digital photography

I don't usually bother w/Amazon reviews but I read the two first comments and had to speak up. I teach a course on digital photography, I've been using the first version of this book (called "The Photoshop Book for Digital Photographers") and it's the best book of it's kind I've ever seen. I'll upgrade to using this CS version as soon as the class begins covering CS. The "misrepresentation of content" reviewer seems confused or something--does he have the older version of this book?--because the copy I have clearly has "CS" all over the place: front cover, spine, back cover, all over the inside. I did notice that the image of the cover on the Amazon page is wrong, because the real cover is teal and white, not red and black like the first one was. Not sure what's up with that. At any rate, it's been my experience that once some people get to a certain advanced level of experience, they can be pretty choosy about exactly which details they want out of a book. All I can say is that for 95% of the rest of us, this book teaches digital photography through the lens of Photoshop better than any other. As for his writing style, I've seen Kelby give a seminar on Photoshop, and he writes like he talks... it's hard to fault him for that, and the 400 people in the room that day seemed to especially appreciate his informal teaching demeanor.
Not to beat a dead horse, but the other review seems confused, as well, since both versions of Photoshop (Mac and PC) are identical and have been for some time. I teach using my Apple iBook and a projector, in a lab that uses Dell machines, and this has never been an issue. I mean, on page xvii in the front of the book, Kelby even addresses this, saying "the keyboard on a PC is slightly different from the keyboard on a Mac, so any time I give a keyboard shortcut in the book, I give both the PC and Mac keyboard shortcuts." What more do you want?
As for some of the other snipes about workflow and weak examples, speak for yourself. I happen to agree with what Kelby writes most of the time, and when I don't, it's because at some level we eventually have our own opinions on best practices. Like Kelby writes in the introduction, this is a Photoshop book, not a digital photography book. Every photographer has their own ways of doing things, and this book doesn't try to preach about those issues. That's one of the reasons it's so good.
Anyway, enough of the rant. This book is rock solid, the first two reviews seem more like confused nitpciking (with all due respect to the people who wrote them), and I'd recommend Photoshop CS Book for Digital Photographers in a heartbeat.

5 stars doesn't cover it!

I've seen Scott teach live and he is absolutely the most knowledgable Photoshop trainer on the planet. This book is the next best thing to seeing him live. In fact, it may be better because the explanations are just as clear as a live class but you get to keep them right by the computer where you need 'em.

From the comprehensive explanations of how to perform certain editing functions and new functions in CS, to the first class printing (these pages are as bright and crisp as my studio display LCD) this is easily the best computer book I've ever seen.

I have several of Scott's book and the reason they're great is because the approach is NOT like a manual. If you're after a "classroom in a book" you'll be surprised when you get this book. The illustrations are awesome and explanations are concise and step-by-step. There are no assumed steps like lots of books have and the examples cover a wide variety of things digital photographers and retouchers need to know.

This book is for beginners and experts alike because the lessons are structured like a recipie book. The steps are easy enough for the novice to understand and advanced enough so even experts applying the techniques look their best and accomplish their retouching even faster.

If you're the kind of person who prefers to read a book that gives you a comprehensive variety usable examples and clear detailed explanations and supporting illustrations, this is your book. If you want a manual to tell you all about each feature in a dry, clinical manner, find another Photoshop book.

Recently I read four of the books currently available for Photoshop CS . This book was one of them and it was the weakest in terms of both the style of writing and content.\\

The author points out that he wrote the book "because not one other book he reviewed covered digital noise". I do have to give him some credit here because digital noise is not addressed in most of the other books. The problem is this is the only issue that I found to be unique to this book.

Overall, I guess in an attempt to lighten up the subject you are subjected to endless silly little joking followed by very simplistic techniques for handling various digital imaging problems.

This book my actually be fine for a beginner or someone that does not want to really understand the subject. For me it was a dissapointment.