Mike Wooldridge has authored over 20 books in this series, and is a web developer. If you’re beginning to learn photo editing, I recommend this book.  It’s visually addicting, and makes Photoshop Elements 8 easy to learn. This book was written for beginners who are just starting to explore photo editing, to intermediates who want to improve their skills. In the first three chapters, the author doesn’t assume what his reader should know, but helps define some basic photo editing concepts, and computer mouse terms. Vibrant introductory photos and images, large font, eye-catching chapter headings and simple, short paragraphs liven up a somewhat dry subject. Colorful markers and arrows direct the reader to different tools and tool panels, plus how to apply these tools in different techniques.

Visually Enticing: Each chapter offers numerous clear, directive pictures to observe individual tool settings, buttons, where they are located, how accessed, and applied. What’s obvious to some is not obvious to others. This book facilitates, and encourages readers to test their skills, and explore. It’s one of the more , visually enticing how-to media books I’ve reviewed. The layout is engaging, allows reader to see how changes occur, and clearly points out what to do next. Don’t be afraid to tackle Photoshop Elements 8 with this book by your computer. Adobe offers a 30-day trial period. Grab the book, download the application and give it a whirl! Let me know what you think of the book.

System Requirements: Adobe Photoshop Elements 8 is available for Windows and Mac OSX. Link to www.adobe.com for further information.

Contact: www.wiley.com/go/visual

Cost: $29.99 US; $35.99 Canadian; £21.99 UK

Alien Skin provides a Photo Bundle offering a range of plug-ins:

• Blow Up
• Bokeh
• Exposure
• Image Doctor
• Snap Art

Blow Up 2.0.3
Alien Skin recently released Blow Up 2.0.3. Blow Up is a one stop, Photoshop output plug-in. As expected from the name, Blow Up enlarges images. Blow Up also crops, shrinks, removes compression artifacts, and sharpens for output. This plug-in prepares an image for output on a monitor or as a print. Why use Blow Up? Blow Up provides a sharper enlargement than Photoshop CS4 when using the Image Size tool (Image -> Image Size).

New features for 2.0.3 include

• Running Blow Up from the Filter Menu
• Blow Up 2 Startup Panel for Photoshop CS4
• Gallery Wrap Panel for Photoshop CS4
• ISO paper sizes in the Settings Tab
• Performance slider.

Efficient Workflow
Providing quick and efficient access, Blow Up 2.0.3 can be opened from the Filter drop down menu, the Blow Up 2 Startup Panel, or the File -> Automate menu. Including Blow Up in the Filter drop down menu improves efficiency as all the photo workflow plug-ins are now in the same drop down menu. Blow Up can still be found in the File -> Automate menu, as found in previous Blow Up versions. The Automate menu also provides access to the Blow Up 2 Batch (new in version 2.0), which processes an entire folder of images.

Quick Draw – One Click Access
From the Photoshop desktop, the Blow Up panel provides one click access to Blow Up and a selection of pre-set size and media selections (screen choice, plus three paper selections for printing). Using the pre-sets saves time, since the image is processed without opening the user interface. However, if custom adjustments or cropping is desired, open Blow Up.

Clean, Easy Interface
Blow Up opens in an intuitive, clean, easy-to-use interface that provides intuitive defaults and the power of custom adjustments. This interface, by selecting “Settings”, provides a selection of factory default output settings based on output media and size. Custom settings can be saved and reused to enhance efficiency. After selecting “Controls” on the user interface, the default and custom settings can be adjusted with sliders.

Image Test
To test Blow Up’s image quality, two images were enlarged for this review. These two images were photos taken with a Nikon D200 (10 MP sensor). The selected images were cropped (reduces processing time on a Mac Pro G5) and then enlarged by 400 % (four times), using both Photoshop CS4 and Blow Up. In the Photoshop Image-> Image Size dialog, Resample Image was set to “Bicubic Smoother (best for enlargement)”. After enlargement, the images were cropped to 300 X 300 pixels. Two sets of images are presented below.

First Image Set

Photoshop image

Blow Up image

In this first set of images, Blow Up provides a crisper enlargement that preserves the well defined edges and metal luster. Note on the right side of the image, this improvement is particularly noticeable in the stainless steel rod (part of the standing ringing for a sailboat).

Second Image Set

Photoshop image

Blow Up image

In the second set of images (crocus with water drops), Blow Up’s improvement over Photoshop is visible, but not as obvious as in the first image set (sailboat rigging). From using Blow Up, the image improvement is easiest to see where the crocus petals overlap near the center of the image.

Additional comparison images may be found on the Alien Skin website at Alien Skin Examples, or on the Macworld Alien Skin Blow Up review: Alien Skin Blow Up 2.0.

Conclusion
Pros:

1. Blow Up is a great enlargement tool that uses a vector based enlargement algorithm that out performs Photoshop’s bicubic enlargement algorithm.
2. Blow Up does an excellent job of preserving well-defined edges during enlargement resulting in an obvious improvement over Photoshop. For softer edges, the improvement is subtle, but visible if you look for it.
3. Blow Up enhances workflow efficiency by combining output sharpening with enlargement.

Cons:

1. Only available as a Photoshop plug-in. For those that use Lightroom or Aperture, a plug-in compatible with these applications would save having to open or edit the image in Photoshop.

Examples and video demos are available at Alien Skin Tutorials. Download demo versions at Alien Skin Demos.

System Requirements: Mac OS X 10.4.11, Windows XP
Contact: www.AlienSkin.com
Cost: $249; Free upgrade if you own Blow Up 2.0; $99.00 if upgrading from Blow Up 1.0