Photoshop is the de facto standard tool for image manipulation, and the latest edition of this powerful software (CS5) brings forth many new features and tools. Even if you are a Photoshop pro, it can be extremely difficult to keep track of all the features, settings and ways of accomplishing any given task.

This small guide helps users have an accessible collection of the most useful Photoshop functions. This booklet is not meant to be used as a tutorial for learning how to use Photoshop, but if you are very motivated you may be able to learn quite a bit by reading it. The ideal audience for this book are people who have already used Photoshop for various ad-hoc tasks, but are not so familiar with it that they can accomplish anything they need. This book is also not meant to be used for the high-end tasks.

The guide is written in an extremely accessible and to-the-point style, and from the very outset it takes you straight to the actual demonstrations of how to achieve certain actions on with Photoshop. It helps you navigate the plethora of settings and adjustment options, and tries to make sense of them. Even seasoned Photoshop users will find many valuable tips and insights, and the book is a valuable reference for the long term use.

For what it’s meant to be, I enjoyed the format of the book. As the name suggests, it is rather small but I would still not attempt to put it in my pocket. One major issue with this guide are the photographs. Like all other books in the PocketGuide series, all of the photographs are black and white and rather small. This format is far from ideal for a graphical software program, to say the least. Nonetheless, the book is still useful to have laying around when you need a quick tip or a reminder of how to accomplish certain tasks.