Adobe Photoshop Elements 6 for the Mac was a welcome arrival for all Mac users. Beginners in photo editing who wish for a more robust application than iPhoto will love Elements 6, which has clear and easy explanations compared to its granddaddy Adobe Photoshop CS4, while still containing 80% (my guess) of the power.

Watching Lynda.com's video tutorial of Photoshop Elements 6 is like having a teacher 24/7 next to you helping you 'see' rather than 'read' the power of this application. I used the online training video version. With my Cable connection, I had no trouble viewing the tutorial with no noticeable slowdown.

The series is composed of sixteen chapters. Within each chapter are movies ranging in length from 3 minutes to 8 minutes. That length is perfect because you can get through each quickly. Each movie begins by telling you what will be covered and it concludes with a summary of what you have viewed. The whole training DVD is over 8 hours long.

I recommend that newbies to Photoshop Elements view the entire training series from the beginning without skipping any lessons. This is important because each lesson builds on the previous ones. In the lesson about the Welcome screen, I noticed that there was no button for importing photos from a memory card reader, which is what I always use. You get only choices for importing from a scanner or a camera.

PS Elements 6 for Mac contains three applications: Adobe Bridge, Photoshop Elements, and the Welcome Screen. The Adobe Bridge application allows you to organize your photos so you can find them faster and open them directly in the Elements editing workspace.

Newbies are encouraged to use Bridge and feel comfortable using it. Because it is very powerful, most beginners think it's only for Pros. After viewing this series that myth will be destroyed forever. It is obvious that Ted LoCascio loves Bridge's power and its ease of use with Photoshop Elements. You will too.

One of the new features in Photoshop Elements 6 is the Stack feature, similar to Apple's Aperture. This feature is best understood by seeing how it works. LoCascio shows the reasons for using Stacks and how to save time with all the various shortcuts from the File Menu, Keyboard Shortcuts, or a button mouse. I loved the Closed Caption feature.

LoCascio has a very practical approach on organizing photos using Adobe Bridge. I learned another useful feature in the section about Hiding Images in this training video. He recommends that we 'hide' images that are imperfect rather than deleting them. Sometimes a blurry or not so perfect image can be salvaged later, but once you delete it, it's gone forever.

Once you complete this training video, you will be proficient with Photoshop Elements 6. You'll also love having the DVD to consult when you need a refresher on how to do something. And you'll see that you don't need to envy those who have Adobe Photoshop CS, regardless of the version.