The author takes what he describes as “crappy” photos and shows how to “fix” them using 7 basic techniques. Actually I’d say that a number of the photos weren’t all that bad to start with and really what he’s doing is adding drama. Instead of organizing the book into sections covering different tools in Photoshop, there are 21 chapters and in each one he shows how to improve a single photo using some or all of the basic 7. You can download the original images from the book website and follow along step by step.

The 7 points in the title are really 7 general concepts related to a certain sets of tools in Photoshop as opposed to 7 specific steps. The actual number of steps involved averages around 20. He does emphasize variations on the same basic techniques over and over. And you can see how the same techniques can be applied to different effect in different photos. A number of the lessons also use techniques that don’t fall under any of the points, which Kelby calls “slick bonus tricks”.

Part of the strategy used in the book is repetition to aid in remembering the techniques and also in knowing what improvements can be made to a photo. One thing that would have helped me even more would have been to identify which of the 7 points was being applied in each step. Sometimes it’s obvious, but not always.

This might not be the best book for someone who is trying to use Photoshop for the first time. But it could be beneficial to users of almost all levels, and especially if you know the basics and want to go to the next level. It’s fun too. But it would take quite some time to do all the lessons and get the full benefit of the repetition. Some of the techniques are CS3 specific, but most of them can be applied to earlier versions and even to other photo editing programs, although it would take a bit of experience to understand how to do it. Since it’s a fairly expensive book you might be better off to borrow it rather than buy it, especially if you don’t use CS3.