PhotoShop Elements 6, the cookbook
Customer Rating: 
First the bottom line: I've had this book a few weeks now and I like it a lot. It has proved to be exactly the book I needed and it's small flaws don't keep me from both enjoying it and finding enormously useful. Well worth the money.
Who is the book for?
This is NOT a book for someone who is brand new to photo editing, nor would I recommend it for someone who is new to PSE. In fact, the author makes it quite clear that he's not going to tell you, for example, what the erasure tool does, he's going to tell you how to use it to get something accomplished. Also, if you're looking for a reference book on PSE I'd look elsewhere, the book's organization doesn't lend itself to that, though the index is good and the table of contents excellent for finding things.
So who is it for? Me. Okay, what I mean is this: I'm familiar with PSE but no expert, I know the general concepts, I can find most of the tools most of the time. What I need help with is putting those tools to use to get a job done. If that's you, quit reading and buy the book!
Pro: the good news
Basically, this is a project-oriented book. The authors lead you through how to do nearly everything that I can imagine (and a bunch I hadn't) with a digital image. Yes, they'll take you through the pretty basic stuff like cropping BUT they add in why to crop and some fundamental composition rules that will not just help you crop the image but make the image better. That's the goal--make your images better, more interesting and more satisfying to you and the audience. There's a good discussion of selection techniques--the sometimes tricky process of picking the parts of an image that need work. And there are chapters with fairly advanced (for me anyway) stuff relating to special effects, color management, and preparing your shots for a show. All along the way, there are step-by-step "recipes" for you to follow and many clever, time saving tips and tricks.
In short, the book is readable, thorough and it will help make your images better.
Con: the not-so-good news.
Others have commented about the often lame attempts at humor. Personally, I found it easy to ignore it but I agree that it's both lame and quickly annoying. Not bad enough to keep me from recommending the book tho'. I also agree with another reviewer's comments about the difficulty in reading the screen shot clips--but the dark background from PSE 6 is preserved and it makes seeing the too tiny text difficult. Mostly tho' I didn't need to read the text there to understand the point being made.
Pretty much, that's it for the bad news in my view. Enough to keep it from 5 stars but not enough to keep me from highly recommending the book. If your the target audience--Get It and enjoy!
Reviews Send to a Friend
