Customer Reviews

The Photoshop Elements 4 Book for Digital Photographers

5 star:		(27)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This book does not waste any time or space on basic Elements tasks or explanations of all the menu items. All tasks are logically grouped into chapters like Cropping, Color Correction, Fixing Image Problems, Retouching Portraits, Removing Objects, Photo Restoration, and Sharpening. The slightly oversized format allows lots of room for the many photos and screen shots. A simple, removable grey scale reference card is included.
One of the most impressive features of this book is the tips that show you how to accomplish a number of important tasks that you would expect to need the much more expensive PhotoShop CS to perform. For example there is a procedure for layering bracketed exposures to produce a photo with details in the shadows and highlights.
This book has to be compared to Philip Andrews "Advanced Photoshop 4.0 Elements" book. Even though it includes the word "advanced" in the title it is less advanced than this book by Kelby in most every respect. For example Kelby has a chapter on editing RAW pictures and the Andrews book only has 2 pages.

I've worn out the library copy of Kelby's previous Photoshop Elements 3 book, so when this version came out, I bought it immediately.

Photoshop Elements is a photography buff's dream come true. However, because the software is feature-rich, it also has a steep learning curve. Kelby's previous book got me started in a jif, and had me working with the techniques pros use. This book is no exception.

For those of you who have not seen the inside of Kelby's 400+ page book, each of the pages is done in full color graphics, with a glossy finish. Instructions are given in steps, with most techniques using only a few steps, and some techniques going into the high teens. Thus far, I've found that I've been able to follow each one I've tried.

The techniques Kelby outlines are useful and not difficult once he's shown you how. In particular, I like his section on working with faces, as most of my photographs are of people. Other valuable sections include keystoning, color correction and selection (layer) techniques.

For background, I'm a photographer wannabe, but realistically a full-time white-collar worker. I find time to work with images about two hours a week, so I like to do it as efficiently as I can. This book has been invaluable to that task.

Don't be scared away from buying this book because some reviewers here say, "It's not for beginners." True, it doesn't take you through the product menu by menu and tell you what each little tool or piece of functionality does. But if you want to learn the basics of photo editing (anything more advanced than the auto fix options)in Photoshop Elements 4, this is definitely a good book for you.

I was just a beginner to any kind of photo editing when I bought Elements and picked up this book at the same time. I've used it extensively over the last 6 months to dramatically improve my photos. The step-by-step guidance makes this very useful for the beginner. I strongly recommend picking this up.

Scott's approach to transfering his solid knowledge of both digital photograpy as well as of Adobe's Photoshop Elements 4 is not only humorous, but pragmatically straight forward. His literary skills and mastery of transfering knowledge of two fairly complex subjects (digital photography and Adobe's Photoshop Elements v4) to humans who only want to learn and retain what they absolutely need "right now" to get something done is uncanny.
If one already has some basic digital photography skills but just entry level knowledge of Adobe's Photo Elements v4, they should get this excellent "How Too" manual. I carry my copy where ever I go, because it is one of those well written instructional manuals that gets one to a needed solution within a few minutes of focused reading.
Scott's comparison to the many functionallities of Adobe's higher end Photoshop application followed by a suggested work around to achieve the same functionality in Photoshop Elements v4 is just "more icing on an already great cake".
I recommend The Photoshop Elements 4 Book by Scott Kelby without hesitation or condition.

Photoshop Elements 4 Book For Digital Photographers by Scott Kelby is an extremely valuable "must have" for anyone serious about digital image editing, including professionals, as well as the occasional Photoshop user who wants to produce superior results. Scott Kelby, as a top industry insider, pulls from his resources, which include top industry professionals to share many, many techniques and tricks of the trade that produce amazing results. And the best part is, the material is useful in the real world and just about anyone can reproduce the effects with ease. The photographs in the book are great and the layout allows you to quickly reference a particular section for review while working on a project. For those that are newbies to Photoshop, I would recommend the Elements 4 "Classroom in a Book" by Adobe as an introductory prerequisite to compliment this rather advanced material.

I purchased PSE 4 and needed a good book to walk me through the many features. The book provides very detialed instructions, so a novice like myself was able to follow.

The other nice thing about the book, you don't have to read it in order, you can skip around to items that you actually need to do.

This book has been money well spent! If you are new to PSE 4 I would highly recommend it. I've learned a ton (wish it could teach me to type).

I'm only about a third of the way through this book. Two flaws stand out:

1. Supposedly, you can download the photos used in the book exercises from the Internet. The link given in the front of the book does not work, and there are no photos anywhere on the website for download. Unlike many Photoshop instruction manuals, this one does not come with a CD.

2. The gray scale card that comes with the book as an attachment in the back has a strong reddish cast, making it useless for adjusting color balance.

There is some good information here, but the author goes overboard on trying to be funny. The constant jokes wear thin in a hurry.

On the positive side, this book leaves out a lot of the basic stuff, making it a fairly good read for someone who already has Photoshop Elements experience. It is not a good book for beginners.

Not until I purchased this book did I find that this book does NOT cover Elements 4 for the MAC. There is discussion in the front of the book that the MAC edition of Elements 4 was available before publication of the book, but they went ahead with this publication anyway. Nowhere did I find any mention of this fact prior to my purchase.

This is one of the most straight forward "how to" books I've ever seen. It focuses on elements, and not how to take pictures. I really like the fact that it doesn't require you to read the entire book in order to acomplish a task. Just simply open to the section you want and follow the directions.
Jim

This book is straightforward and to the point. The step-by-step instructions make it simple to create awesome effects. My wife and I just opened a small photo studio in our home. This book showed us how to make the portrait enhancements we needed to know how to do. I can't say enough good things about this book!