i could never have mastered photoshop elements without it, very helpful and a simple read.

The book is well written,with a lot of information, however I am very disappointed as it is not a step by step tutorial, as I believed it would be. Yes, there are downloadable files/photos, but there is no step by step instruction to go with the photos throughout the chapters.

If you are not looking for a tutorially written text, and just want dry information on how everything works in Elements, then you will be happy with this nicely formatted book.

I bought this to help me learn Photoshop Elements. Since getting a digital camera a few years ago & not having to pay for film mistakes anymore, I have taken a new interest in photography. I decided to invest in a good quality editing program but I hate having to rely on onscreen help to get somewhere. This is a very thorough (I think) chapter by chapter explanation of Elements 5.0 & it answers most of my questions. I would hate to be without it, even though I don't use it daily. It is a large book with plenty of color illustration and written very simply. It's not 100 percent comprehensive but there is very little that isn't covered - well worth the price.

This book is the most complete manual on a very useful program. I have yet to encounter a question this book does not fully answer.

I like the book, but currently have a library copy for my reference. I have only one negative comment. When the author starts to describe an action or step, suddenly she will veer off on a tangent, leaving me wondering where the rest of the text is ....oh, there it is, 2-3 paragraphs later. She really wants you to know all she does about Elements. I will be purchasing my own copy shortly regardless as I do think it is probably the best on the subject

This book is written so well and makes learning PhotoShop Elements much easier. If I had to depend on the instructions that came with the software I would still be in the dark. If you purchase it, you will not be disappointed.The color pictures in the book are also a welcome addition.

This book is a wonderful reference manual but it really isn't for a person who is new to PSE5. A definate must for experienced PSE5 users, but if you are looking for a quick and dirty "how to" guide then maybe this book isn't the best one for you....but you will benefit from it later when you are ready to dig deeper into the features and facilities offered.

This is the most comprehensive "manual" for Photoshop Elements 5 that I have seen. I looked at "Classroom in a Book" (Adobe)- good, and "The Photoshop Elements 5 Book" by Scott Kelby - better but the "Manual" is best. It is written in simple to understand terms. I would recommend it for beginners. Advanced users can use "The Manual" as a reference.

Photo Shop Element 5.0 has helped me develop my photos in a slide show that is attractive and interesting.

After trying to get through five other photoshop elements books, I found this one: the first that makes sense both in terms of its methods and instruction and its explanation about what features are worth using and which can be avoided. Perhaps because the author is a graphic artist and not a photographer has helped her see the program with a more objective eye.

Hello,
I am pleased this book is available. I have learned several tips! I do find tutorials much more helpful for me. I like having this book as a reference. It is much better than using the Adobe help section.
Good luck in learning Photoshop Elements. I guess you know that the new version 6 is available now.

The book is excellent. Easy to read and understand and has addressed all of the questions or problems I have encountered in Photoshop Elements 5.

I never take the methodical approach to learning anything. After installing Elements 5, I sat down with The Missing Manual and a few photos and began editing. It was fairly easy to consult the index and then read the pages necessary to change my photos. I skipped around the book from back to front and in between. The resulting photos were surprisingly good.

I'm not recommending this learning process, but if you want to just jump off the deep end and begin editing, it is doable. When time permits, an organized and careful reading will no doubt produce even better photographic results. In the meantime, I find reading a few pages and just experimenting with my pictures is a lot of fun.

Two important things to remember: Don't be intimidated by the size of this manual. It contains everything you wanted to know and a lot of stuff you don't want to know. Skip the latter. Next, always make a copy of your original photo and edit the copy. This way, you can be fearless in your experimenting always knowing that the original is unharmed and ready to supply endless copies for you to play with.

The complaint I have about The Missing Manual is the quality of the photo-examples printed in the book. Not the fault of the author. The printing quality is just very, very poor. The book would have earned 5-stars from me were it not for the paper/print quality.

Excellent book for learning the basics of Photoshop Elements 5. Well organized and easy to follow.

This is a must have. Covers everything the other manuals miss, and gives pertinent information others miss. Well written, easily followed and understood. Pick a topic and go, or read it from front to back.

Lots of information but some of it assumes you already know how to use it. Can get to what you want to do with some digging.

I did quite a bit of research on Elements 5.0 books, and I ended up choosing this one because of the great reviews it had gotten. Excellent choice! The book is very easy to understand, and I can't imagine tackling Elements 5.0 without it. It gave me the good start I needed in understanding and effectively using the software. Barbara Brundage is an excellent author. She's great at writing in a way that gives you the info you need while avoiding the techno-speak that many software developers use. If you have Elements 5.0 and need a good reference....or a good way to start using the software...this is your book.

Ok, I'm not the professional photographer and having said that, I'm not the editing guru either. So, I bought photoshop elements 5.0 for my computer which runs vista, it runs great. I'm sure i have only touched on a small part of the of the software, because it's a bit overwhelming at first, this book helps take care of that feeling. I came across this book and WoW, now i get it. Good luck with the book. I go to the chapter that i need help with during my editing mess. haha... Amazon you rock!!!

I have read several books on editing photos and I have found that Photoshoshop and the missing maual goes step by step with the software in easy sef ecplainable senteneces tha even a necomer can understand.

This book explains all of the wonderful features of the program but does not explain HOW TO USE THEM. An example is the chapter on layers, the author states that "layers are easy to use once you understand how they work" and then goes on to describe all the features of layers - she leaves out one important item - HOW TO USE THEM. I just wasted an afternoon.

I bought two books -- one by Scott Kelby, and this book -- "Photoshop Elements 5 the Missing Manual" by Barbara Brundage.
After reading Kelby's, I opened The Missing Manual book by Brundage. I never look back. Brundage is not only a lot better, it is in a different league. This is the standard all other Photoshop learning book should copy.

Get the Missing Manual. You will never regret it.
I regreted buying the Kelby book. It is up for resale.

Before I purchased this book, I tried to use the help features, but I couldn't get anywhere. Once I started to read this book, I began to make some progress as well as learn things I didn't plan on learning. I've only begun learning Elements, but all I need is there to learn as much as I wish when I have the time to do so. Before this book, I began to wonder if I ever could learn Elements 5.

Buy it if you own Elements 5. It's helpful from A to Z.

I bought this book to try to squeeze all I could out of Elements before I move on to the full Photoshop. I have been very happy with what I have learned so far. I decided to read even the parts in which I felt quite accomplished and found many helpful hints that I did not realize existed.
The book is easy to read and certainly not over my head, however, I have read that some found it too complicated. I would say if you don't know the basics of using a computer then you might need some additional help.
Elements is my first photography program, so I am no expert. I think this book will save me the price of moving up to the full blown version, and the trouble of taking courses to learn it.

This book is well written and very inclusive of needed information, however, I am new to Elements 5 and it is more than I can handle at this time. It would have been nice for the author to have started from the easiest to the hardest information, but I find she is forever jumping around and forever sending me to other pages to understand the section I am now reading?????

When trying to locate a task I want to do on Elements, I can never find a reference for it in the index.

I would very much recommend this book to anyone who has had experience with other editions of elements, but not for those of us just starting out. I will keep this book as a great resource for future reference, but I think I need to purchase another book that can dummy this info down for me. LOL. Hummmmm, and here I thought I was a fairly intelligent person??? Surprise!!!!

If you've used Photoshop Elements 2, then you have some background for Elements 5. I figured it took me a full week of reading and computer operating to be comfortable with the updated program. I still have a lot to learn. I looked at a number of books on Elements 5, and for me here are the top two: one by Scott Kelby (with his strange sense of humor) and the other by Barbara Brundage. Both books are priced the same. Scott Kelby's has 487 pages and is printed on a semi-gloss paper. He also includes a camera target for highlight, raw white balance, midtone (grey), and shadow (black). The Brundage book has 554 pages printed on smooth paper which I prefer because it is easier to pencil in notes or underline items for future reference. Color reproductions with both books is excellent, with the edge to Kelby. Unless you set your digital camera on automatic, you probably need to have your camera instruction manual close by.
The same holds true for the Adobe Elements Program. You can catch on to the basics pretty fast, but you need the Elements 5 book on your lap when you're working with the computer. I also printed a number of pages from the instructions included with the Elements program, but when you condsider the time factor, the cost of ink and paper, you're better off buying the book.

This book was delivered many weeks after ordering. Although the original order showed a shipping date between X and Y, I thought it was just a CYA in case of a shipping delay. I did not know that Amazon did not have this item available for immediate shipment.
Amazon's price seemed a balm for the delay however.

This is an excellent, well written and complete manual to help anyone to use their Elements 5 program. I would recommend it to anyone even if they've used Elements 4 (as I have)because it has many more helpful tips and examples.

Hey Susan-I feel your pain!! But don't remove Elements from your computer!! I felt the same way about this book, and attempted to read it cover to cover before I decided to try some of the examples. I too think this book is too complicated for someone who has not learned all the tools. Although, you can refer to it after you have began to explore a little on your own in Elements. You should try the "Elements 5 Restoration and Retouching Book" I think you may get more from it - read my review.

I found this book to be just as confusing as Photoshop Elements. I wanted step by step directions, starting with how to get the pictures from the camera into the program, and building to sophisticated projects. I can't even follow this book to save my pictures in folders; what I've got is a mess! After several frustrating hours, the book is now sitting on my bookshelf collecting dust, and I'm thinking about deleting Elements from my computer. Sign me
Disappointed

This book is well worthwhile. It has a huge amount of information in it, and is organized well enough that you can easily find what you need. PS Elements is a great, but complicated program, and this helps make sense of it all.

It is not my first book on this subject, but it is the one I use the most.

JD

This publication is the a must for "Photoshop Elements 5" users and has become an improtant complement to the ".....Classroom in a Book". It is presented in an format that makes it more for the advanced user of the software. This book has also become a reliable source of information for me while I am using the software without having to go to the "Help" pulldown during a operation in progress.

This really should be included with the program. Shame on Adobe for not including it. This book is the best and I never read manuals. It is easy to read and I didn't need the software in front of me to understand the topics. It helped that I had some time working with the software but I most often read about a tool at night and then test it the next day. It's in color which helps a lot too. By reading start to finish I learned things about Photoshop that I probably would have missed by just playing with the software. I love this book and carry it with my laptop where ever I go. The two are inseparable!

The solid volume is clear and explicite and could be a competent guide for someone familiar with the previous editions and the particular approach used by ADOBE. For users more familiar with JASC, ACDS, etc.the learning curve has a number of bumps. In general, the text is prolix and a reasonable "compression" could be applied, without losses and with appreciable benefit. To increase its practical value an APPENDIX, containing the schematic of the few dozens of most frequent operations will avoid time consuming search and simplify the use of multiple options.

I haven't even read half of this book and I've already gotten my money's worth. I'm considered by my co-workers and family members to be quite computer savvy. However, I learned from one of the first chapters of this book that every time you re-save a jpg file, you lose information, thus degrading your photo quality. This is a huge revelation for me, and I can't wait to read the rest of the book to see what other great tips I can find. This book is very well written, loaded with technical information, but written in a way that makes it enjoyable.

This is not actually a comment on the manual, but rather one on Amazon (like they car). I ordered this, plus five other items, through Amazon and their "free shipping" status waaaaayyyyyyback in January. Four items came - by the slowest boats, hey okay, shipping was free - but this item has yet to arrive - eight weeks later. It truly is, for me, "The Missing Manual". Imagine my surprise when Amazon requested that I "rate" this "purchase" (which is EXACTLY what I am rating). I really am wondering what I'm missing! Thanks for reading this. I'm going back to my account now to see if they think they actually sent it ....yet.....

I am a new Elements user, therefore this book is not a good choice. Although it is loaded with information, the how to's are extremely confusing and not very clear. In my opinion it skips around to much. In one chapter you are learning layers and the next chapter you are retouching photos. It does have good suggestions for further information on the web, which I have gone to and has been helpful.

Having used software guides since the early 80's, I found the comfortable readability of this book to be a very pleasant surprise. Since software application and programming guides are designed to be helpful technical resources, they are usually dry and end up on a shelf to be pulled out when needed. But this book held my interest for five straight chapters, and through many other sections as well. Brundage's precise and friendly writing style, without being flip or condescending, her abundance of rich illustrations, and her thorough coverage, created a new appreciation for the endless possibilities of Photoshop Elements 5.

Another key to maintaining interest is the author's use of beautiful, full-color photos to demonstrate Elements' features and capabilities. She often suggests that the reader download the same photo from the Missing Manual web site to give the tool a try.

Also, Brundage regularly provides cross-references to pages containing more advanced material on the present topic or tool. Also, she frequently lists page numbers for other ways of accomplishing the same goal with a different tool. As a result, she can maintain a steady flow of new content without having to exhaust every subject when first introduced.

Through regular use of quarter or half-page boxes with such titles as: Up to Speed, Power Users' Clinic, Frequently Asked Question, Information Station, Gem in the Rough, Compatibility, Troubleshooting Moment, Workaround Workshop, On the Web, Under the Hood, In the Field, etc. the writer provides answers, hints, tips, technical information, web information, etc. that is not only helpful, but interesting.

Brundage begins with a helpful overview of the Editor and Quick Fix features and capabilities. Then she walks the reader through these from the simplest to the more complex-from simple rotation and cropping to layers, filters, and masks. In later chapters she covers the use of the Organizer, printing, slideshows and flipbooks, and adjusting images for the web or email.

A short resources chapter at the end covers the use of graphics tablets, Internet resources, and helpful Elements plugins. Two comprehensive appendices show and briefly explain every menu and sub-menu in the Organizer and Editor, while a third appendix deals with installation and troubleshooting issues.

One of the most important features of any software guide is a comprehensive index. When I experience a problem using an application or programming tool, I expect to quickly find relevant answers in a book devoted to that product. The Missing Manual has yet to disappoint me in this regard. For example, I recently wanted to know if the "Process Multiple Files" dialog I had opened would overwrite the original image files.

I first selected the Index Tab in Element's Help window, but couldn't find this capability listed under any of the relevant letters. Next, entering "process multiple" in the Help Search Box took me to this topic, but Adobe's one-page explanation failed to answer my question.

Later, at home, I easily found the entry "Process Multiple Images" in the index of The Missing Manual. It pointed to the first of seven pages of description and screen shots that answered my question and thoroughly covered this topic.

I very highly recommend this book for its readability, comprehensive coverage, and extensive resources.

Reviewer: Chuck Thomas, VP of Technology, Bowling Green Area Microcomputer Users Group

Excellent book on learning to use Element 5. 5 star plus

One of the best users manuals I've found. Very clearly written with good illustrations. Highly recommend for people who like to read about their software rather than just trial and error.

This is a great reference. However, I was searching for a tutorial that would explain how to do everything in easy-to-understand steps that could be purchased for the classroom. I am now writing that tutorial.

The best book I have read on Photoshop! It is READABLE and fun to read and it really explains things very well. I have been using Photoshop 7 for years but got Elements 5 for the shadows-highlight and other tools which PS 7 does not have. Reading this has shown me many little things and options in Photoshop that I had not been aware of. A great book. Buy it!

This product is SO much fun but it is also a lot of work to learn. I was used to another program so it is taking awhile for me to learn this one, but so far so good. I love all the options it has! I have already organized so many of my photos and made several projects and I have only had it a few weeks! Good buy!

I purchased PS Elements 5.0, upgrading from a different program entirely. I didn't have a clue where to begin and knew I needed a book. After researching on which one was "the one", I decided on "The Missing Manual". I read the entire book, and now it is a reference as I work in the program. It is well written, detailed and has a wealth of information. I highly recommend this for anybody trying to learn this program.

I purchased both the Elements/Premier software combo and this manual at the same time. Having made several attempts at using Photoshop without any truly productive success, I have now found a software/manual combination that works. The manual is set up without a requirement to work in any set order. Turn to what you want to do and get started. I'm very pleased with this product.

This user-friendly manual is outstanding. If it is typical of others in the series, the series can't be beat. I'll never buy any other manual series than "The Missing Manual" series.

I was surprised when I received this manual that it was almost two inches thick and contains over 500 pages. It does a thorough job of explaining all the features of Photoshop Elements 5 in a easy to understand manner. It is highly recommended that you purchase this book or one like it to supplement the limited manual shipped with Elements 5.

Excellent Manual. This is a great companion to excellent software. Easy to understand with helpful downloads from the Missing Manual Website.

Excellent book to help the user dive into the many features of Adobe Photoshop Elements. The book covers everything from the basics to working with raw images. I found that I could either just sit and read it or work along by opening either my photos or one of the downloads offered. Well worth the money.

As with the Elements 2 and 3 "Missing Manuals" the author continues her complete mastery of the topic -- after all, she's on the development team, and a dedicated responder in the Adobe User Forum as well. If some of the text and illustrations look familiar from prior editions, it's only because that topic hasn't changed from previous versions. Everything new added in PSE5 -- and it's well worth the update -- has been seamlessly integrated into the existing material; unlike some of the mass producers who all-too-obviously just tack the new material onto their current product.

This book is refreshingly easy to read and understand, yet covers all the essentials thoroughly -- including RAW processing -- with extra hints and tips for the advanced user. Even included are excellent instructions for getting rid of those intrusive "Organizer" and "Fetcher" programs that Adobe forces on Windows (but not MAC) users.

Some of the tutorial follow-along images can be downloaded, to be sure. But this guide book would have been better yet if an inexpensive CD with full-size images [rather than pixel-starved web downloads] were included so that the user could truly grasp the enormous richness of the program which now is close to being a 'mini-Photoshop'.