Create!: The No Nonsense Guide to Photoshop Elements 2

Rating:
Summary: Finally! Something we all can use!
Review: Finally a book we can use! We were amazed at the clarity of the information, easy to follow "plainspoken" approach, and great tips (you'll love the "facts" that pop up throughout)!

My wife and I have taken on the arduous task of archiving the family photos. We wanted to do this with a little flair and style, but found that our skill set wasn't up to our intentions. We've asked people for help. We've read books that were either over our heads or were more interested on being "wacky" and cool. We were at a loss.

This book is like having someone right there with you guiding you every step of the way. Specific information and instruction are easy to find, and the authors get right to their point. We've been able to clean up some old photos, adding cool effects that have left our family in awe. We also have a couple kids, and have used some of the tips we picked up to organize and energize our collection of their photos. The software is great, but we couldn't have found our way around it at all without this book.

Don't waste your money on other titles. This is the one and only source for any Photoshop Elements 2 user. It is clear, concise, and truly helpful. You'll be amazed with the things you are able to do.

Rating:
Summary: Finally! Something we all can use!
Review: Finally a book we can use! We were amazed at the clarity of the information, easy to follow "plainspoken" approach, and great tips (you'll love the "facts" that pop up throughout)!

My wife and I have taken on the arduous task of archiving the family photos. We wanted to do this with a little flair and style, but found that our skill set wasn't up to our intentions. We've asked people for help. We've read books that were either over our heads or were more interested on being "wacky" and cool. We were at a loss.

This book is like having someone right there with you guiding you every step of the way. Specific information and instruction are easy to find, and the authors get right to their point. We've been able to clean up some old photos, adding cool effects that have left our family in awe. We also have a couple kids, and have used some of the tips we picked up to organize and energize our collection of their photos. The software is great, but we couldn't have found our way around it at all without this book.

Don't waste your money on other titles. This is the one and only source for any Photoshop Elements 2 user. It is clear, concise, and truly helpful. You'll be amazed with the things you are able to do.

Rating:
Summary: An excellent guide to Elements
Review: Finally a computer book that gets it! When I bought my digital camera I didn't have any graphic skills at all and learning to use Photoshop Elements (which came with my camera) seemed very intimidating. But Create! cuts to the chase. It had me retouching my digital photos and preparing them for the web in to time flat. The writing is crisp and breezy and didn't treat me like a ten-year old (there's not a goofy pun anywhere in this book). There's just tons of easy-to-understand, useful, practical advice. In fact, I was amazed at everything they've packed into this slender book. It proves just how much useless chatter fills most other computer guides. This book gives you so much more for your money than the average software guide.

Bodenmiller and Simsic deserve credit for re-thinking what the computer book ought to be: short, inexpensive, and smart, with a beautifully designed interior that's simple, clean and uncluttered. And instead of organizing the book around the technical aspects of the software (much of which is meaningless to a novice), they've organized their book around accomplishing specific tasks. Yet they still manage to cover all of the cool features of Elements. I can't recommend this book highly enough to anyone who prefers a smart, plain=talking approach to software instruction. I absolutely loved it!

Rating:
Summary: Create!: The No Nonsense Guide to Photoshop Elements 2
Review: I almost decided not to pick up this book to review because it was a book about an Adobe Photoshop product. My comment is not meant to be negative. In my opinion Photoshop has a straight up learning curve. It is very time-consuming to learn. And it is very difficult to comprehend and put to use in everyday digital photography and image scanning without a lot of training. I own Photoshop 5.0 and Illustrator 8.0 and think they are both great softwares. However they are very intense programs to learn to use.

I had been searching for a simple, straightforward image editing software for my digital photos to use both personally and in my business. When I decided to review this book, I also decided to give Adobe the benefit of the doubt, so I bought a copy of Photoshop Elements 2 to go along with the book.

It was a huge surprise. Both the book and the software. What a great little "how to book" that gets you up and running very quickly. It is simple and direct. The first part of the book does exactly that...you are up and running with a few quick lessons on how to use the program effectively. The latter part of the book goes into more detail. They use a real pared-down and "let's get to the point" writing style which I enjoyed very much. The authors have really done a masterful job of making it easy to open up the software and begin to edit your digital images from the very beginning (page four). In fact, I was able to edit a number of my own photos very easily as I read the book and applied the instructions.

I discovered twenty-four "how to" books available on amazon.com for Photoshop Elements 2. Amazingly they range in price [greatly]this little gem [is] the least expensive one of them all. I also found the authors have written another book in the no nonsense series titled, "Start! The No Nonsense Guide to Mac OS X Jaguar".

I would definitely recommend the Photoshop Elements 2 software for anyone wanting a good, economical digital imaging software. An to get you started, I would highly recommend Create! to anyone who is thinking about doing image editing whether they are a novice or an experienced digital image editor. So Create!, it is worth the money!

Rating:
Summary: Create!: The No Nonsense Guide to Photoshop Elements 2
Review: I almost decided not to pick up this book to review because it was a book about an Adobe Photoshop product. My comment is not meant to be negative. In my opinion Photoshop has a straight up learning curve. It is very time-consuming to learn. And it is very difficult to comprehend and put to use in everyday digital photography and image scanning without a lot of training. I own Photoshop 5.0 and Illustrator 8.0 and think they are both great softwares. However they are very intense programs to learn to use.

I had been searching for a simple, straightforward image editing software for my digital photos to use both personally and in my business. When I decided to review this book, I also decided to give Adobe the benefit of the doubt, so I bought a copy of Photoshop Elements 2 to go along with the book.

It was a huge surprise. Both the book and the software. What a great little "how to book" that gets you up and running very quickly. It is simple and direct. The first part of the book does exactly that...you are up and running with a few quick lessons on how to use the program effectively. The latter part of the book goes into more detail. They use a real pared-down and "let's get to the point" writing style which I enjoyed very much. The authors have really done a masterful job of making it easy to open up the software and begin to edit your digital images from the very beginning (page four). In fact, I was able to edit a number of my own photos very easily as I read the book and applied the instructions.

I discovered twenty-four "how to" books available on amazon.com for Photoshop Elements 2. Amazingly they range in price [greatly]this little gem [is] the least expensive one of them all. I also found the authors have written another book in the no nonsense series titled, "Start! The No Nonsense Guide to Mac OS X Jaguar".

I would definitely recommend the Photoshop Elements 2 software for anyone wanting a good, economical digital imaging software. An to get you started, I would highly recommend Create! to anyone who is thinking about doing image editing whether they are a novice or an experienced digital image editor. So Create!, it is worth the money!

Rating:
Summary: jumps right in
Review: I love this little book! I have the "Visual QuickStart Guide" to "Photoshop for windows and mac" and I have just not been able to use it to get started with Photoshop. This little book (Create! no nonsense guide) is much less intimidating; it's much smaller (nice;) and the chapters are organized by simple sorts of tasks you'd wanna do in PhotoShop instead of by PhotoShop menus or building on PhotoShops tools/use from the ground up. This makes it a great book to get started with for even total beginners and after using this book to get started, I was finally able to dust off and begin using my "Visual QuickStart Guide" to look up more details on PhotoShop tips/tricks to build on.
By the way, I used this book to get started with PhotoShop 7 (not PhotoShop Elements 2) and it worked - examples are almost a perfect match down to the menus to pick etc:)
It's a great book for those without experience in typical Windows software menuing systems or image editing software, it starts ya out fast yet easy and explains enough background without overwhelming you with details.

Rating:
Summary: jumps right in
Review: I love this little book! I have the "Visual QuickStart Guide" to "Photoshop for windows and mac" and I have just not been able to use it to get started with Photoshop. This little book (Create! no nonsense guide) is much less intimidating; it's much smaller (nice;) and the chapters are organized by simple sorts of tasks you'd wanna do in PhotoShop instead of by PhotoShop menus or building on PhotoShops tools/use from the ground up. This makes it a great book to get started with for even total beginners and after using this book to get started, I was finally able to dust off and begin using my "Visual QuickStart Guide" to look up more details on PhotoShop tips/tricks to build on.
By the way, I used this book to get started with PhotoShop 7 (not PhotoShop Elements 2) and it worked - examples are almost a perfect match down to the menus to pick etc:)
It's a great book for those without experience in typical Windows software menuing systems or image editing software, it starts ya out fast yet easy and explains enough background without overwhelming you with details.

Rating:
Summary: Disappointing for advanced users
Review: I'm hoping this is a fair review and want to be clear that my rating is focused on advanced use. I had looked at the information for the book because of a recommendation from The Hidden Power of Elements 2 page which suggested this book was better. To me that means it has even more in it. Hidden Elements opened up new avenues for me in digital editing, and I was (greedily) looking for more, and couldn't imagine better, but was willig to give it a try.

This book has no additional tools, and almost nothing I consider advanced technique. I assumed there would be a CD and images, but should have known from the price. It is really a beginner's book that explores some very basic tools and how to use them, and there is no comarison at all to Power Eemlents. It is another in a long line of Elemnets books that lead you through the simple tools and how to apply them.

While this book may have some redeeming qualities for the beginner, I didn't think others should make the same mistake I did based on the other recommendation. And while I don't see that it is a bad book, I see very little that sets it apart from the Dummies book or something similar. If you are advanced, get Hidden Power, or even Katrin Eaismann's book on retouching.

Rating:
Summary: Read the manual
Review: No additional information, the book doesn't cover any new ground or offer any added value, the information is a recap of the manual...although in a abridged form, which may be better for some users

Skip this one, read the well presented manual.....