Corel Photopaint(R) 10: The Official Guide
Authors: David Huss
Venue:  (2001)

From the Book:Introduction So, there you stand next to a multicolored wall of computer titles, most of which are nearly as thick as phone books for major metropolitan cities. You ask yourself, "Will this book help me learn PHOTO-PAINT 10, or will it become another dust collector?" Your puzzlement is understandable. After all, the word "idiot" or "dummy" doesn't appear anywhere in the title. By now you have already looked at the dazzling color inserts and noticed it wasn't the typical collection of award-winning art produced by people with years of experience and way too much time on their hands. Instead you've seen a large collection of images that you will create using the step-by-step exercises in this book. If you own one of the previous editions of this book, you have also noticed that the exercises are different from the previous editions. Yet, you may hear that still-small voice in the background (not to be confused with the store announcement of the half-off sale on all organic chemistry textbooks) saying you won't be able to do stuff like that. Let me assure you that you will. Caution: This book contains exercises and information about digital photo-editing that could be harmful to your non-computer literate status. My "day job" (as in "don't give up your day job") for several years involved talking to thousands (OK, dozens) of people every day who began their conversations by telling me how stupid they were regarding their computer knowledge. That was generally just before they handed the phone over to their eight year old. These people are not stupid. However, they have come to believe that they are-convinced by a legion of techno-babble-talking computer types, many of whom simply need to date more often. In creating this book, I have worked with the following assumptions: You have not received the Nobel Prize recently. Your IQ is higher than that of mayonnaise. You would like to learn to use the computer for something other than solitaire or Quake. You are not a graphics arts expert; in fact, you may even be wondering if graphic art is the stuff they hang in motel rooms and sell by the truckload at "Starving Artist" sales. In short, if you want to learn PHOTO-PAINT, this book is for you. There is one tiny secret I must share with you if you really want to learn how to use PHOTO-PAINT: READ THE BOOK and DO THE EXERCISES! Contrary to rumors in the computer industry, you cannot learn anything in this book by any of the following methods: Osmosis Keeping the book near you at all times so the knowledge of the product migrates into your mind. Sleep Teaching Sleeping with a copy of the book as a pillow, hoping that it will somehow jumpstart one or more of your brain cells. Super Speeder Reader method Thumbing through the pages, wondering what all of the pictures mean. Proximity method Placing the book close enough to the computer so the PHOTO-PAINT program can make your computer smarter and do what you want it to do. The Annie method Bet your bottom dollar that tomorrow it'll make sense. The Impress Your Friends method Keeping a copy of this book on your shelf so your friends (or your boss) will think you are really getting into the program. Actually, this technique does work, except you never really learn anything-you just impress your friends. Enough already. Here is the short version. Using PHOTO-PAINT isn't brain surgery; it's electronic finger-painting without the mess to clean up afterward. As I always tell people at the PHOTO-PAINT seminars, if you're not having fun with PHOTO-PAINT, you're probably doing something wrong. Buy the book and then check out that sale of organic chemistry books.