After more than two years, Adobe has finally released a new version of Photoshop Elements for the Mac. Version 6 packs a lot more editing firepower than iPhoto, and this Missing Manual puts every feature into a clear, easy-to-understand context -- something that no other book on Elements does! Photoshop Elements 6 is perfect for scrapbooking, making fancy photo collages, and creating Web galleries. It has lots of new features such as Guided Edit for performing basic editing tasks, an improved Photomerge feature, a handy Quick Selection Tool, and much more. But knowing what to do and when is tricky. Photoshop Elements 6 for Mac: The Missing Manual explains not only how the tools and commands work, but when to use them. With it, you will:

• Learn to import, organize, and fix photos quickly and easily.

• Repair and restore old and damaged photos, and retouch any image.

• Jazz up your pictures with dozens of filters, frames, and special effects.

• Learn which tools the pros use -- you'll finally understand how layers work!

• Create collages and photo layout pages for greeting cards and other projects.

• Get downloadable practice images and try new tricks right away.

This full-color guide starts with the simplest functions and progresses to increasingly complex features of Elements. If you're ready for the more sophisticated tools, you can easily jump around to learn specific techniques. As always, author Barbara Brundage lets you know which Elements features work well, which don't, and why -- all with a bit of wit and humor. Don't hesitate: Now that Adobe's outstanding photo editor has been updated for the Mac, dive in with Photoshop Elements 6 for Mac: The Missing Manual right away.

Amazon.com® Reader Reviews (Ranked by Helpfulness)

Average Amazon.com® Rating:  Based on 32 Ratings

Very helpful - 2009-07-22
Reviewer Rating:
This book is a life saver in learning to navigate Photoshop Elements for Mac. When I first installed this application I spent a many hours frustrated and confused. Once I bought this book, everything became much, much clearer. It's far better than just the Help included in the app. You can refer to just what you need to know and not get overwhelmed. Good for beginners.

Shoddy graphics - 2009-10-27
Reviewer Rating:
It was a big disappointment opening up the book and seeing the poor-quality illustrations and photo images--no doubt related to inferior paper quality. Photoshop Elements 6 for Mac (the application) is a significant improvement over Elements 4, but The Missing Manual for the former is a serious DOWNGRADE in quality. The photos and illustrations are so poorly rendered that it's sometimes difficult to see any difference between Before and After shots. I was surprised that O'Reilly Press would put out such a book--one devoted to top-notch image quality--with such disregard for clarity in its own photos and graphics. I know they can do better; I own their Elements 4 manual, and there's a world of difference between it and the Elements 6 book. Holding the two side-by-side and comparing identical photos is dismaying. In Elements 4, the images are sharp and crisp; in Elements 6 they are grainy, fuzzy, and washed out. It's as though they used an old dot-matrix printer to generate the images. Until O'Reilly can put out an edition in line with its usual high standards, I would not recommend purchasing this title.

Photoshop Elements 6 - The Missing Manual - 2009-10-21
Reviewer Rating:
An excellent instruction book for a good program. This is something that the program manufacturer should provide.

Photoshop Elements 6 for Mac - 2009-09-29
Reviewer Rating:
Warning Will Robinson! When it comes to Adobe Photoshop Elements 6, the Mac and PC versions of the software are different. Hence, there are two different books: one for the Mac and one for the PC whose covers look identical but for the added words, "for Mac," on the cover.

The main difference between the two versions of the software is that the Mac version comes with Adobe Bridge to sort and organize your photos whereas the PC version comes with a far less robust "Organizer." Bridge is better at handling RAW files.

However, the PC version of the software comes with fancier slideshows and web galleries than the Mac version. Brundage's explanation of the differences between the two platforms helped me understand why my friend in New Jersey could not follow my Elements tips on her PC.

Confession: I've always thought of Photoshop Elements as Junior Photoshop... a playtoy version of the real thing. However, when the majority of my students were using Elements, I needed to learn the program.

I started with Elements 4 which was pretty lame. However, Brundage showed me that there was very little I could not do in Elements 6 that I was doing in full-blown Photoshop.

When one has spent nearly twenty years becoming proficient with Photoshop, the one-click Quick Fix in Elements seems overly simplistic, yet Brundage demonstrates that with many photos, it does a pretty good job.

Many of the techniques she demonstrates in Elements can also be used in Photoshop. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that you can jump back and forth between various tools to refine a single selection without having to default to the selection brush to clean up a mask.

Brundage deftly demonstrates the power of layer adjustments which I was surprised to learn one could even apply in Elements. Although layer adjustments in Photoshop are more robust, Elements still provides a more than adequate amount of control over the image.

If there's one area that drives most digital graphics artists to drink, it's understanding monitor calibration and how to choose a color space for an image. Encyclopedias have been written on this subject, yet Brundage manages to give us a basic understanding of a very complicated issue.

By far, my favorite section in the book was where she walks you through coloring an old black & white photo... something I've wanted to do for years but just never got around to.

Easily following the steps she outlines, I worked on a scanned 1934 childhood photo of my uncle. Employing the selection and retouching techniques learned earlier in the book, I was able to turn a faded, aged black & white photo into a fairly respectable color rendition, erasing 75 years of creases and yellowing. And all within Photoshop Elements!

Make no mistake: even after reading the book, I'll continue to use the full version of Photoshop for my digital image work. But Brundage has given me new-found respect for Photoshop Elements. Indeed, 90% of all the things I do in Photoshop can be done just as easily in Elements and, in many cases, with a more straight-forward approach.

The forty-five dollar price tag may seem a little steep, but it's worth every penney and will remain on my bookshelf as a reference for some time to come. I was able to get my copy from Amazon.com for $31.70 including shipping.

Just make sure you get the right book for your operating system.

Who's right, Adobe or Dummies. - 2009-08-01
Reviewer Rating:
I received Photoshop Elements 6 for dummies before I have received the software, Elements 6.
And on the first page it states that it will only work on Windows, Inted based Macs. Since I only have a G4 with system10.4, (which in the advertisement claims,this will work), and after reading some reviews on how hard it is to uninstall, I thought I would internet Dummies. com. and ask them that question.
I don't know if they don't work well with Safari, or what, but it was torture trying to get through their web site. I tried asking questions, I tried signing up. and repeatedly got error prompts and disconnections. I finally gave up and sent all the error codes to Apple.
Since I already have elements 4, which works O.K. I only ordered these because of the good deal that Amazon was giving me. But, I'm starting to think It's not worth the trouble to keep.

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