Customer Reviews

Photoshop Elements 2 for Dummies

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Let's be honest... sitting down and reading any how-to book on any software application program can at times be dry, to say the least. Thankfully Deke McClelland and Galen Fott have taken PSE 2 and approached it with a sense of humor that makes reading their Dummies book quite enjoyable.

The authors have taken PSE 2 and broken the learning route into five different parts. Part 1: Element-ary School; Part II: Be Prepared; Part III: Realer Than Life; Part IV: The Inspiration/Perspiration Equation and Part V: The Part of Tens. The book starts by explaining the basic setup of PSE 2 and then continues on to explain the painting and image editing tools that make up PSE 2. As you continue through the book, you are taken through the steps of starting up PSE 2 and familiarization with the layout and dealing with dialog boxes, palettes and tools. Then the fun starts as they begin to get you involved with cropping, rotating, understanding color theory, color management and grayscale.

Both authors continue to walk the reader through all the aspects of PSE 2, dealing with each tool, layers, color replacement and variations, retouching images, and the use of painting tools. You are also taken to the land of TYPE and the use of the tools, editing and layers. Once you've worked your way through all of the basic aspects of PSE 2, you are brought to the point of learning the automated features that are contained in the program. The Effects palette, batch processing, attaching a file to email, creating a PDF slideshow, picture packages and Photomerge are some of the topics covered. They end the book by covering 10 important PSE 2 shortcuts for use by the reader.

The authors have even included a full color section so that the readers can see what you can achieve in PSE 2. Overall, with the tips, hints, points to remember, step by step process, the cheat sheet, combined with the humor that is included free, Photoshop Elements 2 for Dummies is a good buy for the beginner or for someone who wants to sharpen their skills.

MacMice Rating: 4 out of 5
Russ Walkowich

I have used and enjoyed several "for dummies" books in the (somewhat distant) past. However, I found the amount of "funny" material in this book distracting. I had to skim to get to the information I needed - by buying a Dummies book I was hoping to SAVE time. I am using "The Absolute Beginners Guide to Photoshop Elements 2" instead and find it much more straightforward and helpful.

(Based on the Dummies version for Photoshop Elements 1)
This is a wonderful book for explaining the workings of all the amazing tools available with Photoshop Elements -- and a steal at the bargain Amazon price. (How well you get on with Dummies cutesyness is your business).
However, in general it does not give one an overall sense of what makes for good photography with good image-editing. (Exception: with the blur tool it does explain that this can be used to help increase attention to the foreground). You may not be able to see the wood for the trees if you start here.
As a starting point the best book I have found is Bill Corbett, A Simple Guide to Digital Photography, which covers both taking photos and some important uses of Photoshop (notably the key Levels stuff).
I am taking the liberty of posting this against both versions of the Photoshop Elements Dummies book.

I don't really think of myself as a dummy, but I didn't know anything about this program. This book really helped me get going with it, and my pictures look great now. I recommend this book very highly.

I really like Deke McClelland's books. He's a great writer and makes his subject very understandable and approachable. If you're looking for a book to help you get started or move from beginner to intermediate user, I think it's very unlikely you'll find a better book...

I always had difficulty with the original manual. On a given subject it referred you to another place in the manual. The Dummies book does a better job of covering a subject in it's entirety. The index is also much better.

I learned a lot from this book and it really turned Photoshop from something intimidating into a very powerful tool that I now enjoy using. My photos are much better now and my wife is amazed at how well I can salvage seemingly "ruined" pictures.

I found this to be a good beginner's book. It covers a great deal of basic detail on colors, saving documents in different formats and polishing up photos. It provides a good mix of theory and practicality. My major criticism is that the author's attempts at humor were trite and excessive. Too much space was devoted to feeble attempts at humor instead of more solid information on filters, layers and tools.

I could not find anywhere in the book any good descriptions on using the tools. There is no reference at all to the clone stamp tool. I wanted help with this tool and there were no instructions.

Okay maybe it's just me but I liked the jokes in this book! But anyway I learned how to use Adobe Elements very well from this book, and I started out not knowing the first thing about photography. Now the program helps my pictures look great, and this book is responsible.