Photoshop Projects in Easy Steps

There are probably hundreds or thousands of books that can introduce you to the basics of photoshop. I selected this one because it was on sale for one dollar at the local bookstore. Nothing about it blew me away, but it did a very efficient job of providing a first experience that got me from an absolute beginner to a qualified amateur in just under a week. The authors focus on teaching through tasks rather than explanations. Readers looking for in-depth detail will be sorely dissapointed, but I found the hands on exercises more valuable for actually learning the obscure menu commands necessary to acheive significant changes to photos. The book tries to cover all of the basics of photoshop, but it's such a deep and complicated application that by the end there are entire menus and options that haven't even been mentioned, much less explained. Even some of the areas that have whole chapters feel as if they have been skimmed over - color and hue adjustments spring to mind. On the other hand, the chapters that cover the various methods of selection and image correction are very strong. Overall, the skills taught are perfect to enable a user to participate in online photo alteration contests on fark.com or worth1000.com. A word of warning: this book is a great introduction but it does focus on the manipulation of photos, so a reader who wants to learn skills related to image creation might investigate alternatives.