Understanding
Adobe Photoshop CS4:
The Essential Techniques for Imaging
Professionals ByRichard
Harrington
List Price: $49.99 – Sale Price
$32.49
DISCOUNT CODE – UAP TWO - 35%
OFF
Photoshop is
the foundation of every digital career. It is the
most pervasive technology on the market. Many
users think they know it, but in truth they have
gaping holes. This book covers what a
professional truly needs to know about Photoshop
to be employable. For students (whether in formal
programs, certified training centers, or
self-paced) this book offers a chance to explore
the many aspects of the program
interactively. The book cuts though the
clutter and is unique in that it focuses not just
on digital photography, but Internet, graphic
design, multimedia, and video uses.
Readers will learn the basics
in correcting, editing, sharpening, retouching,
and presenting photos as well as work on specific
projects/exercises, including: digital painting;
preparing images for newsprint; designing a
CD/DVD label, magazine cover, and advertisements;
and building an electronic portfolio.
The full-color book includes a
CD-ROM with hand-on exercises and practice
images, access to a reader’s only Web site
for bonus downloads and files, and access to the
popular video tutorial Podcasts (150 at time of
publication). CLICK TO ORDER – DISCOUNT
CODE – UAP TWO - 35% OFF(Enter
Code at Step 3 of checkout)
As an iPhoto user
chooses to migrate to Aperture, they’ll
likely have a large library of images to bring
with them. Aperture offers twoasy ways to migrate
iPhoto images into your Aperture library. Which
method you select will vary depending upon your
needs.
Migrating an Entire iPhoto
Library
When
you launch Aperture for the first time, a dialog
offers to let you import your entire iPhoto
library. You can choose to copy the images into
your Aperture library or to simply reference the
images in their current location. Even if you
choose not to import your Aperture library the
first time you launch, you can do so at any time.
Because Aperture and iPhoto are both manufactured
by Apple, the two programs are designed to share
information seamlessly. For example, any
organization you did to create albums in iPhoto
will translate into projects in Aperture. The
EXIF, keywords, ratings, and applied adjustments
are also maintained.
Importing an iPhoto
library is very easy. To import your iPhoto
library, do the following:
1. Choose File >
Import > iPhoto Library. Aperture navigates
automatically to your current iPhoto library.
2. Select the iPhoto Library folder using the
file browser.
3. Choose the location where
you’d like Aperture to store your images.
Choose "In the Aperture Library" from
the Store Files pop-up menu to store
imported masters in the Aperture library.
This will allow Aperture to manage the
images in its library architecture.
Choose "In their current location" from
the Store Files pop-up menu to import the
files as referenced images. This means the
files are stored in their current locations
on your hard drive.
Choose "Pictures" from the Store Files
pop-up menu to store imported masters in
the Pictures folder for the current user.
The images are treated as referenced
images.
Choose "Choose" from the Store Files
pop-up menu and pick a folder where you
want to store the imported masters as
referenced images. You can also specify an
organization method for the images by
clicking the Subfolders pop-up menu.
4. Specify a naming convention from the Version
Name pop-up menu. You can choose Master Filename
from the Version Name pop-up menu to store your
images using the current master filenames
assigned by the camera. There are also several
options for assigning custom names.
5. Click Import to add the images to your
Aperture library.
Richard Harrington shows you
how to use the new adjustments panel in Photoshop
CS4 to speed up your workflow.
Want the videos in
HD? Then check out ouriTunes
version.
Richard Harrington shows you
how to use the Adobe output module in Bridge CS4
to make websites, PDF slideshows and web
galleries of your images. This technology is
slick and easy to use.
Want the videos in
HD? Then check out ouriTunes
version.
Would you like to
watch our new Photoshop CS4 Sneak Peek videos in
HD? You’ve got two options to choose from.
#1 iTunes
Store
You
can subscribe to or download all our videos
absolutely free by visiting theiTunes store. By clicking subscribe,
you’ll pay nothing, but get overtwo hours of free Photoshop CS4
Training. New episodes are released
daily.
#2 Apple
TV
Our
show is also available on Apple TV in HD. A quick
search for CS4 and you’ll find us.
I hope you enjoy... comments are very welcome
(and encouraging).
Sometimes, a color
(or range of colors) will be very present in your
image. These colors can be used to quickly create
an accurate Layer Mask. Even if the color cannot
be used to select the object entirely, you can
always harness the Brush tool to clean up stray
areas.
1. Open an image with an area of continuous color
you’d like to select.
2. Turn the Background layer
into a floating layer by double-clicking its name
in the Layers panel.
3. Choose Select > Color Range to make a
selection based on a range of colors. Check the
Localized Color Clusters option to reduce the
selection area to just the chosen colors.
4. With the Eyedropper, click within the yellow
area of the flower to make an initial selection.
Hold down the Shift key and drag through other
areas of the flower to add to the selection.
5. Leave the Fuzziness set to a low value
(30-40). When most of the flower is selected,
click OK to create an active selection.
6. Click the Add layer
mask button for the layer. The petals will
show well, but parts of the flower will be
missing.
7. Add a solid color layer to make it easier to
see your edges. Choose Layer > New Fill Layer
> Solid Color. A purple layer will help things
stand out nicely. Click OK and drag the solid
layer below the masked flower.
8. Examine the masked layer closely. You will
need to paint in part of the center of the
flower. Additionally, some of the petals contain
unwanted transparency. You may also have some
leaves or stems that bled through. We can fix all
of these problems quickly using the Brush tool.
9. Press D to load the default colors of black
and white.
10. Select the Layer Mask attached to the layer.
11. Press B to activate the Brush tool. Adjust
the size of the brush and its hardness settings
so you have a smaller brush with a gentle edge
(an 80-pixel brush with a hardness of 75% is a
good place to start).
12. Paint in spotted or missing areas with white.
You can remove any unwanted areas by painting
with black.
13. When finished, you can save the image as a
layered file such as a TIFF or PSD formatted
file.
Learn
about important changes to the Photoshop CS4 user
interface.
- Refined workspaces
– Freely rotatable canvas
– Greater zoom levels
- Enhanced controls with panels
- Tabbed documents
Welcome to Part
1 in our series comparing iPhoto to Aperture. I
invite you to check out theApple Pro Training Series guide
to Aperture 2for more
information on getting the most out of this
powerful software.
Nondestructive Image
Processing
Both Aperture
and iPhoto offer nondestructive image
processing.At any point during the image
adjustment process you can restore your image to
its original state.Although both iPhoto and
Aperture feature nondestructive imaging,they take
a different approach to achieve it.
Want to find out
everything new in Adobe Creative Suite 4?
Trust me... there’s some really cool
things coming. Adobe has an invitation out
to view theirWeb
broadcast on September 23rd. But you do need
to go to the sign-up page atwww.adobe.com/go/somethingbrilliant.
By the way... we are going to be releasing
something very special on the 23rd as well as a
“thank you” to all our viewers. Be
sure to stick around and keep an eye out.
It’s
always nice to start your day and find out that
Apple has listed you on their homepage for Hot
News. Seems they like our new podcast onAperture
2, which is a
great program.
By the next day the show was #3 on all of iTunes
(beating every television network except for one
show from HBO). So, thanks! And for those of you
new to the site - welcome! Please look around and
explore the manybooks,training
titles,podcastsandresourceswe have here.
I
often find myself working around my kids... which
means we share things like music and television.
Every once in a while you find something you
don’t mind sharing with them, such
asJack’s Big Music
Showor Chuck E.
Cheese.
Today, we saw a great concert for kids... by a
rapper calledSecret Agent 23
Skidoo. The show
was great (the rapper has a long career of
doing alternative rap withGranola Funk
Express).
We bought theCD, checked out
hisMySpace
page. Its nice to
find music you can blast without teaching your
kids words you’d rather not like.
Perfect music for working on deadline or just
a long car ride with the kids.
To make things
easier, we’ve put together a new website
forRHED Pixel
Productions. Here you
can find out information about all our
podcasts, books, DVDs, and websites.
Feel free to take a quick browse and try out some
of our new resources. I hope you enjoy!
I just got
back from Vegas... tucked the kids in... and sat
down for a quick blog post. What a great event...
this year’s Photoshop World was a blast. I
taught several new classes that I really enjoyed
(the resources are going up in a few days).
The show was a great chance to catch up with
industry pros as well as friends. I managed to
bump into two former students and several viewers
of our podcasts.
Some of the highlights of the show:
Adobe
announced that they will announce CS4 on
September 23 (weird... I know)
I caught a
few great classes from some top
instructors
I saw some
great new technology, blog posts
forthcoming
To use this
template, first open and crop your desired
image to 540 x 366 pixels at 72 ppi. Note: you
can crop the entire image, or focus in on a
smaller, more important part of it.
Flatten your
cropped file and select "Save As" to save the
cropped file as
"FileNameFlatLowRes.psd"
Then open the
template, click on any one of the smart object
layers in the layers palette. Select Layer >
Smart Object > Replace Contents, and
navigate to select your cropped, low
resolution, flattened file.
After the
images are replaced, choose the best looking
conversion, open your original high resolution
file, and drag and drop the adjustment layer
from the template to the high res file.
Voila!
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