The Hidden Power of Photoshop Elements 2

"The Hidden Power of Photoshop Elements 2" is really two products intertwined into one. The book goes over image editing by first addressing basic cleanup techniques, tone, contrast and sizing. Color editing is developed through RGB separations. Here the real value of Hidden Power comes through: Lynch provides tools (RGB separation, levels) in an included CD that add this capability thought to be available only in the full version of Photoshop.Other topics covered in the book are altering composition, shaping and replacing objects, vector art, printing (tools for CMYK separation are provided,) and web graphics, including animated GIF's.Hidden Power is well written and suitable as both a tutorial and reference.

I am a rank beginner to Photoshop Elements and photo enhancement. When I first started reading it, I was nearly scared off, as I didn't know what he was talking about most of the time. However, as he kept saying he would explain this later, I trusted that he would and so far I haven't been disappointed. I am in the process of working my way through the book and am learning more than I could imagine. I sometimes have to go through a lesson a few times to get it, but eventually if I follow the instructions closely, I figure it out. If there is something I can't figure out, there is a website... where one can get more information and ask questions. I am fully satisfied that I've gotten my money's worth with this book and the accompanying CD and would recommend it to anyone.

If you're upgrading from one of the ... beginners' image processing programs, and if you're serious about photography you should, "Photoshop 7.0" always comes out on top: the most power, the most sophistication, the best. But few of us can justify a purchase that great for a hobby. So "Photoshop Elements" looks tempting until you try it. Too many of the major tools of the full PS have been stripped out; you can't work with curves, make separations, look at individual color channels, etc., and that hurts.Well, it turns out you can do all that! Richard Lynch's outstanding "Hidden Power" provides a CD with plug-in tools for "Photoshop Elements" that virtually turns the simpler program into the full package -- at about a quarter of the price.If that were all Lynch's book did, I would give it 5 stars. But it isn't the whole story or even most of the story. The fact is that "Hidden Power" is just about the best explanation of what those tools do, how color imaging works, and how to use powerful tools to good advantage that I've ever seen. And I've read a lot in 10+ years of manipulating digital images. Finally, "Hidden Power" includes the most useful tool I've owned for getting past the hardest part: making your printed output look right without spending hundreds of dollars on expensive 'profiling' gear and software. It's a simple file, with the colors recorded in CMYK format, and it's the perfect calibration tool. In one evening it solved completely the difficult problem of getting predictable, neutral-color black and white prints.Kudos to Lynch. If you go for Photoshop Elements, you have to have "Hidden Power" to go along with it. Accept no substitutes. Give the book a sixth star.

I have learned more from the first few pages of this book than in three years of playing with images in Photoshop and Elements and using my digital camera. I started using the tools immediately after installing them from the CD -- they work right in Elements! The author answered my question about the installation directly. The person in that other review who had difficulty should contact him via the book's website hiddenelements.com, or by email, which you can find on the book's web site. The book starts with a great demonstration of how color works by showing you how to make a color image from some images shot before there was color film! Then you move right along into understanding how to separate channels -- and why you want to. I found that chapter on the Sybex website -- you can read the whole thing right there. It is why I got the book, and then I found what the tools could do! They really make the program much more like Photoshop! The examples in the book really drive the points home. All the images from the examples are on the CD, and the step-by-steps are easy to follow. It has some advanced technique, but it really doesn't seem hard the way the author goes through it. The best is, I have tried th techniques on my images and see immedate improvement. I love this book!

I use Photoshop at work as a graphic artist and just can't afford to buy it for home. I've been an Elements user for a while because of that, and this book is a godsend. I can do all the things I do at work, and all it cost was the upgrade to this book! The 'tools' from the CD (they seem more like time-savers) add in curves, channels, and lots of other stuff that I use at work but couldn't in Elements, till now. They install easily and what I need works like a charm. I am very indebted to the author, who not only saved me time and money, but showed me some great technique that I now use in Photoshop! I'd encourage any home designer to consider this as an option: get Elements and this book instead of Photoshop for use at home. If there are tools Elements is missing now that I have the book, I don't know what they are.It is a ten (or eleven!) star value.