Photoshop 7 Bible Professional Edition FROM OUR EDITORS
The Barnes & Noble Review
Few Photoshop users will fail to recognize the name Deke McClelland. But if youﾽre new around these parts, or if youﾽve spent the last 20 years of your professional career in a cave, weﾽll indulge you.
McClellandﾽs been writing insightful, fun-to-read books about Photoshop for more than a decade. Adobe chose him to host the interactive ﾽBest of Photoshop 7.0ﾽ gallery that came with your copy of Photoshop 7. In 2002, he was inducted into -- get this -- the Photoshop Hall of Fame. But heﾽs best known for his magnificent Photoshop Bibles -- the bestselling computer graphics books ever.
The Photoshop Bibles have always had a proven formula: soup-to-nuts coverage, presented in McClellandﾽs friendly, funny, instantly recognizable voice. But now McClellandﾽs messing with the formula.
No, the tone hasnﾽt changed: McClelland still shoots from the hip, thank heavens. But where the Photoshop Bibles have always been huge black-and-white books covering everything but the kitchen sink, Photoshop 7 Bible, Professional Edition is in full color from start to finish. There are more than 1,000 separate illustrations. All the photos are printed at 300 pixels per inch or higher. All the full-color screen shots are meticulously diagrammed. And, for the first time, the bookﾽs printed on glossy paper -- so, finally, itﾽs as much a pleasure to look at as it is to read.
At 650 pages, Photoshop 7 Bible, Professional Edition is some 40 percent shorter than the ﾽregularﾽ Photoshop Bible. (Color costs beaucoup bucks.) So McClelland has refocused the text on 14 crucial aspects of using Photoshop: areas where he can especially supercharge your creativity and productivity.
Where the Photoshop Bibles have always catered to beginners and experienced users alike, this book rips away the beginnersﾽ coverage. (No more coverage of Preferences. These pages are dedicated to more challenging stuff, like creating your own custom effects.)
Whatﾽs more, while thereﾽs some overlap with Photoshop 7 Bible, the majority of these pages are new. And if youﾽre upgrading from Photoshop 6 Bible, youﾽll have never seen 85 percent of this text.
The Professional Edition is focused more than ever before on creative technique. Youﾽll find exclusive or substantially expanded coverage of hue and saturation adjustment; the sRGB color space; the Channel Mixer; layer styles; history; Render filters; automated actions; batch renaming and processing; arbitrary and displacement maps; digital photography; and Web graphics techniques -- to name just a few topics.
The coverage of Levels and Curves is representative of McClellandﾽs depth -- and attitude. He starts by trashing Brightness/Contrast, the feature ﾽlaymenﾽ would use to adjust luminosity levels: ﾽThe layman is a simple man and Brightness/Contrast is a simple command. They make a perfect pairﾽ Granted, Brightness/Contrast is simple, but itﾽs also misleading, indiscriminate, and arbitrary.ﾽ As a pro, you want to do the job with Levels and Curves -- always.
So McClelland shows you expert techniques for using Levels to adjust specific brightness values in highlights, shadows, and midtones in any color channel, one channel at a time. He explains histograms so you can actually understand them; and completely demystifies the powerful (if cumbersome) Curves and Gradient Map commands. Youﾽll learn when to use Auto Levels, when to use Auto Contrast, when not to, and how to tweak these Auto features to do what you really want.
Youﾽll also appreciate McClellandﾽs 70-page discussion of Photoshopﾽs best destructive filters, Pixelate, Distort, and Render. Here, he introduces a really cool ﾽCrystal Haloﾽ effect, and shows how to create exceptional mezzotints. He presents quick, effective ways to create custom lighting effects, clouds, thick-liquid droplets, and concentric pond ripples. He even shows how to create metallic coatings with gleaming highlights and crisp shadows -- without using the often-disappointing Chrome filter.
Thereﾽs a lot more. An excellent chapter on masks and extractions. Expert coverage of Web graphics, including compressing color palettes; regulating compression and dithering with masks; and using diffusion transparency dithering. Great ideas for using corrective filters to heighten focus and contrast, and to convert images to line drawings. This might just be the Technicolor Photoshop Bible of your dreams. Bill Camarda
Bill Camarda is a consultant, writer, and web/multimedia content developer. His 15 books include Special Edition Using Word 2000 and Upgrading & Fixing Networks For Dummies®, Second Edition.
FROM THE PUBLISHER
Master Photoshopﾽs most powerful retouching options, color adjustments, and filters Create sophisticated Web graphics, photographic compositions, and unique synthetic effects Achieve unprecedented control over layers, color balance, focus, lighting, masking, and styles
"The Professional Edition is without a doubt the best book on Photoshop Iﾽve ever read." ﾽBrian Maffitt, Chief Creative Officer, Total Training, Inc.
"The Photoshop 7 Bible, Professional Edition belongs on EVERY designerﾽs bookshelfﾽitﾽs that indispensable." ﾽScott Kelby, President, National Association of Photoshop Professionals
Inside, youﾽll find advanced coverage of Photoshop 7 Create and optimize Web graphics and make the most of ImageReady Master Photoshop 7ﾽs expanded range of painting and retouching options Explore new ways to adjust and enhance colors Exploit the power of convolution kernels and displacement maps Increase your efficiency with batch processing and the File Browser
In this comprehensive, lavishly illustrated guidebook, Adobe certified Photoshop expert Deke McClelland has created the ultimate reference for the serious Photoshop professional. No matter how much experience you have, Dekeﾽs expert instruction will advance your Photoshop skills to the next level with unique, in-depth coverage of Photoshop 7ﾽs most powerful and challenging features. If you loan this book to someone, demand collateralﾽor you may never get it back! Learn how to customize and apply the Auto Color command and other powerful new features Correct seemingly impossible-to-fix images with the ChannelMixer Find out how complex features really workﾽhighly detailed information graphics make it easy Master Lighting Effects and other professional-level features
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