Adobe Photoshop CS4; one-on-one. (DVD-ROM included).

9780596521899

Adobe Photoshop CS4; one-on-one. (DVD-ROM included)

McClelland, Deke.

O'Reilly Media, Inc.

2009

513 pages

$49.99

Paperback

TR267

McClelland, a prolific author of books on Photoshop and other technology topics, offers a dozen self-paced, well-illustrated tutorials, practical projects, and chapter quizzes for learning the fundamentals of the latest version of Photoshop. He begins with installing the software, then covers opening and organizing files; brightness, contrast, and levels; correcting color balance; making selections; cropping, straightening and sizing images; creating and applying masks; focus and filters; layered compositions; text and shapes; styles and adjustment layers; and printing and output. His examples are not the subtle stuff of arty intellectual magazines (in chapter 8 he demonstrates how the Liquify filter can be used to turn a towheaded toddler into a tiny, spooky-looking Gotham City superhero), but the information is excellent, and he includes "pearls of wisdom" throughout. The bundled DVD-ROM features about four hours of all-new video instruction by the author corresponding to the tutorials. He notes that most but not all steps of the exercises will work with earlier Photoshop versions.

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