Elements - good guide?

[Simon_md]

Hi, just wondering if anyone can recomend a good guide or book to help get started with Elements.

Cheers,

[spinno]

The "Dummies" series of books are good for starters

[john_g]

I've got an earlier version of The Adobe Photoshop Elements 7 Book for Digital Photographers by Scott Kelby and have generally found it helpful and informative. Any gaps in its coverage I've been able to fill by finding answers on the internet.

But books - both the contents and the style - are so personal that I'd recommend looking at them in a shop rather than just chancing your luck online. With books of this type, I generally go into the shop with a few questions in mind and then see how each of the available books answers them

[Zou]

Get down to your local bookseller and just go through every single PSE book they have until you find one which (even at a browse) seems to answer questions you already have. I did just that, and I bought "Adobe Photoshop Elements 6 Maximum Performance" by Mark Galer, which I can heartily recommend. It explains how to actually use PSE to get results, unlike a lot of others I browsed and rejected which were more focused on beginners and how to use the preset tools/filters.

[Bruco]

I bought Adobe's own "Adobe Photoshop Elements 6 - Classroom in a book. It's aimed sqaurely at new users. I worked through the step by step lessons over two or three weeks and it's given me a great start on how to use the thing.

The PSE7 version is now available on Amazon for about £15

PSE 7 Classroom in a book

[Rupert49]

I would have no hesitation recommending any of Scott Kelby's books. Yes he can be a bit annoying with his limp attempts at humour, but his premise of showing you how to do stuff as if he was sat next to you, rather than spend time explaining in depth the theory and mechanical intricacies of the programme, really helped me get off the ground. His Photoshop books are beautifully laid out with easy to follow sequences that anyone can follow.

I tried a Philip Andrews book too, but found the layout to be a bit muddled and not so easy to follow. The 'Dummies' books are also a good introduction (apart from the weak attempts at humour once more; what is it with the Americans - even on the photo websites they can't resist trying to be funny?) but, as a beginner to photo-editing software at the time, I really wanted to see all this new stuff in colour.

Once you're reasonably confident with the basics of cropping, using levels, hue/saturation and unsharp mask, then is the time to delve a bit deeper and expand your knowledge and consequently your expertise.

Good luck!

[PhilW]

I would have no hesitation recommending any of Scott Kelby's books. Yes he can be a bit annoying with his limp attempts at humour,

I must be alone in enjoying his humour lol

And yes - his books are very useful.

[Benchista]

I would have no hesitation recommending any of Scott Kelby's books. Yes he can be a bit annoying with his limp attempts at humour,

I must be alone in enjoying his humour lol

Quite likely. Actually, it's fairly sophisticated for Septic humor.

And yes - his books are very useful.

They are that.