Hacking Photoshop CS2

Introduction

Agreat number of people come to Photoshop to fix their images and end up being mar­ried to it, doing a thesis on it or, at the very least, pulling out their hair and swearing never to go near a computer ever again. Photoshop is a tough beast to tame by using logic or clicking here, there, and everywhere in the hope of breaking it in, throwing a saddle on it, and riding into the sunset.
Sadly, there is no magic spell for mastering or taming Photoshop. If there were, there would be less need for books such as this one, Hacking Photoshop CS2. INo, the only sure formula that seems to work involves learning the basics and then adding to your base knowledge some of the secret handshakes known to the experts .. . and that’s the raison d’être of this book. It’s written with the sole intention of imparting insider knowledge that will help you to understand what Photoshop is capable of and help you speed up your workflow by revealing some of these “secret handshakes.”

Whom This Book Is For

This book is for people who have a working knowledge of Photoshop and wish to expand it exponentially. It delves into the nooks and crannies of the interface, the tools, commands, filters, and their employment. It covers the different ways that a task can be performed in Photoshop and invites you to make connections and to discover your own techniques for solving problems. Although squarely aimed at Photoshop CS2 users, people using older ver­sions of Photoshop can make use of the majority of the hacks and tips contained in the book.

How This Book Is Organized

The book has 18 chapters full of “hacks”—tips, tricks, mods, and customizations designed to help you get the most out of Photoshop.

■ Chapter 1, “Optimizing Performance”—This chapter deals with managing your resources and squeezing the maximum performance out of Photoshop.

■ Chapter 2, “Hacking the Work Area”—This chapter is all about customizing your entire work area and saving the changes for future use.

■ Chapter 3, “The Fine Art of Using Palettes”—This chapter provides insights into Photoshop’s palettes, some of the secrets that they hold and ways for you to enhance your productivity.

■ Chapter 4, “Browsing with Bridge”—This chapter helps put Bridge’s viewing modes and file-sifting capabilities to work for you.

■ Chapter 5, “Hacking Preferences and Documents”—The hacks in this chapter show you how to handle Preferences and how to increase your productivity and streamline your workflow when working; with documents.

■ Chapter 6, “Working with Layers”—To work effectively in Photoshop, it pays to learn as much about layers as you can. This chapter has the insights into creating, managing, and editing layers that will help.

■ Chapter 7, “Creating and Applying Layer Styles”—This chapter discusses how you can make the most of layer styles to create, save, apply and organize styles.

■ Chapter 8, “Hacking Layer Masks”—Layer masks are incredibly useful devices for hiding underlying content without affecting the values of the pixels that make up the content, and this chapter helps you wield that power.

■ Chapter 9, “Hacking Selection Masks”—With the techniques, hints, and tips included in this chapter, you should be well armed for creating selection masks for almost any image-editing assignment.

■ Chapter 10, “Drawing and Painting”—This chapter helps you to use the drawing tools and related commands productively and ingeniously to draw and to paint.

■ Chapter 11, “Editing, Transforming, and Retouching Images”—This chapter is about taking full advantage of the simple, everyday tasks (editing, transforming, and retouching images) that form the backbone of most Photoshop work.

■ Chapter 12, “Adjusting and Correcting Colors”—Adjusting and correcting colors in Photoshop is an art form, and this chapter gives you some of the ins and outs that can help you master this fine art.

■ Chapter 13, “Creating and Editing Type”—Type attributes can now be changed in Photoshop to such an extent that you very rarely have a need to use a page layout pro­gram for every job that requires superimposed type. This chapter helps you take control over that power.

■ Chapter 14, “Hacking Camera Raw”—For something classed as a plug-in, Camera Raw is a very deep application, and this chapter enables you to dig into its depths.

■ Chapter 15, “Automating Tasks”—Using actions to automate tasks is one key way to optimize your use of Photoshop. This chapter shows you how.

■ Chapter 16, “Outputting to Print”—Outputting to print can be a tricky business. All the hard work you put into color correcting, adjusting, and editing could turn into frus­tration if your project doesn’t print out as expected. This chapter gives some precautions that you can take to defend yourself and your creations as you get ready to print.

■ Chapter 17, “Outputting to the Web”—This chapter helps you grapple with some of the limitations of outputting images to the Web.

■ Chapter 18, “Exploiting Filters and Photoshop Flexibility”—Compared to other image editors on the market, Photoshop does not include too many auto commands or walkthrough wizards. However, it makes up for it by giving the user the flexibility to per­form almost any task in numerous ways. The hacks discussed in this final chapter give an indication of what is possible with this flexibility.

■ Appendix, “Troubleshooting”—This appendix includes some general and specific trou­bleshooting advice to apply when dealing with Photoshop.
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