Scott Kelby

When you buy an expensive, professional program like Photoshop cS6, it is worth the time and expense to learn the ins and outs in an organized fashion. Sure, you can use what is self-evident and intuitive, but you won’t get anywhere near the full value of the product. Also, you will waste lots of time, unnecessarily.

Scott Kelby’s Photoshop CS6 book supplies this needed methodical training for digital photographers. The book is well made, with tons of enlightening, beautiful color photos show more printed on nice, glossy paper. The chapters allow you to pick and choose areas of expertise. You aren’t required to follow the book from A to Z. Instructions are clear and processes are broken down into logical steps that work. The “Photoshop Killer Tips” at the end of each chapter are worth the price of the book.

This book may be overkill for some. Not everyone shoots and edits video clips or creates HDR images (if you don’t know what they are you probably don’t need this chapter). However, the content provides enough valuable instruction to merit the purchase by amateurs, as well as professionals. For example, your female subjects would really appreciate retouching to soften skin and remove blemishes but also to sharpen and add contrast and brightness to eyes, eyebrows and eyelashes. Also, if you don’t know how to use “content-aware fill” you’re missing something very important!

A nice extra is that Kelby has a sense of humor, and incorporates a tough of weirdness in this book. Each Chapter has a short intro that really doesn’t relate to the Chapter. These few paragraphs are a bit of Kelby’s “stream of consciousness.”

Note: the introduction preceding Chapter one entitled, “Seven Things You’ll Wish You Had Known Before Reading This Book,” gives you a link to the Kelby Training website where you can download images allowing you to follow along with the book, at no extra cost, of course. This eliminates the need for including a CD in the book, and vastly improves the instruction. show less

I recently purchased a very nice digital camera as a reward to myself for paying off the last penny of my grad school loans. I'd been lusting after something sleek and sexy for awhile, so as soon as it came in, I zipped through some recommendations and ordered half a dozen books to teach me all the tips and tricks I'd never pick up on my own.

Scott Kelby's two books (he actually has three, but I've only read the first two) are delightful and immensely helpful. They're designed for show more pseudo-beginners - it's probably good if you know a /little/ about how cameras work in principle, but not necessary. He says that he's going to treat the book as if you're out on a shoot with him, asking how to get certain effects, and he'll give you practical, useful answers.

He does. The chapters are clear, the hints, tips, and tricks short and easy to read (making it ideal for reading with your camera next to you, so that you can try things out instantly), and his tone, while occasionally verging on the cheesy, is amusing and light. He'll do everything from tell you how to get a great portrait to give you advice on framing landscapes to avoid an amateur look.

Perhaps the best and most unexpected benefit is that Scott will tell you how to actually /work/ your camera, if it's a Nikon or Canon (there are actually pictures of many of the menus) and opened up my eyes to a billion tiny settings that my last manual camera (not a digital) didn't even dream of being able to have. He de-mystified white balance, highlights, framing grids, and a dozen other new-to-me capabilities of my camera.

If you're looking to get started on digital photography with a camera that does more than point and shoot, you can't go wrong with these books. And while I found vol. 2 to be a tiny bit repetitive, there was more new inside than old, and I'd recommend both equally. show less

I recently purchased a very nice digital camera as a reward to myself for paying off the last penny of my grad school loans. I'd been lusting after something sleek and sexy for awhile, so as soon as it came in, I zipped through some recommendations and ordered half a dozen books to teach me all the tips and tricks I'd never pick up on my own.

Scott Kelby's two books (he actually has three, but I've only read the first two) are delightful and immensely helpful. They're designed for show more pseudo-beginners - it's probably good if you know a /little/ about how cameras work in principle, but not necessary. He says that he's going to treat the book as if you're out on a shoot with him, asking how to get certain effects, and he'll give you practical, useful answers.

He does. The chapters are clear, the hints, tips, and tricks short and easy to read (making it ideal for reading with your camera next to you, so that you can try things out instantly), and his tone, while occasionally verging on the cheesy, is amusing and light. He'll do everything from tell you how to get a great portrait to give you advice on framing landscapes to avoid an amateur look.

Perhaps the best and most unexpected benefit is that Scott will tell you how to actually /work/ your camera, if it's a Nikon or Canon (there are actually pictures of many of the menus) and opened up my eyes to a billion tiny settings that my last manual camera (not a digital) didn't even dream of being able to have. He de-mystified white balance, highlights, framing grids, and a dozen other new-to-me capabilities of my camera.

If you're looking to get started on digital photography with a camera that does more than point and shoot, you can't go wrong with these books. And while I found vol. 2 to be a tiny bit repetitive, there was more new inside than old, and I'd recommend both equally. show less

Fun little book. Kelby saturates the content of this book with his goofball humor, explaining in very conversational terms how to take better digital photos, even if you're not a professional photographer. As he explains in his introduction, Kelby approaches all of the topics of his various chapters as if you and he were out on a photo shoot and he was trying to give you some advice on the fly.

My only complaint is that in the corner of the front cover of the book, it says "Great for show more point-and-shoot digital cameras, too!" and I didn't really find that to be the case. 95% or more of his helpful hints are for owners/users of Digital SLRs. Since all I've got so far is a pocket digital, I don't think I'll be able to apply much of what he discusses. But...it was still a fun and helpful book to read! show less