Photoshop Tricks

5 Comments for this entry

• Mark Gurfinkel
  September 7th, 2010 on 4:01 am

  Review by Mark Gurfinkel for The Photoshop Elements 8 Book for Digital Photographers (Voices That Matter)
  Rating:
  I am a big fan of Scott Kelby’s / Matt Kloskowski’s books and their style of “here how to get there, step by step, with vivid illustrations and (often) funny narrative”. If this is your first Elements for Digital Photographers book – go out and get it! $31 is a very fair price for tonnes and tonnes of useful tips and how-tos. Put it this way – if you had to pay someone to train you, how much he or she would charge you.. per hour?

  However, if you already own one of their Elements for Digital Photographers (either 6 or 7), there is very few (if any at all!) new pieces of information here. In fact, this book is missing a chapter called “Create or Die – How to Make Presentations with your Photos” which is found in Elements for Digital Photographers 7 version. Was that a particularly useful chapter? Not really. Will you miss it? I doubt.

  I am, however, disappointed not to find a new chapter that, for example, shows me cool new tips and tricks, or a chapter with “case studies” – “here is the original photo, here is where you can download it online so let’s sit down and fix it together, step-by-step.”

  Bottom line: if you already own Elements for Digital Photographers books 6 or 7, no need to buy this one, even if you upgraded your APE to v.8. If you don’t, go and get one now!
• Michael McKee
  September 7th, 2010 on 4:09 am

  Review by Michael McKee for The Photoshop Elements 8 Book for Digital Photographers (Voices That Matter)
  Rating:
  I have a bookshelf full of photo editing books, both for Photoshop CSx and Elements. IMO, Scott Kelby, along with “Photo Matt” Kloskowski, provides the best book to learn Elements. This isn’t a collection of tricks or an encyclopedia that “explains” features, but a nuts and bolts how-to guide. It starts where it should with importing your photos and organizing them. Then it progresses to working with Adobe Camera Raw (even if you have jpeg photos), then he gets to editing in Elements. Establishing a proper workflow will ease photo editing and make sure you know here your older photos are.

  Once you’re past the first chapters, the book runs you through the full range of editing capabilities, again in a good workflow. Yeah, I keep harping on that. I’ve been teaching photo editing with different versions of Photoshop for 10 years and find that people who learn a consistent process achieve consistent results. Those who learn a few tricks don’t. It’s that simple. Workflow is as much a way of thinking about photo editing as it is knowing what all the tools and menus mean. And Kelby’s workflow is a good one.

  Anyway, back to the book. All the basics are covered, the menus, palettes and toolbars, but they are explained within context of actual editing, not as discrete things. That’s good. Steps are clearly descirbed with lots of screen shots, showing you what setting to use. Kelby doesn’t say, “experiment and see what you like.” He gives good general purpose settings. Yes, someday you’ll want to experiment or use your own, but doing so from a good foundation is much easier than doing so while you’re working hard to learn a new program.

  Since I like the book so much, why do I only give it 4 stars? As another reviewer said, there’s little new in this version. The meat of the book covers the same ground as the last one. If you have either of that last two versions, it probably isn’t worth the price. Look around for tutorials on the new features. Adobe’s website is a good place to start.

  If you are starting from scratch or have tried to learn from another book that isn’t as systematic, then I highly recommend this one.
• S. C. Werden
  September 7th, 2010 on 4:56 am

  Review by S. C. Werden for The Photoshop Elements 8 Book for Digital Photographers (Voices That Matter)
  Rating:
  Great book, but, I was led to believe that this was for “Windows & “Mac” and I’ve only read the first 80 pages. All the screen shots are “Windows”. All of the detailed instruction and steps giving location for tools are for “Windows”, such as Pg 28 which refers to “Albums” but in the Mac PE 8 it called “Collection”. Again on Pg 38 “Finding Photos Using the Date View” but I can find nothing in the Mac version that has anything to do with “Date View”. In my opinion the “Help” option is worthless.

  While I love the book for basic guidance it is not Mac friendly, there are some references to Mac differences in keyboard key differences but that is as far as it goes. I hope the rest of the book remains helpful.

  Stowell
• Randa
  September 7th, 2010 on 5:15 am

  Review by Randa for The Photoshop Elements 8 Book for Digital Photographers (Voices That Matter)
  Rating:
  This is a good buy if you are a digital scrapbooker learning to use photoshop. Will greatly help you improve your photos and learn shortcuts. It does assume a little basic knowledge about photoshop in general, but overall gives very detailed explanations of each technique. Had the binding cut off and had it spiral-bound at Kinko’s to make it easy to leave the book open beside me as I work. Really enjoying the book so far!
• Thule1
  September 7th, 2010 on 5:45 am

  Review by Thule1 for The Photoshop Elements 8 Book for Digital Photographers (Voices That Matter)
  Rating:
  This book is not for learning how to use the basics of Photoshop Elements 8. I also bought the Missing Manual for the basic instructions. Scott Kilby is an expert in photographjy and offers some really neat insights and tips on getting better pictues from using Photoshop Elements 8. I hgihly recommend the book as an add-on training guide.