Customer Reviews

Adobe Photoshop Elements 6: A Visual Introduction to Digital Photography (book with CD)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

After buying Elements 6 and finding it hard to understand (and the Help menu of little help)for a novice like me I purchased the book by Mark Galer titled Elements 6 Maximum Performance. I found the book too difficult to follow and understand although the included DVD was helpful. I then purchased "Visual Introduction ... and found it to be just what I needed to help me put new life into my digital photographs. The included CD whas somewhat disappointing but nonetheless helpful and that is the reason for 4 stars instead of 5.

The book takes you from downloading your photo's, organizing them in the Organizer, fixing and editing your photos including underexposure and overexposure. Color correction and changing, cropping, all either automatically or fully manual. Using layers and the tool box. Creating albums and scrapbooks, and fun things like photomerge and stiching, slideshows with music, etc., etc.

Excellent step-by-step instruction that is easy to read and understand will take the mystery out of the Elements 6 program. So if you are new to the Elements software like me, a novice like me, and want to know all the in's and out's of Elements 6 like me, then buy this book - like me.

With reservations, I encourage you to get this book if you want to start learning how to use Photoshop Elements 6. The book provides a somewhat different perspective from the information available from the Help file and from Adobe's web site. Don't expect this book to provide the information you need to become a Photoshop Elements expert. Explore the Adobe web site to get that information.
The information in this book could, I think, have been more effectively presented if it had been subject to much better editing.
Unfortunately the book suffers from several problems. I find the author's writing style somewhat irritating. Sometimes he uses many words to say almost nothing. At other times, the author summarizes important matters that deserve detailed explanation in just a few words--I get the impression he couldn't be bothered to write adequate information.
The book omits information about some of Photoshop Element's useful capabilities.
The index is close to a disaster, probably because the index was created by a professional indexer on the publisher's staff who had little or no knowledge of photography.
The overall organization of the book could be much improved. There's a somewhat brief description of the Organizer in Chapter 3, with no reference (as far as I noticed) to much more information in Chapter 14.
The Jargon Buster section at the back of the book is totally inadequate; it minimally defines only a very few of the terms users need to understand.
Nevertheless, if you take the time to read through the book, you'll pick up a lot of useful tips about using Photoshop Elements.

Gordon Padwick

As the subtitle says, this is an introduction to Adobes' `junior' image editing application.

The book itself is well laid out, with sections ranging from introductions to digital photography and Elements itself to printing, file management and some simple projects.

It's a good book for dipping into - the sections are easy to navigate with a clear contents page and index to help you find your way around.

The graphics used throughout the book are clear and well laid out and illustrate the tools and techniques being described in the text. Screenshots are good and a reasonable size so you can see all the components of a tool or menu.

At the moment, it only covers the Windows version - there's no indication of what will happen when the Macintosh version is released later this month.
- All the keyboard shortcuts are for Windows, and the `Organizer' workspace is fairly extensively covered - the Mac version will use `Bridge' as featured in CS3, so a relatively major rewrite would be required.

However, for users of the previous Windows based Elements version, mention is made where appropriate to equivalent commands in v.5 along with indicators where a particular tool or technique is new to v.6. It should be just possible to apply some of the techniques to older versions of Elements, but I wouldn't recommend buying this book unless you already own or are intending to upgrade to Elements 6.

A CD is supplied with the book which has a number of video tutorials covering the new and updated features in v.6 and some of the projects featured in later sections in the book, along with resources for practising the more complex work-throughs - within the text, an indicator is used to show that content is available on the CD.

The author also has a web site including video podcasts, tutorials, and loads of additional resources, some for previous Elements versions.

I found this to be a very informative book with plenty of material for the new Elements user and a good all round introduction to digital imaging.

Adobe PSE6 A Visual Reference to Digital Photography is a great reference book. Philip Andrews starts at the beginning - "what is digital photography and how does PSE6 help you manipulate digital images" and takes you all the way though the PSE tools to a final chapter usable project. And he does it it an easy to understand manner. Oh, did I mention the keyboard shortcuts appendix? This is a comprehensive book - highly recommended. No, I am not related to, nor have I ever met Mr. Andrews - I just really found this book useful.

In college I took a required course to learn what kind of learner I was. I thought it was stupid and didn't want to go. Everyone knows you learn by reading books. What I found out was that I had a much higher retention rate in the visual mode. Made college a lot easier. This book is a good example of a text for the visual learner. Very well laid out and paced.

My one complaint was that it was a bit skimpy on the Organizer. Many of us have a mess of photos that we need to organize. This organizer eliminates the need for sub-folder after sub-folder but the book does not highlight that strength nearly enough.

I highly recommend the book for the new-to-digital-photography set.

I leave this on my desk as I often go to it as a refrence. The enclosed cd is a big help. When learning a new technique step by step. I would of given this a 5 star, but I would of appreciated if Mr. Andrews organized a seprate chapter on making selections and a seprate chapter on Layers, as these are the really strong aspects that makes Elements a cut above other photo software instead of combining the two into one chapter.

I think this book is fantastic. If you are a beginner at digital photograhy, this book gives you step by step directions with pictures to guide you through the editing process. There is so much to learn in this book. I recommend you read one chapter at a time then practice till you feel comfortable before you go to the next chaper.

We thought we had ordered the PC Program, Adobe Photo Shop Elements 6, which is no where to be found. Returned the book the day of receiving it. But it looked informative!

The book is one recommended for two classes I am enrolled in at Cypress College. It seems to be a good reference book for the subject.

I highly recommend this book with Photoshop elements 6....A great help and easy to understand