Review
Mastering Adobe Photoshop 2026 is the second edition following the first 2024 version. Two years have passed since the original release of this excellent book. Adobe is fully aware that Photoshop is one of the defining products in its portfolio. They can add and revise features, but they have to be very, very careful doing so, because 90% of the world’s photo work is done using Photoshop. So they tread carefully!..
The book comes with a lot of good examples, and it is possible to download all the samples from a dedicated URL.
This is why the book’s first 20 pages, Chapter 1, are dedicated to a careful walkthrough of the new features in Photoshop 2026. Some features, like the new Adjustment Brush tools, are particularly interesting and worth mentioning. Adjustment layers in Photoshop are “layer-wide.” The Brush Tool aims to expedite the masking part of this process by using brushes as masks. This makes for a much more flexible and natural working process.
Mastering Adobe Photoshop 2026 comes with 15 well-written and well-illustrated chapters. Each chapter ends with a fine summary, making it easy to catch up on “what did I just read.”
One of the many excellent illustrations in the book shows how to customize toolbars.
Chapter 2, “Making Photoshop Work Harder and Smarter”, is about optimizing your use of Photoshop and relevant resources. I believe this is a good chapter. Photoshop is second nature to many users who have grown up with the software, but new users can find it difficult to get into because it has a LOT of features, but ALSO because one needs to understand the logic of the tools. This illustration, for instance, gives a good overview of toolbar customization. Chapter 2 also explains the many standards used in photo editing work, such as PPI, color settings, and resolution. One section I particularly enjoyed was the explanation of the different icons in Creative Commons licensing.
Chapter 3 is all about the most common uses of Photoshop: healing, cropping, and minor adjustments like applying essential color and tonal edits non-destructively.
Chapter 4 adds instructions about how to use masking and cutouts. These are essential for working with greater detail and form the backbone of working with multiple layers.
Chapters 5 and 6 are clearly written from many years of hard-learned experience in the business of graphic design. Chapter 5, “Building Brand Mock-Ups and Prototypes”, teaches you how to bring ideas and concepts to life by creating realistic mockups. You will learn how to apply graphics to a series of surfaces, such as walls, device screens, t-shirts, and cushions, using smart workflows that allow you to re-edit your assets without losing quality. While one might argue that this is a less tool-centric approach, it is definitely a learning method that will help many students and novices. A section like “Adding a Logo to a Bag in Perspective” is a scenario common in design classes. The same goes for “Wrapping Artwork Around Curved Surfaces”, where I have seen countless questions on forums from users trying to make this work using AI—spending hours prompting, when the entire thing can be done in minutes using proper Photoshop tools.
As a student or newly employed design agency worker, you will face a multitude of very different tasks requiring very different knowledge. Print preparation and small pamphlet production are some of these. Professional color work with output to CMYK is an enormous area of knowledge, and this is where the author wisely shows some restraint. While we get elementary coverage, we are not dragged through different versions of PDF standards and color profiles. I think this is a good decision—the book is about getting up and going.
Chapters 7 and 8 are about “Content Generation.” This abominable term covers an area of knowledge far more complex than most people think. Preparing imagery for social media use takes a lot of knowledge about different channel requirements.
A lot of print-on-demand work is done in Photoshop these days, often involving funny or odd text with typographic details. Photoshop is excellent for this kind of work, and Chapter 9’s introduction to typography in Photoshop is really good. Especially the introduction of filters and effects is strong.
Chapters 10 and 11 are all about patterns and brushes. I absolutely love working with patterns. Tessellation is such an interesting subject and such fun to work with. The same goes for textures and gradients, which are also covered in Chapter 10. I think more could have been made of working with patterns, but perhaps this is better suited to Adobe Illustrator.
Chapter 11 deals exclusively with brushes. Brushes form the entire basis of working with drawing tools like pen and brush, but they are also important as the foundation for new masking tools. Giving them ample space in an entire chapter makes sense.
I had been dreading reading the chapter about image generation. Generative image technology is on everybody’s mind these days. The chapter explores and explains quite well and quite practically what can be done. I think the approach of going for realistic and practical uses is good. AI is still very new technology that evolves by the minute. There is an odd challenge in the inclusion of AI in Photoshop: a lot of what can be done using generative AI can also be done using traditional Photoshop tools—faster, more reliably, and with greater control. But Adobe has reasoned that the inclusion of these tools in Photoshop was unavoidable, and I believe they are right. The book’s attitude of focusing on what actually works is good!
The last three chapters, 13, 14, and 15, are all about working creatively with Photoshop in a more artistic manner. “World Building” is the headline for these chapters, and they work well. They cover blending images and applying effects and brushes in a more free-flowing manner than the more commercial approach in the first part of the book.
Mastering Adobe Photoshop 2026, Second Edition by Gary Bradley is a fine book!
It works as a reference, but it also—and very importantly—works very well as a practical guide to all things essential when you start working with Photoshop. Much recommended reading!
Bjørn Smalbro – FrameMaker.dk