I have been researching current Photoshop related books as I prepare to write my own.  My research brought me into a local book store where I was flipping through their collection.  I came across a Scott Kelby book and after flipping through it, the book made its way to the register and on to home.

When I mentioned buying a Photoshop book to a few friends, they looked a bit shocked and said “What the hell do you need a Photoshop book for?”  While I do not proclaim to know every last detail about Photoshop, I do consider myself very comfortable within the program.  Still, that does not imply that I am beyond learning anything new with the program.  Scott Kelby’s Photoshop CS for Digital Photographers has proven that to me with almost every chapter.

To back up a step, for those that do not know who Scott is, I offer this (from Amazon.com):

Scott Kelby is President of the National Association of Photoshop Professionals (NAPP), the trade organization for Adobe Photoshop users, with thousands of members in the US and 63 countries. Scott is Editor-in-Chief of both Photoshop User magazine and Mac Design magazine. He serves as training director for the Adobe Photoshop Seminar Tour and is the technical chair of the largest Photoshop gathering, Photoshop World. Scott is one of the leading Photoshop trainers in the country today and trains thousands of Photoshop users across the country each year, and is featured in a series of Photoshop training videos.

Rated highly on Amazon, it was easy to see why.  This if my first Kelby read and I found his style of writing uncomplicated and very simple to follow.  His periodic injections of humor were a subtle touch as well and appreciated.

So was the book worth the money?  Every penny.

As I move my freelance work more toward photography and creative imagery, I have been processing several model shoots.  After reading this book, it made me want to go back to all previous shoots before buying the book and reprocessing them.  The portrait touch-up section of the book has proven to be invaluable and I was immediately able to apply the techniques in both my regular job and freelance work.  Sure, there was some material that was not new to me.  That is always bound to happen when you have been using a certain application for as long as I have.  But even when some of the sections covered items that I thought I already knew, Kelby took it into a little bit different direction often times giving me a new and more efficient way to accomplish a task.

One of the best aspects of the book is the use of short cuts.  The more I use Photoshop, the less I know where certain menu items are.  I memorize the short cut keys and rely heavily on them.  There were two shortcuts in particular (and I won’t mention them because you need to go buy the book) that have already saved me in the time department.

With each new version of Photoshop, I can see how it would be helpful to pick up a book relating to the tasks you wish to achieve.  As I venture more and more into photography, books such as Photoshop CS for Digital Photographers are just the right tool to stay up to date on the applications you use as well as continue to learn new and more effective ways to get the job done.