The Hidden Power of Photoshop Elements 3

This is a well written book on Photoshop Elements. It engages the reader and goes well beyond basic skills and informaion. Richard Lynch is a master not only in the use of PhotoShop and it's smaller sibling, PhotoShop Elements, but he is equally skilled as a communicator and illustrator of concepts. The CD that comes with the book adds features to PhotoShop Elements which boost the usefullness of the basic software and helpful excercises that enable the user to build skills. Highly Recommended!

This book provides great information on digital color reproduction and alteration.The book has many good examples for teaching techniques for digital photographic enhancement using Elements 3. The plug-ins are great! Well worth the $$ Best book I,ve found on digital imagery and Elements 3.

"The Hidden Power of Photoshop Elements 3" 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. One thing I wish I knew beforehand: if you already own "The Hidden Power of Photoshop Elements 2," you can buy the tools for Photoshop Elements 3 online for a lot less.

I wish I could give more stars to this book. I am new to Photoshop Elements and retouching photos in general. I have many old photos some of which have been through a fire and some that have associated water damage. I was able to repair these photos to look like new using the techniques and tools offered by Richard Lynch. One of the worst cases was a photo that was in an oval frame. The photo was badly faded, with a different level of fading in the region shadowed by the frame. Each of the three colors making up the picture had different levels of fading. On top of that, there was a rust stain around the oval where it had touched the photo. Although I did spend time on this photo, it was straight forward to repair with the techniques I learned from this book. The book is written almost like a text book. I found the lessons to be deep, but the text to be very well written and very concise. Mr. Lynch writes to teach and not to show how much he knows (although this is quite evident by reading the book). The book is not just how to use the tools supplied in Photoshop Elements 3, but is about obtaining a deep understanding of the makeup of an image and how to manipulate the image with the knowledge. Extremely impressive. At this price, it really is a gift from Richard Lynch! Thank you!

If you have Photoshop Elements 3, buy this book. I have the previous version of the book for Photoshop Elements 2. Had it not been for Richard Lynch and this book and the included tools, I would have upgraded to the full blown version of Photoshop long ago. Photoshop Elements 3 is a big improvement over 2 in my opinion. When combined with the tools that Richard Lynch provides with his book, Photoshop Elements 3 provides the entire photo image editing capability that I need.