Scott Kelby has over the years had some of the most interesting and useful books on Adobe Photoshop ever to hit the market. Yah, there have been one or two that I wasn't overly fond of, but by and large his books are well designed, well written, fun to read and most importantly contain information and techniques that are truly useful.

Scott Kelby's 7-Point System for Adobe Photoshop CS3 is just such a book. First there is nothing like it on the market. Second it is very well designed, easy to read, fun and ever so useful. It doesn't matter what your photographic or Photoshop skill level is you can use this book.

What makes this book so unique is that it kind of works like a plug-in might in a way. Each of the lessons in the book take a specific type of image that has problems. These problems can be color casts, contrast problems, exposure problems, etc. And, then using a set of 7 different editing techniques shows you step-by-step how to fix the image.

The 7 editing techniques are:

1. Adobe Camera Raw Processing
2. Curves Adjustment
3. Shadow/Highlight Adjustment
4. Painting with Light
5. Channels Adjustment
6. Layer Blend Modes and Layer Masks
7. Sharpening Techniques

At the start of each of the lessons in the book (of which there are 21 of them total each show a different image with a different set of problems) there are little buttons numbered from 1 to 7 (these represent the 7 editing techniques above) the ones that are used for the lesson are filled in and the ones not used for the lesson are not filled it. So at a glance you can see what the lesson will be covering.

Now don't think that because there are the 7 editing techniques that how those techniques are used are all the same. No, the change from image to image, the tools used like Adobe Camera RAW, Curves, Shadow/Highlight, etc. are the same. Meaning when a lesson uses Shadow/Highlight it will use the Shadow/Highlight tool in Photoshop but each lesson may use different settings or use the tool in a different way. So there is quite a bit of variation from lesson to lesson even when the lessons use the same editing technique/tool.

This is in my opinion a wonderful approach. Once you learn your way around the various tools and controls used in the 7 editing techniques you will then be able to look at your images and say I need to do this, this, and this to get my image to look like this. This is a very practical and brilliant method of working.

Normally I provide a list of chapters and their titles however this book is done by lesson and the title for the lessons doesn't really explain what the lesson covers. It is more like the title of the photography rather than an explanation of what is wrong with the photograph and therefore what the lesson helps you fix. I think the later would have been better than the former, but it is what it is.

For those in the novice or intermediate skill levels you will find the step-by-step instructions and samples and examples will help you work through and understand even the most complex of the editing techniques like number 5 which deals with adjusting image channels. If you’re an advanced user you will still pick up some useful tips and tricks, but this book will help you to learn to analyze your images and quickly decided what you need to do. This is a win-win book for all skill levels and is another brilliant piece of work by Scott Kelby. This is a must have for all Photoshop CS3 users with a digital camera, point and shoot or dSLR or even Film.