Best Guide

[Imlexicog]

I am new to the Forum, but have been using PSE for some time on relatively minor projects. For some reason, I have a mental block against understanding the entire concept of "layers" and have considered getting Matt Koslowski's new book on layers. Can someone suggest a good basic book for PSE that would take you from the beginning as if you never used it before and provide tutorials? I need to get up to speed and seem to be wasting a lot of time guessing at how to use this program.

Thanks.

[lisabee]

Hi,

welcome to the forum :).

Not a book, but why not check out the course on layers over at Kelby training
http://www.kelbytraining.com/
If you register, you can watch the first 3 lessons of any of the courses for free.

The layers course is done by Matt K
http://www.kelbytraining.com/instructors/matt-kloskowski.html
scroll down to find it, although it is called 'Using Layers in Photoshop Elements 4', the principles will be the same.

hth,
Lisa

[Bayla]

Matt's book is for the full Photoshop not Elements so if you are new to the the whole concept of Layers it might not be the best way to go. I agree with Lisa, taking the Layers course was the best thing I ever did....everything about layers became crystal clear after that, and Elements suddenly became intuitve for me....

And if you do decide to go that route, there's plenty of people here who can help if you get stuck....the course was done for PSE4 and there are a couple of things which have changed for later versions.

Bayla

[graficalicus]

if you want instant gratification (and who doesn't....) check out this online article:

http://www.bairarteditions.com/pages/tutorials/photoshop/layers.html (this is for photoshop, but the info is essentially the same for PSE)

and your best friend is google:

http://www.google.com/search?q=using+layers+photoshop&rls=com.microsoft:en-us&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&startIndex=&startPage=1&rlz=1I7GPEA_enUS291

[jjvera00]

Hope this helps:

http://www.photoshopessentials.com/basics/layers/

[Imlexicog]

Thanks, everyone. I appreciate all the knowledge!

Susan