Adobe Photoshop 6 and Illustrator 9.0: Advanced Classroom in a Book is part of Adobe's official Training and Certification Program and assumes readers have completed Adobe Photoshop 6 CIB and Adobe Illustrator 9 CIB or have an equivalent skill level. Like the other books in the series it comprises a set of step-by-step intensive and detailed tutorials that are intended to be carried out on the computer as the reader follows the text (lesson files are on the CD-ROM). The more advanced skills covered include compositing and masking, mastering pen tools, typography and layout and preparing art for print or the Web. By including both Photoshop and Illustrator projects in one book, readers can learn the pros and cons of using either one for different tasks.

Each project begins with a list of goals, what skill level is preferred and roughly how long the tutorial should take to complete. Despite the preferred skill prerequisites, one of the advantages of this carefully written Classroom in a Book is that less advanced readers will still be able to follow along with the deliberately paced projects. The rationale behind each step is clearly explained and sidebars go into even greater detail on related issues (for example, "Specifying knockout options" appears alongside the lesson on working with masks).

For readers who prepare art for offset printing, this book explains how the new colour management in Photoshop 6 works by going over the production workflow for a hypothetical printed postcard. Choosing a colour profile, soft-proofing and colour separating an image and working with an embedded profile, not to mention preparing Illustrator artwork for print, can all be daunting topics to those who just want to create the visuals. But by learning it all correctly, straight from the team at Adobe, readers will acquire the necessary skillsets to prevent those embarrassing errors that sometimes are discovered only after the job has already been printed. --Angelynn Grant