Photoshop CS4: The Missing Manual
Where to buy Photoshop CS4: The Missing Manual books online?
- ISBN13: 9780596522964
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Product Description
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 make gorgeous documents in Photoshop.
Whether you’re an absolute beginner or a power user ready to try some advanced techniques, leader 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 spectacle 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?Amazon.com Review
Packed with information, Photoshop CS4: The Missing Manual has all the secrets to editing photos and making superior documents in Photoshop. Leader and graphics pro Lesa Snider objectively clarifies how you can take advantage of all the powerful features, and get the results you want.
Praise
“I just saw Photoshop World instructor Lesa Snider’s new book, Photoshop CS4: The Missing Manual, and it so reminded me of when Deke McClellend used to write The Photoshop Bible, (which I loved) because it factually covers everything about Photoshop (it’s nearly 900 pages!). Lesa did a fantastic job on the book, and in my mind, it is the new Photoshop Bible. Way to go Lesa!”
–Scott Kelby, Photoshop Insider
Five Quick Photo Effects in Photoshop CS4
By Lesa Snider
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1. Quick black-and-white with color tint.
Photoshop lets you easily convert a color image to black-and-white lacking harming the original image. First, make a Black & White Adjustment layer by clicking the half-black/half-white circle at the bottom of your Layers panel, and then choose Black & White. Tweak the various sliders in the resulting Adjustments panel for maximum contrast, and then add a color overlay by clicking the Tint checkbox at the top of the panel. Photoshop assumes you want to give your image a brown (sepia) tint. To use another color, click the small brown color swatch to the right of the Tint checkbox and pick a new color from the resulting Color Picker. |
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2. Partial color effect. To really draw viewer’s eyes to the focal point of your image, make the focal point colored and the rest of the image black-and-white. By using the layer mask that tags along with each Adjustment layer, you can hide the effect of a Black & White Adjustment layer and bring back the original color. (Reflect of a layer mask as digital masking tape.) To make this effect, add an Adjustment layer by clicking the half-black/half-white circle at the bottom of the Layers palette, and then choose Black & White. Tweak the sliders for maximum contrast, and then, on the Layers panel, click once to select the Adjustment layer’s mask (the white thumbnail to the right of the layer thumbnail). Press B to grab the Brush tool and, at the bottom of Tools panel, set the foreground color chip to black. (In the realm of the layer mask, painting with black hides and painting with white reveals.) Next, mouse over to your document and use the Brush tool to paint over any area you want to bring back its original color. If you bring back too much color, press X to flip-flop your color chips so you’re painting with white, and then paint that area to make it black and white again. |
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3. Portrait popper.
You can make Photoshop add a soft, darkened edge around any photo in seconds…if you know which filter to reach for. Choose Filter > Distort > Lens Correction, then grab the Vignette slider and drag it all the way to the left. To darken the edge color even more, grab the Midpoint slider and drag it slightly to the left. Click OK and you’re finished! |
| 4. Background swap.
If you want to add a colorful background to a photo that has a white background, don’t waste time making a selection to delete the background or hide it with a layer mask. As a replacement for, swap backgrounds with the flick of a layer blend mode (blend modes change the way color on one layer interacts with the color on additional layers). Simply place the colorful background at the top of your layers stack and use the pop-up menu at the top of the Layers panel to change that layer’s blend mode to Darken. Like magic, wherever the two layers meet, only the darkest colors will remain. If necessary, you can use a layer mask to hide parts of the new background, as shown here. |
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5. Quick color boost.
Photoshop CS4 gives you a quick new way to make the colors in your image pop lacking harming the original image. It’s called the Vibrance Adjustment layer, and you can find it on the right side of your screen in the new Adjustments panel (or by clicking the half black/half white circle at the bottom of your Layers panel). Once you’ve made the Vibrance Adjustment layer, drag the Vibrance slider all the way to the right, and it intensifies the colors in your image. Happily, it has less of an effect on bright colors (because they’re already highly saturated) than on lighter tones, yet it leaves skin tones relatively unchanged. |
Look Inside Photoshop CS4: The Missing Manual
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Although the illustrations throughout the book are colorful, the leader use weird images in the examples. Many images also have sexual connotations. If you are looking for more real-world and mainstream examples and techniques, I would recommend getting the following books as a replacement for: Photoshop CS4 Digital Classroom + Photoshop CS4: Top 100 Simplified Tips & Tricks
Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5
This manual provides a fantastic source of ancient and new information that helps me take and improve images from my digital camera. This saves me time and money when I try different processes or refresh my memory.
Reader’s Rating: 5 / 5
Brilliant book, but no CD. Paragraph at the end of the book states that I saved $5.00 by not having the CD. My time is worth more than the $5.00 saved for the CD, because now I have to search out the downloads, etc for myself, rather than have them handy on a CD.
Reader’s Rating: 4 / 5
This is a thorough, simple-to-read reference manual about the latest version of Photoshop. It is not a tutorial and is probably not the best choice for beginners. This is the first Photoshop manual made in the Missing Manuals series, but it is a perfect and very polished work.
With a few exceptions the book is organized by tool and not by task (there is a chapter on Photoshopping People that is organized by needed task). Thus it is not very similar to Deke McClelland’s ancient series Photoshop CS Bible, which is organized by task. Photoshop is not just about retouching photos, and the present book is slanted toward using Photoshop to make new images from photos. It includes chapters on painting, drawing, and adding type, and a chapter on layers that is oriented toward compositing images. There is also a lengthy and informative chapter on preparing images for commercial printing equipment. As usual with the Missing Manual series, there is an brilliant pointer.
The book is fully illustrated in color and includes copious examples, mostly very brief (two or three steps), but there are longer ones that occasionally run to two pages. The examples make heavy use of adjustment layers; nearly every operation is done in this way rather than by effective directly on the image. The online Missing CD only contains a few of the images used, but this does not detract very much from the book–most of the examples can be done just as well using your own images.
Bottom line: comprehensive reference for persons who already have a leg up on Photoshop. If you’re really a beginner, you probably should be using Adobe Photoshop Fundamentals 7 or Adobe Photoshop Fundamentals 6 (Mac), which also have an brilliant Missing Manuals: Photoshop Fundamentals 7: The Missing Manual and Photoshop Fundamentals 6 for Mac: The Missing Manual.
Reader’s Rating: 5 / 5
Being new to photoshop I was looking for a book that held my hand throughout. Sorry to say, this book fails. While it is written an an simple to follow manner, the beginning of the book states that the samples referred to are downloadable so that you can attempt to follow step by step. Now on chapter 4, the book has provided several samples, NONE of them are downloadable. The downloads start in chapter 4/5 and are sparse at best. The book will even state – “position you mouse over the liitle boys face”; but, there is no small boy in the downloads. Very disappointing. The book could have been a strong 4 stars IF they had a perfect list of downloads.
Reader’s Rating: 3 / 5