Customer Reviews

The Photoshop Elements 8 Book for Digital Photographers (Voices That Matter)

5 star:		(31)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I am a big fan of Scott Kelby's / Matt Kloskowski's books and their style of "here how to get there, step by step, with vivid illustrations and (often) funny narrative". If this is your first Elements for Digital Photographers book - go out and get it! $31 is a very fair price for tonnes and tonnes of useful tips and how-tos. Put it this way - if you had to pay someone to train you, how much he or she would charge you.. per hour?

However, if you already own one of their Elements for Digital Photographers (either 6 or 7), there is very few (if any at all!) new pieces of information here. In fact, this book is missing a chapter called "Create or Die - How to Make Presentations with your Photos" which is found in Elements for Digital Photographers 7 version. Was that a particularly useful chapter? Not really. Will you miss it? I doubt.

I am, however, disappointed not to find a new chapter that, for example, shows me cool new tips and tricks, or a chapter with "case studies" - "here is the original photo, here is where you can download it online so let's sit down and fix it together, step-by-step."

Bottom line: if you already own Elements for Digital Photographers books 6 or 7, no need to buy this one, even if you upgraded your APE to v.8. If you don't, go and get one now!

I have a bookshelf full of photo editing books, both for Photoshop CSx and Elements. IMO, Scott Kelby, along with "Photo Matt" Kloskowski, provides the best book to learn Elements. This isn't a collection of tricks or an encyclopedia that "explains" features, but a nuts and bolts how-to guide. It starts where it should with importing your photos and organizing them. Then it progresses to working with Adobe Camera Raw (even if you have jpeg photos), then he gets to editing in Elements. Establishing a proper workflow will ease photo editing and make sure you know here your older photos are.

Once you're past the first chapters, the book runs you through the full range of editing capabilities, again in a good workflow. Yeah, I keep harping on that. I've been teaching photo editing with different versions of Photoshop for 10 years and find that people who learn a consistent process achieve consistent results. Those who learn a few tricks don't. It's that simple. Workflow is as much a way of thinking about photo editing as it is knowing what all the tools and menus mean. And Kelby's workflow is a good one.

Anyway, back to the book. All the basics are covered, the menus, palettes and toolbars, but they are explained within context of actual editing, not as discrete things. That's good. Steps are clearly descirbed with lots of screen shots, showing you what setting to use. Kelby doesn't say, "experiment and see what you like." He gives good general purpose settings. Yes, someday you'll want to experiment or use your own, but doing so from a good foundation is much easier than doing so while you're working hard to learn a new program.

Since I like the book so much, why do I only give it 4 stars? As another reviewer said, there's little new in this version. The meat of the book covers the same ground as the last one. If you have either of that last two versions, it probably isn't worth the price. Look around for tutorials on the new features. Adobe's website is a good place to start.

If you are starting from scratch or have tried to learn from another book that isn't as systematic, then I highly recommend this one.

Great book, but, I was led to believe that this was for "Windows & "Mac" and I've only read the first 80 pages. All the screen shots are "Windows". All of the detailed instruction and steps giving location for tools are for "Windows", such as Pg 28 which refers to "Albums" but in the Mac PE 8 it called "Collection". Again on Pg 38 "Finding Photos Using the Date View" but I can find nothing in the Mac version that has anything to do with "Date View". In my opinion the "Help" option is worthless.

While I love the book for basic guidance it is not Mac friendly, there are some references to Mac differences in keyboard key differences but that is as far as it goes. I hope the rest of the book remains helpful.

Stowell

This book has color pictures on every page, which is nice, but the BIG problem with this book is that it is too verbose (i.e. too wordy). For every procedure they talk about they provide about 10 times the verbiage that other books provide to explain things. It's like listening to a blabbermouth on the phone who never gets to the point. If you have unlimited time to waste reading something said in 300 words that could have been concisely said in 30 words then this is the book for you. If you value your time, chose one of the other books on this subject.

Being a relative newcomer to PE8 I tralled through countless reviews on books that would help me to improve my editing skills without being too basic (something I'll outgrow quickly as my skills improve) or too advanced (just can't get my head around). This book certainly fit the bill for me! It is a permanent fixture on my desk, with easy to follow instructions on everything from actually editing your photo to presentation & copyrighting advice. I do have another PE8 book (Simplified Tips & Tricks) which is also a helpful book but I do seem to find myself reaching for Scott & Matt's book time & time again. As for reviews that say it is a bit wordy...I for one like to know the reasons behind why I'm doing something, that way instead of having the book open in front of me all the time during editing I am actually learning the steps & hopefully will get to the point I don't need the book at all. My advice - BUY IT!

I have had this book for about 2 months, and still find it very hard to use. I am an Adobe Elements first timer, so I did not know how to use the software at all. I was looking for a book that would be a great step by step guide to doing the most basic editing - and while this book does cover a lot of what I needed, it was not an easy read. On paper, this book has it all - but in actuality I found the chapters too wordy and difficult to follow along. Not sure if there is a better book out there, but this one is definitely NOT for a beginner.

This is a good buy if you are a digital scrapbooker learning to use photoshop. Will greatly help you improve your photos and learn shortcuts. It does assume a little basic knowledge about photoshop in general, but overall gives very detailed explanations of each technique. Had the binding cut off and had it spiral-bound at Kinko's to make it easy to leave the book open beside me as I work. Really enjoying the book so far!

I debated between this book and "The Missing Manual." I ended up first purchasing the The Missing Manual. The difference is the The Missing Manual goes into more depth. Almost an informational, overwhelming, (I'll never be able to do this) overload. Scott's book is a cookbook...step-by-step instructions of the most popular applications. I actually have a library copy of Scott's book and am now going to go ahead and buy it. I agree with the posts here...if you are new to Elements and/or have not studied the software application at all - then this book could possibly be a tad difficult to understand?

With that, I found The Missing Manual was more difficult to apply the applications. With Scott's book I fairly easily was able to manipulate my pictures. Of course, I had the text book reading of the Missing Manual and a little bit of putzing under my belt too.

My best advise would be if you can afford 2 books to purchase... get Scott's book and then another in depth book to further "study." Connect the dots...so to speak.

Why 4 stars? Well...5 stars would be perfect and I don't feel this book was perfect, all around. It is a GREAT book and I really like Scott Kelby's talent and work. Definately a must have for your personal library.

I am a hobbyist photographer who has used Irfanview almost exclusively for editing photos. However I recently bought this book and Elements 8.0 at the same time. WOW! There is a steep learning curve. Scott doesn't pull any punches and, as he admits in the intro, he doesn't try to teach the "easy" stuff (as he says, this book is "the funk and not the junk"). BUT, the stuff he does teach is highly valuable. As a complete newbie to Elements, there is a very steep learning curve. However, there are lots of tutorials at the Adobe website to teach the basics (look for AdobeTV). What this book did was taught me the real fine points, in a practical and step by step manner. And it's not just a little bit of information, it's a TON of info... I keep going back to the book and trying different stuff with my photos: how to make a better grayscale, how to "polish" a studio shoot, how to do HDR in Elements, several different ways of sharpening and of removing blemishes, etc...

I have never commented on a book on Amazon before but this one was so good I decided to!

THANK YOU Scott!

I bought Elements 8 and soon realized that I needed help. This book teaches how to use Elements 8 to process images for exposure, lighting, color, contrast, sharpness, etc. Additionally, it teaches quite a number of creative techniques such as fixing mistakes and removing unwanted objects and people. The book teaches by walking through examples on a step-by-step basis. Of course, it can't show you how to solve every possible problem that way, but after a sufficient number of examples, you will start getting the hang of how to think your way through the next one. I now understand layers sufficiently to start solving problems on my own.

This is not intended to be a reference book nor a technical manual. One of those would be an excellent complement. Overall I give it a very high grade. I would definitely buy this book again and I recommend it for Photoshop beginners and intermediates.