Photoshop CS2 (or technically speaking, Photoshop 9.0) is Adobe's latest update to its flagship, image-editing program. It is an excellent application with features and enhancements that make the program an essential component of Adobe's new and improved Creative Suite 2. Features new to Photoshop include the Perspective Filter, a cross-platform component called "The Bridge" (formerly known as the Browser), a Red Eye Tool, Spot Healing Brush and Noise Reduction Filter. Photoshop's Camera Raw component has been greatly improved. (CM 10/16/05)

Written by award-winning Photoshop gurus Scott Kelby and Felix Nelson, Photoshop CS2 Killer Tips is a sparkling reference book filled with valuable information and helpful tips for the intermediate-to-advanced Photoshop user. Not all of the tips in Killer Tips are “killer,” but all of them are intelligent and are worthy of the reader’s consideration and investigation. The writing style of Kelby and Nelson is accurate, professional and accessible; also their writing is humorous and often irreverent (in their occasional, oblique criticism of Adobe's engineering culture that only a geek could love). Kelby’s criticism of Photoshop’s outdated, disk cluttering File Compatibility settings is hysterical (230). Kelby also holds a similarly irreverent opinion of Adobe’s obsolete Web-safe Color palette (238). More serious comments include solid information on removing gradient banding (175), help on sharpening images in LAB Color mode (175) and advice on uncovering the hidden, helpful Magnetic Pen tool (227). Every page of Photoshop CS2 Killer Tips sparkles with crisp, full color, screen shots. Fun and easy to read, this book is highly recommended. A perfect companion to this book is Dave Cross’ highly informative The Photoshop CS2 Help Desk Book (CM 12/7/05).

Sympathique, Pink Martini’s highly popular debut album, was released in 1997. It has gone on to sell 650,000 copies worldwide and has taken the band around the world on tours to the Cannes Film Festival, Lebanon, Turkey and Taiwan among other far-flung destinations. Songs from Sympathique appear on numerous music compilations including Starbucks/Hear Music, Buddha Bar, Hotel Costes, West Elm, Façonnable, Putumayo, Nordstrom, Williams-Sonoma and in various films such as In the Cut, Nurse Betty and Josie & the Pussycats, and have been used on television shows such as The Sopranos and The West Wing. (CM 10/16/05)

Copy to come.

Copy to come.

Copy to come.