If you want to master Photoshop, a complete course can be found in the books recommended below.

FOUNDATIONS

Begin with one or two of the basic to intermediate books in this article. After that, jump into the list of advanced books that follow.

ADVANCED SKILLS AND TECHNIQUES

Your image processing begins with how you process your RAW files with Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) in Photoshop or Lightroom. Your best guides are by Jeff Schewe and the late Bruce Fraser. If you are using Photoshop CS6 or Lightroom 4, get The Digital Negative: Raw Image Processing in Lightroom, Camera Raw, and Photoshop by Jeff Schewe. If you are using an older version of Photoshop, get Real World Camera Raw with Adobe Photoshop by Fraser and Schewe. Be sure to get the version of the book that matches your software version. You can find them all here. What you do with your RAW files determines how much or how little you can do with the file later on in Photoshop. You maximize your possibilities later on by making the right choices in ACR. Make the wrong choices, and you have limited what you can do later on.

After that, you can jump into color correction with the two books by Dan Margulis. I would suggest you read Professional Photoshop: The Classic Guide to Color Correction (5th Edition) first, followed by Photoshop LAB Color: The Canyon Conundrum and Other Adventures in the Most Powerful Colorspace.

Dive into digital retouching with the two books by Katrin Eismann. I would suggest you begin with Adobe Photoshop Restoration & Retouching (3rd Edition) before moving on to Photoshop Masking & Compositing.

It doesn’t matter whether you read Margulis or Eismann first, or if you read one book by Eismann and one by Margulis before moving on to the second book by either author, but I do recommend your start with Schewe and Fraser.

Reading these 5 advanced books, plus whichever basic-intermediate books you choose, will provide a master course in Photoshop. You will be able to do amazing things. Have fun!

Links

You can buy all of these books at my photography store which is powered by Amazon.com’s great prices, fast delivery, excellent service, and first class guarantee.

The “best of the best” photography gear, books, accessories, and online photo labs:  a series of articles.