Part I covers Tools and devotes a full chapter to the selection tools, the paint tools, special tools, the view tools, the color controls, quick mask tools and the view controls. Each one of these chapters describes the tools and how to use each tool that falls within that area. Part II-Menus follows the menu bar with a single chapter devoted to each option in the menu bar and describes how to use each feature listed under the menu options. Part III-Palettes has a single chapter devoted to each palette that exists in Photoshop. The chapter then goes into detail about each facet of the specific palette. In addition, each chapter throughout the book contains enough graphics to help the reader to visualize what he/she is reading about.

Chapter 10 is devoted to the Image Menu. The chapter begins with an explanation of color in Photoshop and then explains RGB and CMY that respectively stand for Red, Green, Blue, and Cyan, Magenta, Yellow. Cyan, magenta, yellow and black are all that are needed to print a full range of colors. (Now I understand the ink colors on a color printer.) There is also an explanation of why a printed picture sometimes is somewhat different from how it appeared on the monitor. This chapter also covers hue, saturation, and brightness. I won’t go into all the details of this chapter, but in this one chapter I have learned so much about graphics that will help me with understanding and learning Photoshop as well as understanding graphics in other programs and in general.

I chose to review this book because I just acquired a copy of Photoshop Elements. The manual that accompanies Photoshop Elements is excellent, but I hoped that Photoshop in a Nutshell, 2^nd Edition would give me additional information. This book will, indeed, provide me with more information in working with Photoshop. If you are a non-professional who is just venturing into the world of Adobe Photoshop, this book has a lot of information to enable you to conquer the many features of Photoshop. Also, since Photoshop, V.6 has been released, those of you who are not graphics professionals may find that you can acquire a copy of version 5 and this book would be of major benefit.

Most O’Reilly books feature an animal on the front cover. The animal that appears on the cover of this O’Reilly book resembles an owl but in reality this creature does not exist. The cover picture uses a 19^th century engraving from the Dover Pictorial Archive.

Photoshop in a Nutshell, 2^nd Edition has a list price of $24.95 and is available or can be ordered from most major book stores, although O’Reilly states on its Website that this book is currently out of print. I checked with  BookPricer  on the Internet and found the best price at < AllBooks4Less >. They had the book for $11.95 with a $3.49 shipment fee and a $.99 per item charge. I have ordered from All Books 4 Less a number of times and have been pleased with their shipping and their service. In addition to the reasonable prices, they frequently will ship one book free if you order and pay for three books. Barnes and Noble has the book on their Website for $19.95 and Amazon offers it for $18.95.