Customer Reviews

Adobe Photoshop Elements 8: Maximum Performance: Unleash the hidden performance of Elements

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This helpful guide from Focal Press explains how to get the most out of Photoshop Elements. It's aimed above all at the aspiring professional or semi-professional shooter, who wants to go beyond quick and easy tweaks and fixes and get the best possible results. The lessons in the book are mostly addressed to issues any photographer faces, about how to improve and adjust ordinary photographs, rather than creating out-of-ordinary or magical special effects. (For that, see How to Cheat in Photoshop Elements 8: Discover the magic of Adobe's best kept secret, another excellent Focal guide.)

The book covers eight different projects, and provides high quality photo files (on the included CD-Rom) to work on for each, so that what you see described is exactly what you see on your monitor. There are also video files that illustrate the process, step by step, for more visual learners. There are benefits and drawbacks of this approach. The benefits are that it's easy to follow, and easy to recreate exactly the effects explained. The drawback, I found, is that it's not always easy to generalize the results. One thing I tried to do as I was reading the book was to open my own photos and attempt to create similar results with mine, and sometimes I could but it was hard to be sure I had gotten the best result. I think part of the problem may be that the author doesn't always explain the principles as clearly as he describes the exact steps -- and I would have liked to see him move back and forth a bit more between the specifics of the photograph examples and some more general ideas about what to do when faced with a range of related but different problems.

Still, I learned a lot from the exercises I tried. The advantage of a book like this over, say, the Photoshop Elements 8 for Mac: The Missing Manual, is that what you really need to learn a piece of software this complicated is just to get busy with it and try things out, and this book is very practical. The book as a whole covers a very wide range of issues, that often involve using multiple layers to create subtle and powerful changes without distortion. In addition to including all of the photograph examples, mostly in RAW camera format, the CD-Rom that comes with this book also gives you hours of video tutorials that go beyond the book and provides several automated actions and photo effects that expand on the basic functionality of Photoshop Elements. It's a very valuable book, and I learned a lot going through it once, and know I'll come back to several of the chapters when I face specific adjustment issues. Good stuff.

We do not have Photoshop Elements v.8 (we have v.6), but this was still very useful since most of the functions in v.8 are already in v.6. Neither of us is terribly familiar with Elements, and the bundled documentation is not too far above worthless. This book took us far beyond the Adobe-provided information and allowed us to achieve results that are very much appreciated. We're going through a lifetime's worth of photos, letters, etc. from recently deceased parents, and there is a lot of repair work needed in many of the photos. Starting out with Elements has a bit of a steep learning curve, but this book speeds up the process considerably. It's nearly a 5-star book, actually - we just reserve 5 stars for the absolute best of the best in our ratings. Highly recommended, even for "beginners!"

This book is one of the best Photoshop Elements books available today. It is packed with an enormous amount of information. I am a brand new user to Photoshop Elements, and after reading this book, I am able to accomplish intermediate manipulations on photos. I am using version 7.0, and even though this book is written for version 8.0, the author always provides directions for the 7.0 version if the instructions are different from the 8.0 version.

This book includes a DVD filled with images and movies that you can manipulate using the step-by-step procedures. The DVD is viewable directly, or through the Organizer in Photoshop Elements. The DVD also provides over 7 hours of movie tutorials recorded for version 7.0 and 8.0. The DVD also contains, RAW, TIFF, and JPEG images, as well as printable PDFS containing shortcuts.

What makes this book great? It's easy to understand, with full instructions on how to accomplish each step, usually supported by a full color photo. This book is filled with full-color photos on each page supporting the instructions given. I admit that I did have to read a few instructions a few times only because I was still learning where everything is in Photoshop Elements. And this book also contains a glossary filled with words from Photography and Photoshop Elements.

The book is broken into three parts, with seven to nine projects in each part.

Different projects include the following:
Part 1) Working with RAW images (ACR-Adobe Camera Raw), Local adjustments in photos, adjusting levels & correcting clipping, Curves (control contrast using adjustment layers), Hue/Saturation & Luminance, Sharpening images, and preparing your computer/printer/Photoshop for printing.
Part 2) Manipulating Depth of Field, creating dramatic lighting effects, turning color images black and white & luminance, adjusting tone/shadows/highlights, enhancing character portraits, enhancing glamour portraits, creating motion blur and manipulating backgrounds, fixing low-key images and adjusting exposure to perfection, and working with the Channels panel.
Part 3) Creating photo montages and replacing backgrounds, replacing a sky, layer blending (blending layers of two photos together), manipulating multiple images to create a single perfect picture, preserving shadows, working with high dynamic range, Merging photos (Photostitching), Transplanting/manipulating Hair.

Highly recommended to anyone interested in developing advanced techniques with Photoshop. My rating: 5 out of 5.

I've only done two of the exercises in this book, but I'm already a great fan. If you've ever been frustrated by 'instructions' that assume that you already know what to do or forget to mention several key facts, you'll be delighted by this book. It leads the reader through processes in a logical way, assuming very little about your previous knowledge-consult the section on masking for an example.

I have several Elements books for previous versions, but none from this series. The project based learning really works, especially good for visual learners or "learn by doing" folks. I also liked that there were tutorial videos on the DVD as well. A big thimbs up!

There are slews of books available on Adobe Photoshop Elements. What sets "Adobe Photoshop Elements 8: Unleash the hidden performance of Elements" apart from the pack? Simply that the book manages to navigate the tight line between providing information that is overwhelmingly complex and offering basics that are far too simple. In fact, the level of information provided by Mark Galer in his book is just about perfect.

The book includes a DVD complete with sample images. RAW (PSD actually,) JPEG and TIFF versions of the book's images are supplied. Also included are video lessons, Photoshop actions and project files. The DVD is a great complement to the book.

Although the book focuses on Adobe Photoshop Elements 7 and 8, the tips and techniques illustrated in the book can apply to more than just Photoshop Elements. Since Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) is discussed in some detail, the same tips and techniques can be applied to Adobe Lightroom or even Photoshop itself. In addition the techniques include tips (Galer calls them "Maximum Performance") that can be applied to almost any photo post-processing application.

The book is well illustrated with well produced images. The chapters are broken down by lessons that are logical and focus on a specific task. The text has a decent sized font (for those of us who need it!) and is a joy to read. And the book includes that all important index--something that is too often overlooked in text books of this nature.

So what's not to like? The gripes are few to nill. I found myself wishing (and hoping) that Mark Galer will devote a book to Adobe Lightroom using the same style and format that he has in "Adobe Photoshop Elements 8." If he does, I suspect that I will be the first one the press the order button on my Amazon account!

I'm a longtime Photoshop user who has never used it's little brother Elements. I learned Photoshop by the seat of my pants. A friend gave me a bootleg copy of Photoshop 4 years ago. I paid for Photoshop 6 and have been honestly paying for my upgrades ever since. Even though I have this long history with Photoshop, I'm not an expert by any means. In fact, I probably only use five, maybe ten percent of the program's features.

So, when I got a chance to review this book, I thought I'd give it a go and I'm glad I did. Though the interfaces between Photoshop and Elements are different, the tools are the same and I had no problem translating the book's instructions through my brain, to my fingers, to Photoshop.

And I was surprised, when the translating was through, at how much I'd learned. All of techniques apply to Photoshop as well as to Elements. In short, if this book can help me so much, one who has been using Photoshop for so long, it'll really help out the new Elements user. I've had some pretty good luck with Focal Press books lately. They put out easy to understand books about software than can, at times, be a bit daunting. This book will make your Elements and Photoshop relationship a whole lot friendlier.

This book helps bring Photoshop Elements (PSE) ever closer to the bigger, much more expensive sibling, Photoshop (PS). With it's complete step-by-step instructions and procedures you can do many of the things that most people think requires PS.

Possibly the best feature is the included DVD. It provides high quality before and after images so you can either follow the instructions in the book or, as a challange, try on your own to take the "before" and turn it into the "after".

Even after you have upgraded to a later version of PSE or even bought PS, those before/after examples still provide a great way to learn and review important aspects of photo processing.

Bottom line: The text is great for learning PSE and the DVD is invaluable with any photo processing software.

Over the years, Adobe Photoshop Element has grown to be a piece of sophisticated software. It becomes a poor man's Photoshop CS. There are many ways to write a book to show the users how to use it. This book chooses to approach it by projects, not by explaining each item on the menu. I actually like it better this way. I have basic knowledge about how a photo editing software does and what results can be achieved by software like this. I want to know what Photoshop Element offers and how it does that. By going through these projects, I have mastered the software at a higher level. Since this book is organized in projects, you don't have read it from the first page to the last one. You can pick the topic you like and try it. It is a great book for people who know the basics of photo editing. If you are really new in this area, you may want to try some dummy books. Also be aware that this book does not touch the photo organization part of Photoshop Element. If it is crucial to you, then find some other book.

Photoshop Elements started out as a subset of the full-blown Photoshop program, at about 20% the price, while maintaining file compatibility. Over the years it has grown into its own product, and while still largely maintaining file compatibility with Photoshop it is, by itself, no longer a bridge product but a full photo editing tool. Consequently, the learning curve has exploded--it was once a very simple program compared to its Big Brother, but now it is somewhat complex along with being full featured. The Maximum Performance book allows the intermediate user, the user who does more than basic photo editing, to harness much of the program's power.

Pros: Encyclopedic in depth
Well written, great examples and procedures

Cons:
Not for Dummies. At least an intermediate level of knowledge is required for the book to be useful.
Doesn't cover basic functionality of program or of photo editing in general.

All in all, this is a great book for its intended audience of pro-am users.