Customer Reviews

Advanced Photoshop Elements 7 for Digital Photographers

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

With no customer reviews available I decided to take a flyer and buy this book based on the author's long experience with Elements. I have bought books from all the major authors in the past (Kelby, Sheppard, Grey, Willmore, Hinkel, etc.)all excellent authors. I use CS3, Nikon Capture NX2, and Photomatix Pro 3 (and Lightroom in the past) for post processing, but deciding not to upgrade to CS4 or Lightroom, I bought Elements 7 and needed one book and only one.

I found that one book. It is comprehensive, loaded with instructional photos, and explains things in a clear and understandable way. It also has chapters on general photography issues (histograms, scanning, workflows, etc). It even has a chapter on photo restoration which I do a lot of.

So, if you're willing to put the time in, you'll learn a lot about using Elements 7 and general photo issues. It is 448 pages long, indexed well, and printed well.

Beginners should look elsewhere, but intermediate level photographers willing to go the next step will be very pleased with this learning opportunity.

Note: I do not know the author. This is a completely self-motivated review.

I've been using several different Photoshop Elements books and except for the "Dummies..." series, I found all of them great, including this one. This book is different from the other popular Photoshop Elements books in that the topics discussed are for more advanced Photographers, not so much for advanced Photoshop users. I think this is an important distinction. I initially thought the book was to teach advanced Photoshop techniques, but the photoshop techniques themselves are not "advanced" or difficult. The topics would only seem difficult to a novice photographers who still have a lot to learn about photography, not Photoshop. You still will not be able to use this book to become an advanced Photoshop user for graphic design, in which there may not be any photos to edit, but your imagination in using Photoshop for design or illustration.

Anybody who does serious work with digital photography has felt the pressure to splurge and buy the fully featured Photoshop. Indeed, I have bought more than one copy in the past. However, after reading this book and exploring all the different techniques that are available to those who have the MUCH LESS EXPENSIVE Photoshop Elements, I do not know that I will ever buy another full version of Photoshop. Elements is capable of editing all the same images that its big brother is and by building certain kinds of macro commands, one can really expedite the editing process. This book is clear, easy to understand, accessible to even a beginner and can help you save a lot of money by teaching you to do more with less expensive, and often simpler software.

This is not to say that nobody needs the more expensive software, but most of us can get by quite nicely with a little education and a copy of Elements.

There's nothing like a clearly written, amply illustrated guide when you're trying to figure out how to do something in Photoshop Elements. This book starts out with some of the basics, just in case you've forgotten the details, and goes on to explain how to do some of the more complex things like adding or subtracting elements from your photos, transforming selections, different types of darkroom effects, photo restoration, optimizing photos for the web, making panoramas and many more projects. Sometimes the problem isn't that you've never done some of these things, but that you haven't done them in a long time or you've done them with a different version on Photoshop Elements and you've simply forgotten how to go about it. That's where this book comes in really handy.

Pictures of the Photoshop Elements workspace, the different tools and brushes, and examples of a project itself make it so much easier to understand how to make changes or adjustments rather than just reading instructions. This book is kind of like having somebody sitting next to you, showing you how to use all these amazing tools that are part of Photoshop Elements. I found them to be very clear and while having to go back and forth trying techniques, I was able to figure out how to do each step I attempted. In the past, just reading the "Help" section of the software has sometimes been confusing and I'd end up throwing in the towel. This book clears up so many questions or has gotten me past walls that I seemed to come up against, trying to get a technique to work.

This book is 418 pages plus appendices and a handy inner flap showing keyboard shortcuts. It's one of those books that you'll probably read, a section at a time as you need it for whatever you're working on. But when you have the time, go through and read it all. It's plenty interesting and I discovered there's a whole lot more that I can do in Photoshop Elements than I ever realized. It's really quite a powerful program at a very reasonable price. This book will help you to take advantage of it. Two thumbs up!

This book is less "advanced" than intermediate digital photography instruction, and I'd say that even a beginner could get something out of using Photoshop Elements 7.0 with this book--unless they are completely unfamiliar with the concepts of digital manipulation with software (ie, layers, filters, color enhancement, burning in, dodging and other functions typical of this kind of software.) It's perfectly useful, but I would not call it advanced.

I found this book (my second elements book in 6 weeks) to be a very good reference for intermediate and advanced users. It might be a bit intimidating in content and length to novices. The other book I recently read Photoshop Elements 7 Digital Classroom was more instructional and would probably be a better instructional tool. However, I do believe this book, even though it could be read is a front-to-back instructional guide, serves more as a reference guide to keep handy for those moments when you just can't figure something out or want to research alternate solutions. Andrews presents multiple methods to address your needs which may help to open up new creative avenues to explore. I had a few "I never thought of using that tool for that purpose" moments.

The first 2 chapters do seem a bit basic (a general discussion of Elements and camera/scanner technique) when compared to the rest of the book, but this is probably just the author reaching out to a wider audience and to acclimate new users. After that the content ramps up considerably and the author seems more comfortable at a higher level of detail. Chapters 5 and 6 (essentially editing and advanced editing) really stand out. Perhaps too little space was devoted to retouching and restoring (chapters 8 & 9) and too much space dedicated to panoramas (chapter 10), at least from my perspective. However, that probably stems more from how I use Elements (versus Photoshop and Lightroom) - for someone else, the mix may be right.

Access to on-line content (examples, presets, etc.) aat [...] help to extend the usefullness of this book. Overall, I highly recommend this book and will keep it close at hand in my den/studio.

I already own Barbara Brundage's The Missing Manual and Scott Kelby's Photoshop 7 manual, but decided maybe I could learn even more. Wow! It's not too easy to follow and isn't very inviting. The one item I chose to follow in the book didn't make things very clear and even though I'm getting really good with Elements 7, they missed steps and assumed we know.

I would still highly recommend Scott Kelby's book over this one any day. I promise that when I get to use it more and if I change my mind on it I will let you know, but for now Scott Kelby's is the very easiest to follow!

I'm a long-time Photoshop user, but the design of Photoshop Elements always baffled me, with its modules, three editing modes, and other "simplifying" features that always seemed to get in the way of what I want to do in Photoshop.

That is, until I read this book. Andrews really knows how to teach PS Elements (and much more), and this is about as comprehensive and thorough a treatment as you're going to find. The more I delve into it, the more I'm impressed with this book.

He covers it all, including an excellent treatment of scanning techniques, processing Raw files (confusing to many new digital photographers), dealing with layers and masking, printing techniques, photo restoration, panoramas, web publishing, collages--it's all here, and explained thoroughly with excellent color screenshots.

There are some really anal-retentive features in this book: Andrews numbers each topic with chapter number and topic number, such as "6.08." Not only can you find things easily that way, he provides information in small print concerning which versions of Elements it applies to, the difficulty level, web resources, related techniques (using the numbering system just mentioned), and the menus used. Wow. You can ignore all this data, but it's beautifully cross-referenced if you want it. I'm impressed with the level of detail here. The index is excellent and there's a nice tear-off bookmark of keyboard shortcuts. There is an ancillary web site, but full access entails a $50/year fee.

Though PS Elements 8 is out now, I would not hesitate to buy this book on PSE7 because 95% of what you need to know is right here. In fact, that last sentence sums up my whole review.

I have been using Photoshop Elements 7 for some time, and love it. Much of it is very intuitive, but for those who want to get more professional (masking, layering techniques etc), there are lots of features which mimic Adobe's full-featured products (CS4 etc, which are much more expensive).

Since I have been using Elements 7 for quite a while, I dont really need a primer; I really do want to advance my capabilities.

So I would recommend this book both for those who really need to "advance" and those who are new to Elements, but who have already gotten comfortable with other photo editing software, and who know how to use basic MS Windows features (or Mac if youre an Apple person, which I'm not).

This book does not come with a learning cd, as do some other products, and I do like the cd's, although there not critical.

PS: Note Adobe will be releasing Elements 8 in about Oct 2009, so potential buyers should keep that in mins when purchasing. I dont know how different v8 will be from v7.

This book is a great book for advanced photoshop elements users. Having a couple years of photoshop elements experience certainly doe not make me advanced, but provides me with enough experience to follow the instructions provided which are given in an step by step process. Now can a beginner follow the instructions? Yes. But not recomended because sometimes the concepts mentioned would make no sense to the beginner. The book does have a brief intro discussing more advanced options/ tools which can easily be glossed over. The best part of the book is that its color coded for sections, which makes it more of a handbook/ reference guide.

If you are a beginner to elements you are better off with Kelby and Klosowski's book. However, if you find yourself wanting to truly harness more of the power in elements, this book is perfect for you.

4/5 stars - recommended for more advanced users of photoshop elements.