, and more. Expert author Lori Davis guides users through the advanced and sometimes complex features of Paint Shop Pro. Readers learn how to master layers, masks, animation, palettes, filters, and other powerful features found within PSP. --

Amazon Review: Over the years, Paint Shop Pro has matured and gained features, earning respect from users at all levels. It has reached a complexity that merits Teach Yourself Paint Shop Pro 6 in 24 Hours, designed for new users who need to master the basics as quickly as possible.
 
The book is completely goal-oriented. It begins with an index on the inside front cover, and it also has a tear-out sheet that describes the tools found on the palettes and listings for all of the keyboard shortcuts. Each chapter is straightforward, covering specific features while building on lessons from previous chapters.
 
Paint Shop Pro is widely used for Web graphics, and there is a special section dedicated to this medium containing lessons on using Paint Shop Pro to create seamless tiles (for backgrounds) and navigation buttons. There are also two chapters on Animation Shop 2, the standalone application for building animated GIFs and banners that ships with Paint Shop Pro.
 
Given its clear-cut style, this book is great for beginners, but it lacks color illustrations (making the chapter on color correction somewhat theoretical) and it doesn't come with a CD-ROM. On the bright side, these measures keep the cost of the book down. --Mike Caputo
 
Also Available:
Sams Teach Yourself Paint Shop Pro 5 in 24 Hours
Sams Teach Yourself Paint Shop Pro 7 in 24 Hours

Amazon Review: For a few years now, Jasc Software's Paint Shop Pro has been a popular and affordable image editor and paint program for producing Web graphics. Whether or not you joined the bandwagon early on, you'll be able to learn lots from this full-color guide. It illuminates the basic and advanced aspects of working within the updated program, Paint Shop Pro 5, to create excellent Web images--from logos and icons to photos and background graphics.
 
Author Andy Shafran first takes you through the basics of using the package to create and edit simple graphics and photos. He also teaches you about GIF, JPEG, and other Web file formats and explains the basics of using HTML tags to add images to your pages. Next you apply special effects and work with Picture Tubes (a tool for painting with graphics instead of paint), layers, and black-and-white images. Shafran offers advice on using scanners and digital cameras to bring images into your computer and helps you retouch and correct those images. He also explains how to create transparent GIFs, GIF animations, image maps, and backgrounds and teaches you how to keep your images small.
 
The last two chapters focus on using extra HTML tags to control the appearance of your images and on learning additional Paint Shop Pro tips for creating gradients, textures, drop shadows, clip art, and 3-D effects. One appendix directs you to Web sites that offer graphics and development guidance. Another supplies a reference list to Paint Shop Pro's toolbar and palette options. --Kathleen Caster

Amazon Review: Now, you can put the power of Paint Shop Pro to work for you! Written by award-winning web designer T. Michael Clark, Paint Shop Pro Web Techniques show you how to effectively use this tool to create eye-catching graphics-quickly and easily. Using full-color examples and expert advice, this comprehensive guide explains essential topics at a basic level, but then moves into an increasingly complex series of step-by-step graphics tutorials that deal with all aspects of web graphics design. You'll master everything-from color and image compression formats to photo manipulation, the use of filters, and web design aesthetics. In addition, you'll learn how to effectively use masks and discover how to create imagemaps, banners, and transparent GIFs. Paint Shop Pro Web Techniques is a complete package of graphics skills combined with the why's and how's of creating cool and unique web graphics design! Full-color examples bring the techniques to life-showing users how things actually look. --

Amazon Review: If you use Microsoft FrontPage or Microsoft Visual InterDev, you've come across the image editor, Image Composer, included with those products. In Wild Web Graphics with Microsoft Image Composer, author David Karlins teaches you how to produce Web graphics using this new package. The full-color book is filled with clear explanations and illustrations, making the package that much easier to learn. Karlins writes about the essentials of Image Composer and explains how to create, resize, rotate, and otherwise manipulate sprites (the graphic images comprising an image); create image maps; and work with the package's Color Picker, Color Lift Wand, and Custom Palettes. Then he explains how to save your files, even selected sprites, in .GIF and .JPG formats; create graphical text; and create special artistic effects. The Image Composer Gallery at the back of the book features various Web-site designers' tips on using Image Composer. You can access images, fills, and palettes at a Web site produced by the book's publisher, Que Corp. --

Amazon Review: PaintShop Pro "X" For Dummies gives readers the tools they need to capture, create, and enhance images when using this versatile Web graphics and image-editing program. The book covers everything users really want to know-choosing the right tool for the project, sizing images, cropping, correcting defects, creating special effects, and more. --

Amazon Review: Microsoft Image Composer allows a growing number of corporate business users and application developers using the Windows platform to more easily create, manipulate, and enhance graphics, particularly for use in Web pages. Currently the only book announced on this product, Official Microsoft Image Composer Book demonstrates how to use Image Composer to create richer compositions that bring image files to life by applying any of over 500 effects. --

Amazon Review: Paint Shop Pro, a raster-based painting and image editing package, is popular with Web designers for several reasons. The package's batch conversion features are useful for converting multiple files to JPEG and GIF formats and, with support for over 30 file formats, the package has a lot of flexibility. Paint Shop Pro also has simple but easy-to-use editing and painting tools. But best of all, it's a shareware package that costs only $69 when you register. The new Paint Shop Pro 4.0 for Windows 95 and Windows NT, which is the version covered in this book, offers new special effects, improved masking and color enhancement options, and support for more image formats, such as Progressive JPEG, Macintosh PICT, and PNG with transparency.
 
This book covers both basic and advanced techniques for creating attractive, effective graphics. The authors teach you how to use the package's painting, drawing, and image editing tools to create titles, buttons, and bars, as well as transparent GIF images, image maps, and GIF animations. Along the way, you learn about scanning in photos and keeping your images small. The book is a good buy even if you have little or no experience in creating Web graphics, using Paint Shop Pro, or designing Web pages. A CD includes the shareware version of Paint Shop Pro, a GIF Construction Set, and buttons, bullets, and other Web graphics. --

Amazon Review: Graphics & Web Page Design is a four-color book about creating both Web graphics and Web pages. The chapters on Web graphics are particularly useful because they offer concrete advice on how to design text, buttons, icons, inline images, transparent GIF images, animations, and more. But unlike other books, Graphics & Web Page Design shows you how to create graphics in the context of a well-designed Web page. After all, many people who are creating Web graphics are also creating Web pages. For example, the writers explain how to plan your site's design and navigation. They discuss image maps and frames in the same chapter, so you can get a good idea of different ways to organize your site. And although you learn how to create backgrounds and textures, you are warned that indiscrete use of these elements can ruin the look and readability of your Web page.
 
The authors, by the way, don't try to teach you HTML. They discuss a variety of tools, but most of the graphics techniques are done in Adobe Photoshop. There's also a brief discussion of Web file formats and general information on raster- and vector-based tools such as CorelDRAW and Fractal Painter. A CD includes Web page and image-map editors, conversion utilities, and much more. --