Product Description

Best-selling author Scott Kelby is well known for his plain-English style, his humorous tone, and his unparalleled ability to cut through all the technical jargon that other authors use when writing about image-editing programs. Here, Scott delivers great techniques on Photoshop Elements 5 that his readers understand and use to make the best possible images. With this newest release of Photoshop Elements, Scott shows readers how to work with their images like a pro, from importing to organization to correction to output. Readers will learn all they need to know about the digital photography workflow, as well as the latest secrets of the pros to help them create the best special effects, apply the most useful sharpening techniques, and avoid many of the hassles and problems that are encountered in digital photography (such as digital noise and color halos).

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #176118 in Books
• Published on: 2006-11-23
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 512 pages

From the Back Cover
Best-selling author Scott Kelby is well known for his plain-English style, his humorous tone, and his unparalleled ability to cut through all the technical jargon that other authors use when writing about image-editing programs. Here, Scott delivers great techniques on Photoshop Elements 5 that his readers understand and use to make the best possible images. With this newest release of Photoshop Elements, Scott shows readers how to work with their images like a pro, from importing to organization to correction to output. Readers will learn all they need to know about the digital photography workflow, as well as the latest secrets of the pros to help them create the best special effects, apply the most useful sharpening techniques, and avoid many of the hassles and problems that are encountered in digital photography (such as digital noise and color halos).

About the Author
Scott Kelby is Editor-in-Chief of Photoshop User magazine, President of the National Association of Photoshop Professionals, Executive Editor of the Photoshop Elements Techniques newsletter, and is technical chair of Photoshop World, the largest Photoshop gathering in the industry.

Customer Reviews

Simply the best
In the past I have owned several photo editting programs, and never really go into understanding any of them. After reading several reviews, I purchased this book about five weeks ago, and have now completed it. The explanations are so easy to follow, and the results are amazing. The author gives clear instruction at every stage, not assuming you already know, as some books do, and even though I worked through from the beginning, it is easy to just pick a project and follow it through, no knowledge from earlier in the book is necessary. I have learned so much, I am even using keyboard shortcuts, which I have never done before. This book is well recommended and certainly worth the money. It just leaves me wondering why I spent so much on a good digital camera, when this book shows how to make anything look brilliant!

Very useable and practical reference for non-experts
I don't usually review books but this is a real gem for keen photographers. The book is structured into specific tasks that you would want to perform, such as removing spots from an image or changing an object's colour or various sharpening techniques. In all the book covers approximately 300 such tasks and for each task there are a set of clearly written steps with Photoshop screen prints to show you how to go about it. The book covers tasks in all the following areas:

Using the Organiser
Resizing and cropping
Colour correction
Digital camera Image problems
Selecting objects
Retouching
Removing unwanted objects
Special effects
Restoration techniques
Sharpening techniques
Presenting your work
Colour Management

I find that I am delving into this book all of the time and use it as my reference for Photoshop Elements 5.

Like other Scott Kelby books it does have a slightly flippant and sometimes condescending writing style but the content is fantastic and Scott does tend to strip away the jargon and get to the point very directly.

Improving your understanding of Photoshop is all about practice and experimenting with the software and this book rapidly gives you the hooks into Photoshop's features so that you can start learning by doing.

Highly recommended to keen photographers who are not Photoshop experts but want to learn how to become very proficient with Elements 5.

Excellent presentation, informative, but needs translating into English!
There is no doubt that this is a very informative book, and contains excellent guidance on how to use the premier photo-processing software from Adobe. The book is easy to read, and this alone is quite an achievement because the concepts of layers, histograms, colour balancing etc are far from easy to grasp. Where the book scores is the large number of full-colour illustrations, and the excellent "how-to" section where most of the ways you would like to enhance a photograph are described in easy to follow steps. Where the book fails is its annoying jokiness, which completely fails to connect with English readers (or at least this one). Barely a page passes without some irritating humorous comment which is plainly intended to lighten the intricacies of navigating around the software, but actually only distracts. If anyone wants proof that American humour is different from English, read this book!

However, the book is definitely an excellent purchase for anyone who feels that they are not getting the best from Photoshop Elements 5, and if you manage to work through this you would have an in-depth working knowledge of the software and be able to take many shortcuts to help you achieve good results quickly. The book is backed up by Scott Kelby's excellent website which for an annual subscription will send you a rather good magazine every couple of months on further ways of develping your Elements skills, and also provide you with video tutorials and online forums. If you buy the book and subscribe to the website, master of Elements will be yours.