How should you use this book?

You can treat this as a "jump-in-anywhere" book because I didn't write it as a "build-on-what-you-learned-in-Chapter-1" type of book. For example, if you just bought this book, and you want to learn how to whiten someone's teeth for a portrait you're retouching, you can just turn to Chapter 7, find that technique, and you'll be able to follow along and do it immediately. That's because I spell everything out. Don't let that throw you if you've been using Elements since version 1.0; I had to do it because although some of the people who will buy this book are talented traditional photographers, since they're just now "going digital," they may not know anything about Elements. I didn't want to leave them out, or make it hard for them, so I really spell things out like "Go under the Image menu, under Adjust Color, and choose Levels" rather than just writing "Open Levels." However, I did put the chapters in an order that follows a typical correction, editing, and retouching process; so you might find it useful to start with Chapter 1 and move your way through the book in sequence.

The important thing is that wherever you start, have fun with it, and even more importantly, tell your friends about it so I can recoup the millions I spent on all those digital photography books. Also, although the official name of the software is Adobe Photoshop Elements 4.0, just to keep things short and simple I usually refer to it as just "Elements 4.0" in the book.