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Lots of people prefer books and for good reasons. But be aware that most Photoshop books are rather expensive and some of the information will be outdated within a year when Adobe decides to release a new version of Photoshop. Nevertheless it's always good to have a few books.

In this section I'm recommending a few books that are considered 'good' by a large group of people. My advice however is not to buy a book just by following the recommendations. Make a list of the books that interest you and check them out in your local bookstore. Only then you will know if a particular book is suited for you, since we all have different preferences.

You can then decide to buy the book in in that same store, online or buy them second hand on sites like Amazon or Ebay. Needless to say that most older Photoshop books only cover older versions of Photoshop. Personally I don't see that so much as a limitation and you do save yourself a lot of money, because Photoshop books can be very expensive. If an older book doesn't cover the tools of your current version of Photoshop, then you can always turn to the internet or read Photoshop's help.

Important: I want to mention that there are a lot of good books out there that are not mentioned in this section and the reason is simple; there are so many (Amazon lists about 1,400 titles (!) while I'm writing this).
So all I'm showing you is a small selection of one of the better or more popular books, the ones most beginners or professionals seem to talk about.

Amazon.com

Amazon is a great place to search for books.
You can find Photoshop books by searching for the word Photoshop in the category books.
On the next page you can Sort by: Average Customer Review and click on Go to see the most popular books.
Read the reviews, look at some sample pages if there are any and you'll get a good idea what's available.

Bert Monroy
If you like realism in your designs, then you might be interested in one of Ben Monroy's books.
Visit his gallery to see some of his impressive works: gallery

Peachpit
What I like about Peachpit's books, especially their 'visual Quickstart Guides', is that they are not as expensive as most other Photoshop books. This can be important for those who want to stay up-to-date with their books and don't want to spend too much money (Adobe Photoshop is updated almost every year!). The books might not offer as much information as the more expensive books, but they do offer a lot of information that is well organized and easy to read.

Photoshop Restoration & Retouching (Katrin Eismann)
Photoshop Restoration & Retouching is a book that I can highly recommend if you do a lot of Photoshop retouch work.

Photoshop Masking & Compositing (Katrin Eismann)
Another good book by Katrin Eismann that lots of readers recommend, although it's not a book that I would recommend for beginners.

Photoshop Bible (Deke McClelland)
Deke McClelland is a very popular writer, simply because he is a great teacher.
The Photoshop Bible is considered the best Photoshop reference book.

Photoshop CS2 One-on-On (Deke McClelland)
A book that offers the kind of quality that we expect from Deke McClelland, yet this time everything is in full color.

Adobe Press
Lots of people seem to recommend the Adobe Photoshop Classroom books. I have no real experience with them, but that doesn't stop me from mentioning them.

Scott Kelby Books
Scott Kelby is a very popular writer. Like Deke McClelland he can teach you Photoshop in way that is easy to understand.

Photoshop CS at Your Fingertips (Jason Cranford Teague)
A well designed book that follows a task approach, meaning that several chapters are written for certain tasks.

Other high quality Photoshop books (not suitable for beginners);

• 50 Fast Photoshop CS Techniques (Gregory Georges)
• Adobe Photoshop CS2 for Photographers (Martin Evening)
• Creative Thinking in Photoshop (Sharon Steuer)
• New Masters of Photoshop (Tim Bird)
• Photoshop Channel Chops (David Biedny)
• Photoshop Artistry (Haynes/ Crumpler)
• Photoshop Lab Color (Dan Margulis)
• Photoshop Studio with Bert Monroy
• Professional Photoshop - The classic guide to color correction (Dan Margulis)
• Real World Adobe Photoshop CS2 (David Blatner, Bruce Fraser)
• The art of Photoshop (Daniel Giordan)

Some good drawing & painting books;

• Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain (Betty Edwards)
• How to Draw Lifelike Portraits from Photographs (Lee Hammond)
• Drawing a Likeness (Douglas R. Graves)
• The Natural Way to Draw: A Working Plan for Art Study (Kimon Nicolaides)
• Keys to Drawing (Bert Dodson)
• Drawing Realistic Textures in Pencil (J. D. Hillberry)
• Perspective Made Easy (Ernest Norling)