Robin Good has combined his experience in graphic creation with his passion for helping people into a mini-guide called Picture Perfect! Look Ma No Photoshop. The purpose of the guide is “to provide simple to follow concepts and practical techniques to prepare, edit and optimize digital images for publication without being a technical user and without having to own any expensive software” and it meets that purpose well.
In about 100 pages Robin introduces the reader to the concepts required for working with digital images. No matter how easy to use software is, the fact remains that some conceptual information is necessary if you are to be effective. Look Ma No Photoshop covers essential topics such as file formats and why there are differences between them. It then moves to some good practical examples on how to eliminate red-eye, create photo montages or make parts of an image transparent. The simple things that most amateur digital photographers want to do (as I write this my wife is removing an unwanted head from the background of a wedding photo).
Robin keeps his focus on the beginner and describes a number of free or low cost tools that can be used in place of Adobe Photoshop or Jasc’s Paint Shop Pro. Sure Photoshop and Paint Shop Pro do the same tasks with less effort but they are more expensive and really aren’t justifiable until you’ve cut your teeth on the basic concepts.
If there is anything missing it’s some discussion about the trade-off in selecting scanner and digital camera resolutions. Other than that, this is a great guide for the beginner. Robin Good has created a guide that will bring anybody up to speed quickly.