Layers: The Complete Guide to Photoshop's Most Powerful Feature

If you are new to Photoshop then this is the place to start. Lots of examples and projects. Experienced Photoshop users will get a few good tips they can use too. I would recommend this book for anyone who is interested in digital photography.

This book is amazing and helpful for Photoshop users with varying degrees of experience. The in depth tutorials and shortcut tricks cut my artwork and photo rendering time in half. Thanks Matt!!

i'm new to photoshop and have been actively learning how to use this software for almost a year now. this book is a great resource guide for photoshop! matt is so knowledgeable. there is something soooo awesome to learn in every single lesson of this book. as you're learning about the various capabilities with layers you also get on the side neat pointers on how to better enhance your photos and do other cool stuff to make your work look professional. just going through this superb book has greatly improved the way i work around in photoshop now. i highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in getting a better handle on photoshop. matt knows what he's talking about. i'm glad there is a book like this that teaches us how to get around in photoshop.

No photographer can unleash the full power of Photoshop to make an image look like the photographer's vision without understanding the power of layers. (At the very least layers allow the Photoshop user to make selective adjustments to an image, without actually changing the underlying data.) Yet many Photoshop books treat layers in bits and pieces rather than as an integrated whole so that the photographer has a hard time grasping the overall concept. That's where a book aimed solely at layers comes in.

Matt Kloskowski's book deals with all the major applications of layers. The subjects include the nature of layers, blending layers, adjustment layers, layer masks, type and shape layers, enhancing and adjusting photos with layers, layer styles and smart layers. It's all here, but in a short simple quick form. (I'm sure there are more esoteric things to learn about layers; at least one pair of authors has a book on layers that is over 750 pages long!) Most photographers will find that this book has all they need to know about the subject.

The author's text takes the form of tutorials. One can either download files for these tutorials or work with one's own pictures. The tutorials are short, well illustrated and have plenty of white space. If you make a mistake at an early step you won't have to backtrack through twenty or thirty steps to find out where you went wrong. Even if you work out each tutorial, this book will not take more than ten or twenty hours to complete, and it will teach you almost everything you need to know about the subject. Along the way, Kloskowski teaches the reader about other Photoshop tools, as when he integrates a discussion of gradients into a lesson on blend modes, or deals with selections in a tutorial on layer masks.

The author has an easy-going, breezy, humorous style, but those put off by the style of his mentor, Scott Kelby, probably will not be offended here.

Normally, as I go through a book, I make notes in the margin when I discover an error. I'm happy to report that I made no notes in the margin of this book.

For experienced Photoshop users this book will contain nothing new. Perhaps they'll have to look at the 750 page tomes. However, for the photographer who doesn't have a firm grip on the use of layers in Photoshop, this book will help him or her to master the subject.

Love Matt. Love this book.

Straigtfoward and easy to understand while encompassing everything that needs to be said on the topic. Whether you are a beginner or an old hand, there is something in this book for everyone.

He is a wonderful teacher.

Layers: The Complete Guide to Photoshop's Most Powerful Feature