Layers: The Complete Guide to Photoshop's Most Powerful Feature [Englisch] [Taschenbuch]

I'll be honest, Photoshop has scared me to death for quite awhile. I love digital photography, but I always felt the whole post-processing end of it was way too complicated and would take me years to learn. A friend of mine would take photos that I had taken and work his PS magic on them, and I would thank him, not really knowing what he did to correct exposure, color, etc. I picked up Photoshop Elements 6, but I still never really understood the whole layers and masks thing, although I loved the editing aspects of it.

But then I saw an episode of PhotoshopUser TV on the web and was introduced to some of the tips, tricks and new features of Photoshop CS5. All of it explained in detail, with some good doses of humor thrown in, by Matt Kloskowski, Scott Kelby and Dave Cross. They made Photoshop less intimidating and much easier to comprehend.

So I got a copy of Photoshop CS5 for myself, determined to learn this program and start using it to its potential. I was all set to purchase the first edition of Matt's Layers book, but he mentioned that he was revising it with new emphasis on CS5, so I decided to wait and get the newest edition.

Matt has a great style of teaching the use of layers in Photoshop. Another reviewer mentioned that Matt wrote in a "juvenile" style, but I found it refreshing and helped make what can be a dry subject interesting. Watching Matt on the web, or attending one of his seminars, will show you that he writes as he speaks. He doesn't talk down to his audience and makes sure you know the subject matter before he moves on. Several times in the book, while demonstrating a process or procedure, he will instruct you to perform a basic step (whether it's a keyboard shortcut or navigating to a certain toolbar) that he talked about in an earlier chapter, that helps to complete the current project. This is just a simple repetition technique that makes those steps come naturally to you.

The book is logically set up to start off a new user with the basics of layers, and quickly moves into blending layers and the use of layer masks to enhance your images. The book is NOT a Photoshop tutorial showing you what every brush or menu option does. Matt assumes you have a good base of knowledge on how to navigate around the program toolbars and menus. He gives you a good foundation of knowledge in the early chapters that he builds upon as you go through the book.

New to this edition is the "Advanced Layer Blending and Compositing" chapter that Matt has added for this edition. Again, while this is about more advanced techniques, Matt makes it easy to understand, and most of all, fun to learn!

In addition to the information in the book, there is a web link given where there are more video tutorials and pictures that you can download, so you can work on them alongside the turorials in the book.

Overall, I would strongly recommend this book for the person just starting out in Photoshop and who wants to understand how layers are the building blocks of all images that are edited in it. As with any book, some of the more advanced users may not get a lot of new information out of it, but there may be a new tip or trick that they might have not have come across before.

Great purchase!

I have been using Photoshop since the days of Adobe Photoshop 5.0, roughly 11 years. The bulk of my Photoshop experience has been self taught with some influence from online tutorials and a simple crash course in Digital Printmaking in College. Many of my photo manipulations consist of 65+ layers prior to flattening and printing, I know layer control. In fact, I thought I knew it all and to many I have been a valuable subject matter expert. However, everyday in Photoshop CS 5 I have learned more, no matter how long I have been at it, it is a complex beast to tame. With the help of "Layers: 2nd Edition" the sharp beasts teeth are looking duller, the intimidating drool is appearing cute, and the ragged facade it carries is looking more friendly.

"Layers: 2nd Edition" succeeds in many ways. The lessons transition well, starting you off with the basics and then applying the basic tasks to more challenging applications. In many cases, these challenging applications are practical and can be used in everything from your everyday photo retouching to designing with type. Matt makes sure to point out important keyboard shortcuts. For many years I have been right clicking on my layers to duplicate them taking 2 to 3 seconds to duplicate the layer when ctrl+J is all it takes (cmd+J on a Mac). I have also familiarized myself very well with Layer Opacity Blending Modes, but now, thanks to Matt and "Layers: 2nd Edition" I know how those blend modes work and what happens to the colors in my layers when I use them.

There are a plethora of reasons to purchase this book, even if you have 11 years of experience, you can always learn more. The greatest thing about it, you do not have to be wealthy to receive the wealth of knowledge contained in Matt Kloskowski's "Layers: 2nd Edition". Take it from me and do you and your photography a favor. Save yourself the $50-$350 per credit at your local community college or University and give "Layers: 2nd Edition" a chance. I know for a fact the user's on my blog will benefit from my, NOW, more knowledgeable tutorials.

I'll admit I'm only on page 122 of the 286 pages but I stopped to write a review because of a couple of frustrations I have with this book. First the book is sprinkled with mistakes. Better editing should have been done. The mistakes are doubly frustrating because I'm completely new to Layers and Photoshop and I don't know enough to work around them. So a simple little slip in their book causes me tons of lost time trying to figure out where the author went wrong. Second complaint is that they don't include all the photos in their download section. Actually there are even tutorials where key photos within the tutorials are missing but for some reason the others are included. Not logical and should have been fixed before this. Last complaint is the style of the book where the steps are mixed into the rest of the text. It's impossible to catch each step forcing me to have to re-read to find small steps I missed during the first run through. Adding bullets for each step would have easily fixed this. All of these thingss are making it extremely time consuming to get through a book. Fixing them would make it so much easier so I hope the author reads this and includes in a third edition. I gave it three stars because its still a very valuable book on learning layers.