Photoshop CS4 for Photographers is an absolutely essential guide for the photographer using the increasingly powerful new versions of Photoshop.
The books title gives some indication of the target audience: A professional image editors guide indeed, any long time photoshop users would be well served picking up a copy of this book, and although not a guide for a complete novice, any level of photoshop user would benefit from using this as a comprehensive reference guide.
Not only are the new features practically explained, but more importantly the author gives best practice advice throughout, his recommended workflow for sharpening for example has changed even from Cs3.
All the bases are covered here, the interface and features tour is enough to cover the new features and fundamentals, which brings the reader quickly up to speed with the CS4 mindset. Adjustment Layers are dealt with particularly well, and the image adjustment techniques and explanations built very well on top of this new feature, and explained in depth with plenty of examples.
The book although huge is well laid out and absolutely packed with information, the author gets his point across succinctly and yet always takes time to explain the reasoning behind the various techniques.
There is very comprehensive coverage of file formats, especially the coverage of RAW and DNG. Comprehensive information on color profiling, and printing and other forms of output.
Camera Raw and Bridge are covered in depth, and where there is overlap between Raw, Photoshop or Lightroom, the various techniques are compared allowing the digital photographer to make well informed decisions on how to proceed confidently. Lightroom is mentioned here only in passing but 95% of the material on Camera Raw is easily adapted.
A competent Photoshop user can be confident of getting the best results, the most effective workflow, and a supremely useful reference book.
Very highly recommended for anyone wanting to master Photoshop CS4.