This book truly has something for every level of skill in digital editing. Starting from the basics, Gloria explains the vocabulary of the digital image world. From there she explains how to resize images, prepare the images for jury presentation, etc., etc., etc. The main reason I purchased this book was to find out how she digitally removed a quilt from its background, something that's been difficult for my quilts because they don't have straight edges. I learned how to do that and so much more. Unless you're a certified professional image editor, you can learn something from this book!

Like most fiber artists I use my camera extensively and, also like many fiber artists, I use PhotoShop Elements (in my case for Mac). It is an amazingly powerful program, and, as someone who once had use of the full blown version of PhotoShop, I find Elements to be much more user friendly for the non-professional photographer. I have pulled my hair out at time however, trying to figure out some , what I thought should be, relatively simple problems. How do I make a photograph the 'right' size & pixels for entering in this or that show? How can I enrich or distort my photograph if I want to? So many questions always seem to come up when I want to do something specific to a photograph. Although I have quite a few books about using PhotoShop Elements, "Digital Essentials" is the book that will answer all of these questions & so very many more in a very user friendly way! Gloria Hansen is offering a free chapter view and signed copies of her new book - that's a good thing!

I have always admired Gloria Hansen's work, both in the quilt world as well as in the digital world. She has always been graciously helpful on the QuiltArt list; answering questions about digital photography & digital photography progams in an always clear and thoughtful way. I always look for her articles first when I look through magazines that regularly, or often, print her column. She has a knack of making the uninteligible clear & understandable. Gloria also has a company that designs websites - and I am so desirous to one day have the money so that I can hire her to do mine! When I win a lottery - that would be one of the first things I would do!

If you have had questions about how to manipulate your digital photographs & operate PhotoShop Elements - or PhotoShop for that matter - then this book really is a must have, essential for your reference library. Kudos to Gloria for sharing her knowledge & for publishing such a fine book! Get it - you won't be sorry!

It's very seldom (make that never) that a computer book arrives at my house and makes my heart go pitter-patter. But I was genuinely excited when Gloria Hansen's Digital Essentials arrived.

The book is subtitled, "The quilt makers' must-have guide to images, files, and more!" That just about says it all, except that I would delete quilt. All artists can use this book because if you are an artist today, you must know about printing, scanning, photography, and using the web.

So many of us use these tools without a good grasp of their capabilities and limitations and thus do not present the images of our artwork as well as we could.

Gloria Hansen, co-founder of GloDerWorks (a full service Web company with offices in the US and UK), is an expert in the easiest and most efficient ways to use digital tools in making and presenting our art.

Gloria has always been uber generous in sharing that knowledge. If you subscribe to any online groups of which Gloria is a member, you probably have a file like mine marked "Info from Gloria."

Well, delete that file because now we have the one-stop book. Have I ever calibrated my monitor? Nope. Knew or understood the "canvas" part of an image? Oh, oh, no. Have I ever removed a piece of art from its background? Big no. Understood exactly what it was those entry forms were asking? Sort of. Now you know why my heart went pitter-patter.

The book starts with the basics (files, resolution, color) and builds from there. Step-by-step directions and screen views are given for all procedures for both PCs and Macs. "Working with images" and "Saving for the web" are the following chapters.

The Reference section includes a clever guide based on questions. For example: How can I size images and make thumbnails for them in sections? Following are a discussion of the various image-editing programs available, how to put a pdf on your web site, a glossary of terms, and an index.

I'm very seldom so effusive about a book, but a book has so very seldom seen a need and met it in such a cogent and useful way.