Rating: 
Summary: Give that man a cigar
Review: Scott Kelby has written the hands down best book for digital photograph retouching on the market. After working with photoshop for five years or so with a knowledge of it patched together from many different courses and books, I discovered Kelbys book. At last a book that teaches the things I want to learn, and only the things I want to learn. This is a strictly for digital photographers, graphic designers keep clicking this is not for you. But for photographers, buy this, download the images from his web site and then do the hundred or so lessons using the same photos he uses in the book, all supplied by big name photographers. When you are finished you will editing like a pro, nothing has made photoshop nearly as useful for me as has this excellent book.
Rating: 
Summary: Good for PS users, but not an intro book
Review: The book is definately worth the money, and it taught me a lot about using PS in digital photography. Photoshop CS is the first version I've really used other than extremely light touch-up work, and it's a LOT to get into. I didn't know anything about layers, levels, or any of the other terminology. I should have bought a companion PS book first, but live and learn. This is NOT a one-stop resource for people who haven't used PS before.STRENGTHS:
- Being able to download the stock photos for free and work along with the exercised helps a lot.
- Overall, a lot of "real world" type useful procedures.
- Fantastic color diagrams, examples, and notations throughout. A quality printing job; nothing cheap about it. WEAKNESSES:
- I realize Kelby is a legend in the world of PS, but I'd be happier with less smarmy "stream of consciousness" type prose and more classroom-type tone to the book. His classes may be great, but I'm sure I'd have wanted to strangle him after the first hour. It borders on being annoying when you're just trying to learn to use a program. Less cute, please.
- The book is VERY focused on portraits and other "people" pictures. I don't recall ANY nature or animal shots in the book, and relatively few landscapes. This book is worth every nickel in my opinion.
Rating: 
Summary: Save your money if you own the previous version
Review: The bottom line is: Save your money if you own the previous version of this book. Don't get me wrong, this book is a great book IF you don't own the previous version. If you want an update to CS, then this book does little more than repeat info from the user's manual. Scott does not seem to have any insight into using much of CS's new tools like RAW conversion or the Lens Blur filter. If you want to learn how to use the NEW tools in CS, wait for another book like "Real World Photoshop CS" to come out.
Rating:
Summary: Great Book, Easy Read
Review: This book by Scott Kelby is a full color book that basically teaches how to digitally work on digital photos within Photoshop. The book has very nice color pages and the material is easy to read and understand. The only complaint that I have about the book is that a lot of the tips within the book are the same tips. The main thing different about them is the procedure that you use to get there. I would not recommend this book for an advanced Photoshop user, but I highly recommend it for someone new to Photoshop.
Rating:
Summary: EXCELLENT
Review: This is an excellent digital photography dark room help book. Contains lots of the most useful and practical tips and tricks to master Photoshop in a very easy and graphical step-by-step way. You have to have some previous knowledge of Photoshop's basics, but, anyway, it's intended for intermediate to advanced users.
Rating:
Summary: This is it!!!
Review: This is definately a "Practical Book"Kelby is an outstanding teacher and gives you clear and detailed instructions to get a higher level in producing Photographs.I was a novice to PS CS until I tried out his techniques;even if you don't laugh with his"jokes" it's worth the buying.Look at the chapters it's all real and well explained.I downloaded the photos from his site so this is a good way to comparison with your own photos when you trie'd them out!His dirty tricks book is also worth his price.
In Belgium it's on his way to become a bestseller!Get on Scott!
Rating:
Summary: Superb ....
Review: This is my fifth Photoshop book, and I wish it had been my first. What were the problems in the earlier book? First of all, some had minimal use of color. Seems funny but I'm sure the publishers saved a ton of money by not using color, or using only a few insert pages for color content. For Photoshop this is silly. This book, like all the New Riders books apparently, uses full color. Second, a number of books use dreadful images as examples. Now the authors of these books are certainly photoshop experts, but apparently only use 'left-over' images from a previous family vacation in their books. Photoshop experts, but not expert photographers. Scott uses excellent images, most of which were contributed by friends who are excellent, professional photographers! Just browse... Third, the earlier books were often hard to read; small fonts, a ton of material, lousy layout. Sure they were comprehensive in coverage, but I think too much for a photgrapher. (I now have a good working knowledge of what features were added to every version of PS that ever was, and all about every digital camera the author ever owned. Didn't really need all that.) Scott's book is really fun to read. He uses humor well, has great images (downloadable from his site) as examples, and covers material needed to turn good photographs into great photographs. You won't find any information on shutter speeds, f-stops, selecting cameras, printers, etc, just Photoshop. Kinda respectful of the reader... If you're a photographer and you're going digital, you'll have some very specific needs; get Harald Johnson's book on printers and printing, and this book on Photoshop CS.
Rating:
Summary: The Adobe Photoshop CS Book for Digital Photographers
Review: We have bought many photoshop books, only to waste money. This was the best spent money when it came to photoshop. I was struggling with color correction for digital images and he explained it simply and before I knew it I was soaring through images. I have done many other techniques that he describes and he makes it so easy to follow. Thank you, Scott!
Rating:
Summary: For Mac Users only!
Review: What a disappointment. All of the screen shots are from a Mac, which is fine if you are a Mac user. For Windows users, it's just different enough to be confusing. I have used both so I can get by OK, but the person I bought the book for as a gift finds a lot of the examples useless because of the differences. A lot of the examples are weak. He tries to give detailed instructions on how to perform a task that usually only works for the specific example in the book. An example of this is the "Custom Grayscale Using Channel Mixer" section. The values used have to be different for every image. Other sections seem to be incomplete, such as the section on "Using the Lightness Channel". There are also some off the wall suggestions such as backing up your CF cards to CD every time you download them. Some people shoot far too many images daily for this kind of backup. If your digital negative are really that important to you they should be backed up to a separate physical disk drive, preferably on a different physical system, and then a periodic backup that is stored offsite. All-in-all, I would not recommend this book. I have other books by the same author. I purchased this book based on the excellent reviews of the previous versions of this book thinking this would be highly rated also...
Rating:
Summary: Not just for photographers
Review: Yes, I own virtually every design software reference book published, and this one is a standout! Well organized, simple, and easy to use, it doesn't leave my desk. I'm a designer, not a photographer, and it is extremely helpful it prepping, color correcting, and getting great effects. Would love to see so much more from Mr. Kelby in this same effective, easy to use style.
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