Books, Adobe Photoshop CC 2019 vs Photoshop 2021

Question

Hello, I have an Adobe book on the version Photoshop CC 2019. I know there have been differences since... However, I'm wondering, (for a beginner who is not that familiar with the app), do you think it's worth purchasing the Adobe Photoshop 2021, Classroom in a book?

Or, would the differences not be that major and the CC 2019 book be sufficient to learn the app?

Thanks, appreciate any feedback if you're familiar with both. 🙂

Conrad_C · Answer

Hi, yes as Jane-e said I’m one of the authors of the Photoshop Classroom in a Book. What changes in the book each year must closely follow the changes in Photoshop itself, and Photoshop has changed a lot since 2019! The 2019 book would mostly work with Photoshop 2021, but the problem is that where Photoshop no longer follows steps exactly, you might not be sure if a lesson went off track because of the software or the book.

I took a quick look at some notes, and these are some of the key changes that probably would make the 2019 edition too out of date to use with Photoshop 2021:

Photoshop 2020

Home screen redesigned
Cloud documents added (cloud-synced format across desktop and iPad versions of Photoshop). The book does not cover the iPad version specifically.
Select Subject and Object Selection tool topics added
During Free Transform, proportional scaling is now the default for many types of objects (you now hold down Shift only if you want non-proportional scaling)
Applying presets was streamlined, including new Shapes, Gradients, and Patterns panels to store and apply those presets
Some changes in Select and Mask steps as Adobe continues to improve this feature.

Photoshop 2021

New coverage about creating patterns, integrating the existing Pattern fill layer type with the Patterns panel and the new Pattern Preview and angle option.
Sky Replacement and Select Sky topic added
Steps were redone to follow the complete design overhaul in Camera Raw 12.3 and up. Camera Raw now works much differently than any earlier version.
A new chapter on Neural Filters replaces the long-time chapter on 3D features.
Some changes in Select and Mask steps as Adobe continues to improve this feature.

Those are not all the changes in the book, but they are areas where differences would be noticed if the 2019 book was used. For example, the fact that you no longer hold Shift to get proportional scaling would make some steps in the 2019 book not work properly with Photoshop 2021.

If you decide to get the 2021 edition, start at the book link that Jane-e posted, and from there go up to the Peachpit home page where there is a 35% off discount code. The only reason I'm not including the link myself is we’re supposed to avoid posting sales links in this forum, but people should be aware that they don't need to pay full price as long as that discount code is in effect.

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