The Photoshop Elements 6 Book for Digital Photographers (Voices That Matter)

What I like about Scott Kelby's books is that he gives you the information you need, in concise language, with a dash of humor. Photoshop Elements can be overwhelming to the beginner. With this book, you will have the ability to do what you want to your photos. Each step is explained in detail, with example photographs. I absolutely recommend this book for anyone using Photoshop Elements 6.

I was very upset when I bought Elements 6 and there were only online directions. I didn't like having to flip back and forth to the online screen. I am the type that needs to look at instructions in a book in front of me while I am trying to figure out how to do something. This book is just what I needed. It has easy to follow step by step instructions with pictures. Because of the before and after pictures of the photos, I was able to flip thru and see photos that had effects that I might want to use. I have another of Scot Kelby's books also. I have had lots of fun learning new tecniques. I highly recommend this book and also his other books on digital photography.

The things you can do with Photoshop Elements are amazing, but it takes a while to learn. You can fine-tune good pictures, save badly exposed pictures, restore old pictures, create works of art with your pictures, or create works of art from scratch. The best way to learn Elements is by doing projects of practical examples. Scott Kelby and Matt Kloskowski give you those projects in their book with project photographs available for downloading. One word of warning - Adobe has been bringing out a new version of Elements every year. Version 7 has just been announced. Although there are many similarities among versions, it is best to have the book that fits your version. I'm sure that a book for Version 7 will be forthcoming.

First the bottom line: I've had this book a few weeks now and I like it a lot. It has proved to be exactly the book I needed and it's small flaws don't keep me from both enjoying it and finding enormously useful. Well worth the money.

Who is the book for?
This is NOT a book for someone who is brand new to photo editing, nor would I recommend it for someone who is new to PSE. In fact, the author makes it quite clear that he's not going to tell you, for example, what the erasure tool does, he's going to tell you how to use it to get something accomplished. Also, if you're looking for a reference book on PSE I'd look elsewhere, the book's organization doesn't lend itself to that, though the index is good and the table of contents excellent for finding things.

So who is it for? Me. Okay, what I mean is this: I'm familiar with PSE but no expert, I know the general concepts, I can find most of the tools most of the time. What I need help with is putting those tools to use to get a job done. If that's you, quit reading and buy the book!

Pro: the good news

Basically, this is a project-oriented book. The authors lead you through how to do nearly everything that I can imagine (and a bunch I hadn't) with a digital image. Yes, they'll take you through the pretty basic stuff like cropping BUT they add in why to crop and some fundamental composition rules that will not just help you crop the image but make the image better. That's the goal--make your images better, more interesting and more satisfying to you and the audience. There's a good discussion of selection techniques--the sometimes tricky process of picking the parts of an image that need work. And there are chapters with fairly advanced (for me anyway) stuff relating to special effects, color management, and preparing your shots for a show. All along the way, there are step-by-step "recipes" for you to follow and many clever, time saving tips and tricks.

In short, the book is readable, thorough and it will help make your images better.

Con: the not-so-good news.

Others have commented about the often lame attempts at humor. Personally, I found it easy to ignore it but I agree that it's both lame and quickly annoying. Not bad enough to keep me from recommending the book tho'. I also agree with another reviewer's comments about the difficulty in reading the screen shot clips--but the dark background from PSE 6 is preserved and it makes seeing the too tiny text difficult. Mostly tho' I didn't need to read the text there to understand the point being made.

Pretty much, that's it for the bad news in my view. Enough to keep it from 5 stars but not enough to keep me from highly recommending the book. If your the target audience--Get It and enjoy!

Would recommend this book to anyone who seriously wants to understand the full power of Photoshop Elements