Need to learn Photoshop Elements 4 fast? Try a Visual QuickStart!

This best-selling reference's visual format and step-by-step, task-based instructions will have you up and running with Adobe's popular consumer image editing software in no time. In this completely updated edition of our best-selling guide to Adobe Elements, leading graphic designer and Photoshop expert Craig Hoeschen uses crystal-clear instructions and friendly prose to introduce you to everything that's new in Adobe Photoshop Elements 4. Filled with step-by-step, task-based instructions and loads of visual aids, this book explains how to capture photos from traditional or digital cameras, reduce red eye, correct color, work with layers, erase backgrounds, create photo-illustrations and Web graphics, simulate painting and drawing techniques, apply artistic effects, and more. Along the way, you'll find extensive coverage of all the program's new features: the Magic Selection Brush, which offers a quick way to make accurate selections in your photos; Magic Extractor, which lets you select an image and instantly remove the background; Auto Red Eye and Auto Skin tone tools; cool slideshow effects (text, graphics, narration, pans and zooms, and more); online sharing service; and more!

Welcome to Photoshop Elements, Adobe's powerful, easy-to-use, image-editing program. Photoshop Elements gives hobbyists, as well as professional photographers and artists, many of the same tools and features found in Adobe Photoshop (long the industry standard), but packaged in a more accessible, intuitive workspace. Photoshop Elements' friendly user interface, combined with its bargain-basement price, has made it an instant hit with the new wave of amateur digital photographers lured by the recent proliferation of sophisticated, low-cost digital cameras and scanners.

Photoshop Elements 4 provides new tools and workspace enhancements that not only help stretch the bounds of your creativity, but also help to make your quick photo corrections and creative retouching even simpler and more fun than before.

In the next few pages, I'll cover some of Photoshop Elements' key features (both old and new) and share a few thoughts to help you get the most from this book. Then you can be on your way to mastering Photoshop Elements' simple, fun, and sophisticated image-editing tools.