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How to Cheat in Photoshop Elements 8: Discover the magic of Adobe's best kept secret ReviewHow To Cheat In Photoshop Elements 8, by David Asch and Steve Caplin, is the hidden manual for Adobe Photoshop Elements. Adobe creates some of the most incredibly powerful and versatile software. But where Adobe is long on features, they are often short on instructions. There is context based help, web based help, Adobe tutorials, and the like but they are often too diffuse or too complicated for the casual user. Asch and Caplin, however, have written a book that starts by teaching basic techniques and then goes on to combine these techniques into more advanced degrees of photo manipulation. The result is a book that is incredibly accessible to the beginner to intermediate user of Photoshop Elements. This book will help the user unleash the inner power of Photoshop Elements, really adding value to this powerful tool. I was surprised at just how fast I was able to learn how to do some very impressive things.
Asch and Caplin start with the most basic techniques. At first they introduce selection tools, how to work with layers, and basic blending. They slowly add layer masks, drawing, textures, more advanced image adjustment tools and then move on to more advanced photo manipulation techniques by combining the basic techniques in surprising ways.
What is amazing is simply how painless the whole process is for the novice. Everything is laid out in a stepwise fashion with illustrations for each step. Under each picture they describe how to perform what is shown in clear prose and always add the specific keyboard shortcuts for each manipulation. Although the instructions in the book are clear enough such that the book could stand alone, a CD is included with the exact pictures used for each lesson. To add even more value, there are video tutorials provided for many of the lessons in the book, just in case the written instructions weren't clear enough.
All this care leads to a manual that reveals the simplicity, rather than the complexity, of Photoshop Elements. In spite of being a novice, I was able to master the techniques in this book quickly and use them on my own photos. I was shocked at how simple all this really was. After almost giving up in trying to learn techniques from online tutorials, I had only very basic skills. With this book I was able to learn how to easily leverage the power of Photoshop Elements in a painless way. The instructions are crystal clear and leave little room for error.
Yes, it is possible to learn how to use Photoshop Elements with Adobe's online tutorials, help files, and third party sites. But none of these takes you through a logical, step-by-step tutorial the way Asch and Caplin do. None of these methods employs a stepwise approach to learning how to use Photoshop Elements or teaches complex things in such a simple way.
Asch and Caplin prefer keyboard shortcuts. They highlight Windows shortcuts in blue, Mac shortcuts in red, and those common to both OSs in black. Keyboard shortcuts certainly increase the speed at which you can use the program, but may be hard for some users to remember when Photoshopping on their own. The back flap of the book does provide a summary of the most used shortcuts, but it might have been useful to point out where the tool is on the menu bar and side bars as well.
This is also a book for the person who really wants to learn about Photoshop in more depth. Simple photo retouching is not addressed here. This book is more about photo manipulation than it is about retouching.
All in all, I am very glad I had the opportunity to review this book. Over a two week period, I have really enhanced my skills with Photoshop and would now consider myself to be an intermediate user. Oddly, the online tutorials make a lot more sense to me now that I have a basic understanding of how to really use this program. For the beginner or anyone who has ever been frustrated in attempting to learn how to use Photoshop Elements, this book is a godsend. Highly recommended.
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