Book Review: Scott Kelby’s 7 Point System for Adobe Photoshop CS3

The 7 Point System for Adobe Photoshop CS3 (which I’ll refer to as the “7 Points” from here on out) is already the second book about Adobe Photoshop CS3 by the ever prolific “photoshop guru” Scott Kelby. For the few who might be unfamiliar, Kelby is the editor and publisher of Photoshop User Magazine, as well as Layers magazine, and the author of seemingly countless photography and imaging software books. Kelby’s books generally are well written affairs, with concise information, much of it being from a friendly, but experienced professional’s perspective. Readers should know that Kelby tends to write in a style that emulates an expert working with you, instead of talking to you which I quite like, but others may have trouble with. One of the potential problems with his style of writing is that he tends to (deliberately) gloss over the details of why something is done, and in looking at some of the reviews for The 7 Point System, I notice there are some complaints about this. I personally prefer his “this is what a pro would do” style and there are other books (including Kelby’s) better adept at explaining the why’s anyway, but I just wanted to point this out to the unfamiliar.

With the “7 Points”, Kelby aims to teach readers how to “open any image in …CS3 and know exactly what to do first, what to do next, and how to take it all the way “from flat to fantastic”, just like a pro.” The method involves utilizing a system of “7 points” (of course!) that Kelby lays out in the book’s introduction (again for the unfamiliar, Kelby kind of has a “thing” about getting people to read the intro). The individual “points” for the most part won’t be unknown to the intermediate to advanced users that the book is targeted at, but it’s the collection of points into a logical, repeatable Photoshop workflow that will be the main benefit for most readers.

One of the reasons I love Adobe’s Lightroom so much is that “developing” an image has a consistent, repeatable path thanks to the refined layout of the Develop module. Simply start at the top slider and work your way down. By the time you’ve got to the bottom, you’ve turned even an ordinary snapshot into a pretty nice picture. Photoshop is a different animal all together, and because it is such a powerful piece of software, with so many tools, often with various methods of performing the same task, it can be a bit overwhelming, and even for the advanced user, knowing exactly what to do can be a challenge. By the time I was half-way through the “7 points” however, I was already seeing how my Photoshop workflow was going to be a much more efficient one, and a more productive one as well.

There are 20 lessons in the book, using images that readers can download from Kelby’s website, and each presents any number of problems that need to be addressed. I’ll note that unlike most books of this type, the exercise photos are deliberately problematic to downright bad, and for the most part, the lessons deal with issues that one would encounter in their own pictures, but there are some more creative lessons sprinkled in for good measure. The lessons are written in Kelby’s usual style of “pro over your shoulder”, with a tapering of hand-holding as the lessons progress. Smartly, the book’s final “lesson” is a handy refresher course, perfect for re-remembering details if you encounter a prolonged period of Photoshop “downtime”. One of the critiques I encountered in other reviews of the “7 Points” was that the “7 points” weren’t actually 7 literal steps to edit images. To me this is a misunderstanding of the books methodology as the points aren’t meant to be simple steps that could be run in an action, rather they are more like 7 issues to potentially address sequentially while editing a photograph in Photoshop. Also, because of the nature of Photoshop, the various points maybe addressed differently, if at all, from image to image. In addition the “literal steps” critique misses the point and the beauty of Kelby’s book, which for me is the time and confidence gained by having a simple, straightforward system of taking an image through Photoshop with much improved end results.

Finally, I’d like to say that while most of the points involve techniques familiar to most intermediate users, there were still quite a few “ah-ha” moments for me, and I certainly have more confidence using some of CS3’s newer features, such as smart objects, but this is not, nor intended to be an encyclopedia of CS3’s features. If you’re goal is to improve your photo editing skills in Photoshop, then the 7 Points will assuredly benefit you. It’s a fun, easy read with plenty of varied and useful lessons, and by the time you’re done (and in my case much sooner) you’ll be well on your way to dramatically better results. Highly Recommended.

Note: I’ve included an image that’s been processed using the “7 Points”. It was the first picture to launch my photography blog, and definitely one of my favorites. While it was a pretty good capture to begin with, the “7 points” definitely took it to another level. Just click on the image to see a bigger version.

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