author: Lesa Snider King rating: asin: 0596522967 binding: Paperback list price: $49.99 USD amazon price: $31.49 USD

Photoshop is the world's most widely used photo-editing and graphics program. But with all its fantastic new features and options, the CS4 version can bewilder even the most seasoned professional. That's where Photoshop CS4: The Missing Manual comes in: packed with tips, tricks, and lots of practical advice, this visually rich four-color guidebook teaches you everything you need to know to edit photos and create beautiful documents in Photoshop. Whether you're an absolute beginner or a power user ready to try some advanced techniques, author and graphics pro Lesa Snider King offers crystal-clear, jargon-free instructions to help you take advantage of these powerful tools -- not only how they work, but when you should use them. You'll quickly get up to speed on new CS4 features such as:

• Photoshop's completely revamped workspace
• Smoother image display and quick zoom, including the new pixel grid view
• New Masks and Adjustments panels
• The Vibrance adjustment layer
• Hand-painting adjustments and using graduated filters in Camera Raw
• Enhanced Adobe Bridge

And much more. You'll also find out which features work well, and which aren't worth your time. Written with the clarity, humor, and objective scrutiny that are hallmarks of the Missing Manual series, Photoshop CS4: The Missing Manual is the friendly, thorough resource you need. Why settle for anything less?

author: Frances Mayes asin: 076790284X binding: Paperback list price: $15.00 USD amazon price: $10.20 USD

Frances Mayes, whose enchanting #1 New York Times bestseller Under the Tuscan Sun made the world fall in love with Tuscany, invites us back for a delightful new season of friendship, festivity, and food, there and throughout Italy.A companion volume to Under the Tuscan Sun, Bella Tuscany is Frances Mayes's passionate and lyrical account of her continuing love affair with Italy. Now truly at home there, Mayes writes of her deepening connection to the land, her flourishing friendships with local people, the joys of art, food, and wine, and the rewards and occasional heartbreaks of her villa's ongoing restoration. It is also a memoir of a season of change, and of renewed possibility. As spring becomes summer she revives her lush gardens, meets the challenges of learning a new language, tours regions from Sicily to the Veneto, and faces transitions in her family life.  Filled with recipes from her Tuscan kitchen and written in the sensuous and evocative prose that has become her hallmark, Bella Tuscany is a celebration of the sweet life in Italy.

asin: B0013FNZ1M binding: Personal Computers list price: $1,299.00 USD amazon price: $1,729.83 USD

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rating: asin: B001FA1NG4 binding: Electronics list price: $199.99 USD amazon price: $209.99 USD

With eight amazing colors, a new curved design, and great new features, iPod nano rocks like never before. The Genius Playlist feature finds the songs in your music library that go great together and makes a playlist for you. With its built-in accelerometer, iPod nano is made to move. Give it a shake, and it shuffles to a different song in your library. Turn it on its side to flip through your album art in Cover Flow. And tilt, move, and play accelerometer-inspired games (games available separately). Watching movies, TV shows, and video is even more fun on the sharp 2-inch screen. And your photos (up to 14,000 of them) look great in portrait or landscape view. Available in 8 GB and 16 GB models, the 16 GB iPod nano puts up to 4,000 songs or 16 hours of video in your pocket.

author: Sarfraz Manzoor rating: asin: 0307388026 binding: Paperback list price: $13.95 USD amazon price: $11.86 USD

Sarfraz Manzoor was two years old when, in 1974, he emigrated from Pakistan to Britain with his mother, brother, and sister. Sarfraz spent his teenage years in a constant battle, trying to reconcile being both British and Muslim, trying to fit in at school and at home. But it was when his best friend introduced him to the music of Bruce Springsteen that his life changed completely. From the age of sixteen on, after the moment he heard the harmonica and opening lines to “The River,” Springsteen became his personal muse, a lens through which he was able to view the rest of his life. Both a tribute to Springsteen and a story of personal discovery, Greetings from Bury Park is a warm, irreverent, and exceptionally perceptive memoir about how music transcends religion and race.

rating: asin: B000BX5IKI binding: DVD-ROM list price: $199.00 USD amazon price: $169.99 USD

Streamline your photo process with Aperture 2. Pop a memory card filled with new images into your card reader and Aperture instantly displays thumbnails and lets you add copyright, captions, keywords, and other metadata as you import them. Use an export plug-in to send your photos to Flickr ? or SmugMug, Gallery, Zenfolio, or Picasa. With full MobileMe Gallery support, you can publish a portfolio using your MobileMe account in minutes. Use your password-protected MobileMe Gallery to let others download JPEG or original RAW files directly from your site. Aperture also supports 16-bit printing, letting you produce high-quality prints with smoother gradients and better color fidelity. Adjust images using photographer's essential nondestructive editing tools - Exposure, Highlight Recovery, Black Point, Vibrancy, Definition, Histogram, Levels, Color, Highlights and Shadows, Edge Sharpen, White Balance, etc Publish photos to MobileMe Gallery System Requirements - Mac Pro, MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, MacBook or Mac mini with an Intel Core Solo or Duo processor, iMac with a 1.8GHz or faster PowerPC G5 or Intel Core Duo processor, Power Mac G5 with a 1.6GHz or faster PowerPC G5 processor, 15 or 17 PowerBook G4 with a 1.25GHz or faster PowerPC G4 processor, 1GB RAM minimum, Mac OS X v10.4.11 Tiger, Mac OS X v10.5.2 Leopard, DVD drive, and 5GB free space for the application and sample projects

rating: asin: B0018VH8S2 binding: CD-ROM list price: $299.00 USD amazon price: $338.43 USD

The Photoshop Lightroom 2 Software for Windows and Mac from Adobe is an essential tool for digital photographers. The software features robust photo management capabilities, as well as non-destructive RAW editing, a printing module and easy output to the web. Lightroom is compatible with both Windows and Mac OS X and is fully compatible with 64-bit operating systems.