Buy Adam

This Photoshop techniques book is chock full of good ideas. Scott Kelby is an authority in professional photo editing and retouching (editor of Photoshop User magazine), and it shows on every page. Each section is filled with easy-to-follow tutorials on specific and practical techniques that are immediately applicable. Simply, these are approaches for solving problems with digital images that everybody is likely to have.

I very much like that he includes different methods of accomplishing the same thing, and compares them so you can find the one you actually like, and that he emphasizes how to adjust the defaults and utilize actions to automate the process of making frequent adjustments. The sharpening, color correction, and retouching sections are each alone worth the price of the book.

Topics covered include:

• Dealing with files
• Fixing digital camera deficiencies
• Color adjustments and corrections
• Portrait retouching
• Cropping and resizing
• Sharpening

Buy The Photoshop CS Book for Digital Photographers from Amazon.

I have a lot of books on photography, but this is the one I turn to most often. It is as close to a complete reference on photography technique as any other book I’ve seen. There are better books for specialized areas, but this is a great general reference.

It covers a wide range of subjects including:

• Cameras & equipment
• Elements of photography (focusing, exposure, etc…)
• Art & Composition
• Specific case shots (still-life, landscapes, etc…)
• Postproduction

I think it falls down most on postproduction, but that also is a specialty subject. I’ve got some recommendations on books for that, which will be posted at a later date.

Importantly, it is small enough to tuck in a bag - it’s not a giant textbook.

Buy The New Manual of Photography from Amazon.