Photoshop manuals (was Re: Photoshop 6)

["Sam A. McCandless" <samcc@vom.com>]

<x-flowed>A little encouragement: although I have 5.5 as well as 6, I'm new to 
Photoshop too. And while I'm reluctant to say anything nice about 
Adobe, my dips into the manual for 6 make me think it is, at least in 
some ways, better than the manual for 5.5 - which I think is actually 
the manual for 5 (manuals seem to me to lag behind software updates). 
But I believe Jerry is right about the illustrations.

The best solution I've found to the problem of poorly documented 
software is to stay so far behind the frontier of software 
development that bug fixes, supplementary documentation, and 
supplementary software are all three available before you upgrade. In 
this case, I think that means November or even December rather than 
this month. One "leading indicator" is what <Amazon.com> is saying 
about when the supplementary documentation will become available. And 
an antidote to impatience is to read on-line about the problems that 
early adopters are having!

Sam
 

>As someone who is anticipating a move from Picture Publisher to PS (for the
>single purpose of being able to make printer profiles with Matchlock) it is
>disappointing to learn that the new PS manual is deficient.  I really hate
>online/PDF manuals and much prefer a good print manual.  Also, I have tried
>PS (4) in the past and found it, and the interfaces of other Adobe products,
>to be particularly obscure.  Spending the money that is necessary to buy PS,
>I would hope that I would eventually become competent in its use.  Adobe has
>possibly forgotten that some people who will buy PS 6 are new to the
>application and need all of the instruction a good printed manual can
>provide.  I don't find Jerry's comments encouraging.
>
>D. Grenier
>Olympia, WA

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