Rating: 
Summary: I thought it would fly but...
Review: I had very high expectations of this book based on the reviews I read so I bought it. It is a lot better than the User's Manual that came with PSE 2.0 but it is not "the one" that an "advanced beginner" like myself would need. Mikkel Aaland needs to expound more on "what happens in the background when you do this..." The Missing Manual people will do better job the way these group prepare a book.
Rating: 
Summary: Great value !
Review: I have recently purchased a Canon D60 which came with Adobe Photoshop Elements. As a first time user to the software, I purchased Mr. Aaland's book - "Photoshop Elements Solutions: the Art of Digital Photography". I found the book to be enormously useful - comprehensive and clearly written. The images on the CD and the book (full colour throughout) made following the examples a breeze. Adobe should ship this book with each copy of its software! Strongly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: This book helped me bridge gap from print to digital...
Review: I just picked up a copy of Mikkel's book to help me deal
with my recently purchased Nikon D100 camera.I want to say how helful this book has been. I put
advice on adjustment layers to immediate use ... as
well as the great suggestions on preparing test
strips ... I had been perplexed on how to deal with the old,
familiar techniques I used to apply in the darkroom to
digital images back in my old Nikon F days... I've
been out of the darkroom for several years.... This book came to the rescue!
Rating:
Summary: Very Helpful Book
Review: I like this book a lot. I am new to Photoshop Elements and have found it very helpful. It has an excellent index and the instructions are clearly written. It comes with a CD which I haven't yet investigated but there appears to be a lot of helpful tools on it - plugins, utilities. The book also has a wonderful feel to it and the pages stay open - you can put the book on your lap while working along with it on the computer and the pages won't flip away from the one you are looking at. I feel as though I got my money's worth with this purchase.
Rating: 
Summary: good book, but not much difference from earlier version
Review: I will be honest, and try to save some of you photoshop wannabes some $. Essentially, this book is a good read. recently, I read the first version, 'photoshop elements solutions (2001)' and was smitten by it. So much so that i wanted to see how the 2003 version for elements 2.0 went. My only fear was that the book would not be much different from the earlier version. Previewing the content page gave me hints, but i thought, 'this is version 2, so it should be all new stuff right?' So, i read the reviews, and based of some other review (wonder who is the joker that wrote it...) who said that it was vastly different and much better than version 2001, so I bought it. Alas, my fears were realized. 95% of the content is reused. some pictures may have been enhanced, but clearly the content is the same. I will admit that the 5% updates were new stuff, and good tips. But for 5% more content, doesn't quite justify buying it if you had the first version. Bottom line: if you are new to photoshop elements, this is the book for you. If you have read his earlier classic, you will be disappointed.
Rating:
Summary: A mixed bag
Review: I've been searching for a Photoshop Elements book that has all of the following: (1) an attractive layout; (2) color photographs directly accompanying the text (most such books just have a few color photos in a separate section); (3) clear and thorough explanations in plain English. This book beats the competition handily on the first two counts but, regrettably, falls down on the third. I had high hopes because the book looks great and the introduction says that you only need a basic familiarity with computers. However, far too often it fails to explain the principles behind the steps it describes in the various exercises. For example, in one of the earliest exercises, it introduces the gradient tool and describes relevant settings, but never explains the fundamentals of the gradient tool, or why those particular settings were chosen. I therefore came away from the exercise with no better understanding of how to apply the gradient tool to my own photos (What does "foreground" mean? What's the significance of the "linear" setting? What's a "blend mode"?). In the same exercise, use of a paintbrush is referred to without any explanation of how to use the paintbrush yourself. I repeatedly encountered exercises in which similar concepts are introduced but inadequately explained - in another section, when the Unsharp Mask filter is introduced, no explanation is given for what the "Amount" or "Radius" settings represent (ironically, in many of the same exercises, very thorough explanations of other tools and methods are provided). I have far more than a basic knowledge of computers, yet I often found myself referring to other sources for a better understanding of Photoshop's tools and a better understanding of the methods presented in this book. This doesn't mean that the book isn't useful - it can be very useful, its layout is a pleasure to look at and a model for other books of this type, and for that I recommend it. But if you're a novice and you want to develop a working knowledge of Elements, you'll probably need other, more thorough references to supplement it. This is unfortunate because the book is outstanding in so many other respects. I definitely recommend using the practice images on the CD as you read - you'll absorb much more that way. The CD is not OS X native, but you can load the CD, open Elements in OS X, and open the CD's images from the File menu.
Rating: 
Summary: SAVE YOUR MONEY
Review: I've seen the author on TechTv explaining tips with Photoshop Elements...he's good. But, he wrote the book like you already know most things instead of a step by step approach. I've taught myself more just by using Photoshop 6.0 and Photoshop Elements through trial and error. Look for another author or go to a book store and look through one of these books to see if it will help you. This author can't even explain the red eye tool...I learned on my own. Bottom line...I threw the book in the recycling container.
Rating: 
Summary: Visually pleasing but lacking substance
Review: It is tempting to look at this book and its many colorful images and pleasing layout and expect a good informative read. I found, however, that it is not really suitable for use as a guidebook either for novices or for experts. If you are looking for a book that tells you how to use the program, look elsewhere. The author provides many step-by-step examples of how he does things, but provides no background whatsoever on the tools he uses, why he uses them, and what they really do. You really cannot *understand* the program using this book, so its not for beginners. For experts, the how-to steps are probably not advanced enough. All of which leaves the reader wondering exactly who this book is targeted at.
Rating:
Summary: OK but not great
Review: My first impression of this book was more positive. The book makes a very good initial visual impression. After learning more about Photoshop Elements from other sources and trying to use this book I started to see the weaknesses of the book. One thing that attracted me about the book was the beautiful layout and graphics of the book. But it is not all that clear in its explanations, the examples seem more oriented to commercial photographers and some rather oddball uses and techniques. Many of the techniques could be done in other ways that are more basic to understanding Photoshop Elements. I wouldn't recommend this as your only book. It could be a good supplement but I suspect there are plenty to choose from. Quickstart Visual is an excellent basic book and I suspect that the Missing Manual folks will do a good one as well. This book does have some good information but it doesn't cut it as a stand alone book for PSE. I'd probably give it 2 and one half stars. Included software does not work in Mac OS X.
Rating:
Summary: The Number One Choice for Learning Elements!
Review: Photoshop Elements can be a daunting program for a new user, but there's help out there in the form of "Photoshop Elements 2 Solutions", by Mikkel Aaland. The earlier version of this excellent book was my first purchase after acquiring Elements, and it turned out to be a very fortunate choice. The book takes you gently and carefully through all the key tools and processes of Elements, guiding you through a combination of clearly written text and easy-to-follow examples. The depth is just right for a new user, yet it's also a book that an intermediate user will return to again and again as new editing challenges arise. After getting up to speed with the first edition and Elements 1.0, I moved up to Elements 2.0 and, once again, Mikkel Aaland was there with a revised edition of his classic. The treatment of the differences between the versions is particularly good, highlighted by a comprehensive summary of the changes that provides a quick overview of what's new and improved. As a participant on Adobe's Photoshop Elements forum, I'm often asked to recommend a book to new users of the program; my answer is always the same: "Solutions" by Aaland.
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