best photoshop book that covers almost everything that beginners can understand?

My vote is for the Kelby book.
I've really learned alot from his book.

I just left Barnes and Nobles and I picked up a copy of Understanding Exposure by Bryan Peterson and also found a book called "How to Wow Photoshop for Photography 2nd Edition" by Jack Davis and Ben Wilmore. I actually was going to pick up the Kelbys from reading the suggestions so i took it over and compared it to Kelbys. It seemed to cover most everything that Kelbys did but seemed easier to read plus it comes with a disk with all the photos project files including, presets, swatches, shapes, styles, patterns, gradients, and actions that are needed to go thru each project in the book. It cost the same as Kelbys and seems great. Has anyone else tried this one?

I have the Kelby book, The Photoshop CS book for digital photographers and it is really good. Step by step instuctions in Photoshop and you can download all of the photos used in the instructions.

Sounds like both are good!

HOW TO WOW is great!! I love it and the CD is absolutely great with all the presets...again it is like Kelby though...dive in...

I still feel like I am lacking a general understanding of photoshop a lot of the times...I can replicate what they are doing but then when it comes to variations I sometimes have trouble...

It's kind of like when my mom shows me a recipe...I can usually repeat it, though not quite as good, and then if I ever wanted to try something different I would have no idea what I could use successfully from that recipe to get a tasty meal...I'll stop the metaphor now but my point is ultimately that I still need to learn the basics despite owning How to WOW and being able to do a lot of neat stuff with it...

Cheers,

Why not try 123DI - which is an e-book downloadable for IIRC $49. I have found it very useful and it is more interactive than a book.

http://www.123di.com/