I am not a believer in the Bible series. They tend to be long winded tomes often done as a relay race by a number of writers who may or may not synch their story lines well together.

Well imagine my surprise on a recent work assignment I got caught out on automating a bunch of changes to graphics files. How do you record the Actions so that setting can be passed for each image ? Hmm I need a little help and after scrounging around , I came across the Photoshop 7 Bible on a colleagues desk. Now necessity is the mother of conversions - and soon I was leafing through the Bible and found a quick answer to my query. Lo and behold this happened many times. Suffice it to say on this assignment, I was stealing into my colleagues copy of Photoshop 7 Bible more times than either I or she care to recall . What can I say? The book is comprehensive yet at 1040 pages curiously concise. Which tells a lot about the richness and functionality of Photoshop 7 itself.

Since Photoshop 5.5 this has been the definitive source for mastering digital darkroom methods using Photoshop. The book starts out with about 13-14 chapters devoted to getting users up to speed not only in the functions and features of Photoshop but also the art theory required to navigate and utilize Photoshops features effectively .

In the remaining chapters the book offers a theory on how images should be processed in your digital darkroom -its a color variation on Ansel Adam's Zone System for Black and White photo finishing. Then the authors proceed to illustrate the theory in Photoshop using about thirty well chosen examples from color adjustments, through restoration to advanced compositing methods. The examples are illuminating, the screenshots and howto's are thorough and the CD has a complete set of images and other resources. Hope my site is as good as Barry and Wendy's book.

What's this ? Adobe Photoshop Elements as one of the best guides or references to Photoshop 7. Stop and consider the following:

1)The File, Edit, Layer, Select, Filter, Window menus are nearly identically the same as those in Photoshop 7 or are a minor subset. The Image and Help menus are significantly changed;
2)the vertical toolbar is also subset of Photoshop 7 's but shares the same icons and nearly the same positioning;
3)the context sensitive option bar(is about identically the same as Photoshop 7s;
4)the palettes in Photo Elements are the same as in Photoshop 7 though some advanced palettes like actions, channels and paths are not in PhotoElements;
5)the location and workings of the palettes docker is the same;
6)the functioning and layout of the file browser is the same; but it is faster in Photo Elements;
7)In general PhotoElements is a very close to being a direct subset of features and functionality found in Photoshop 7 - the 3 biggest missing features are advanced color modes and layers plus channels, paths, workspaces and actions.

However, on positive side Photoshop Elements has a traditional horizontal toolbar missing from Photoshop 7, a Help search input field on the horizontal toolbar that is very smart; and a unique How To palette which also offers innovative recipes and hints help. It is this package of online recipes and hints that makes PhotoElements such an excellent guide and learning tool for Photoshop 7. These guides led users step by step through some of the more advanced features of PhotoElements; but also 80-90% of the time the user is also getting instructions in how Photoshop 7 works too. So graduating up to the big system will be decidedly less trouble.

Now a critical factor is how closely will PhotoElements track Photoshop over time. Adobe may find that PhotoElements cannibalizes sales of Photoshop7 too much and start to let the two products drift farther apart. But right now $100 PhotoElement is one of the best online introductions to Photoshop 7 available on the market. And users can go to the web and download extra Recipes to make it even better (but curiously, Adobe has not opened up on how to create recipes yet so only Adobe is the source for recipes for now).