Advanced Photoshop CS4 Training DVD

Introduction

• Welcome to Photoshop CS4 One-on-One Advanced
• Installing the DekeKeys keyboard shortcuts
• Resetting the function keys on a Mac
• Installing the CS4 color settings
• Setting up the CS4 color settings

13. Levels and Curves

• Highlights, shadows, and midtones
• Low contrast, bad meter
• Auto tone, contrast, and color
• Cache levels and the Histogram palette
• How the auto commands work
• A first look at Levels
• Target colors and clipping
• Modifying input levels
• Adjusting the gamma value
• Previewing clipping
• The futility of output levels
• Channel-by-channel edits
• When levels fail
• A first look at Curves
• Static Curves layer tricks
• Dynamic Curves layer tricks
• Correcting the composite image
• Neutralizing a color cast
• The Target Adjustment tool in Curves
• Correcting an image in Lab
• The Shadows/Highlights filter
• Radius and tonal width

14. Sharpening Details

• Edge-enhancement tricks
• How sharpening works
• The single-shot sharpeners
• The Unsharp Mask filter
• Understanding the Radius value
• Gauging the best settings
• Previewing how sharpening will print
• Measuring and setting screen resolution
• Tweaking the screen resolution
• Sharpening the luminance data
• USM vs. Smart Sharpen
• Smart Sharpen's Remove settings
• High-resolution sharpening
• When to leave More Accurate off
• When to turn More Accurate on
• The advanced options
• Saving Smart Sharpen settings
• Accounting for camera shake
• Sharpening with the High Pass filter

15. Blurring and Averaging

• Why would you blur?
• Fading after an undo
• The "bell-shaped" Gaussian Blur
• The linear Box Blur
• Add Noise vs. Median
• Despeckle vs. Dust & Scratches
• Smart Blur vs. Surface Blur
• The Motion Blur filter
• Radial Blur's Spin and Zoom variations
• Mixing filtered effects
• The "Captain Kirk in Love" effect
• Diffusing focus with Blur and Overlay
• Simulating Vaseline and film grain
• Filling a layer with a neutral color
• Old-school contrast reduction
• Three steps to diffused focus
• Averaging skin tones
• Addressing the stubborn patches
• Combining Gaussian Blur and Average
• Blurring surface details
• Smoothing blemishes while matching noise
• Reducing digital noise
• Striking a smooth/sharpen compromise
• Smoothing over JPEG artifacts

16. Adjustment Layers

• Independent layers of color adjustment
• Undersea color channels
• Inventing a Red channel with Lab
• Mixing color channels
• Making shadows with Levels
• Applying small color adjustments
• Further modifying Levels in Lab
• Creating a dynamic fill layer
• Brushing and blending color
• Working with "found masks"
• Saturation, sharpen, and crop
• Mixing a monochromatic image
• Masking an adjustment layer
• Working with Opacity and blend modes
• Adding a black-and-white adjustment
• The Target Adjustment tool in black and white
• Tinting a monochrome photo
• Introducing Gradient Map
• Adjusting both color and luminance
• Infusing elements with different colors
• Adjustment layers as creative tools
• Inverting and brightening the background
• Blurring live, editable type
• Hue, saturation, and darkness
• Filling type with a color adjustment
• Using one adjustment to modify another
• Breathing color into the title
• The Hue/Saturation humanoid

17. Opacity and Blend Modes

• Parametric operations
• The power of blend modes
• Changing the Opacity value
• Opacity vs. Fill Opacity
• Meet the blend modes
• Blend mode shortcuts
• Darken, Multiply, and the Burn modes
• Tempering a Burn effect with Fill
• Saving a blended state
• Lighten, Screen, and the Dodge modes
• Linear Burn = Add minus white
• Overlay and the contrast modes
• Fill Opacity takes priority
• Difference and exclusion
• Using difference for golden highlights
• The composite (HSL) modes
• The brush-only modes: Behind and Clear
• Layer groups and the Pass Through mode

18. Advanced Layer Techniques

• It's all about the presentation
• Moving a layer a specific number of pixels
• Adding a pixel mask to a layer
• Editing a layer mask
• Combining layers into a clipping mask
• Introducing the Advanced Blending options
• Using the luminance blending sliders
• Forcing through underlying luminance
• Masking with a path outline
• Refining a mask from the Masks palette
• Creating and modifying a layer group
• Establishing a knockout group
• Fixing last-minute problems
• Introducing layer comps
• Exploring layered states
• Deleting layers and updating comps
• Saving a basic composition
• Assigning and saving appearance attributes
• Layer comps dos and don'ts

19. Creating and Editing Type

• Type: The great imaging exception
• Establishing default formatting attributes
• Saving formatting attributes as a preset
• Making a point text layer
• Editing size and leading
• Working with vector-based text
• Formatting area text
• Creating a layer of area text
• Resizing the text frame
• Changing the anti-aliasing setting
• Obscure but important formatting options
• Text editing tricks and shortcuts
• Creating a cast shadow
• Blurred shadows and beveled text
• Drawing a path outline
• Creating type on a path
• Flipping text across a circle
• Vertical alignment with baseline shift
• Warping text
• Scaling your text to taste
• Applying a custom warp
• Creating an engraved text effect

20. Transform, Warp, and Liquify

• Bending an image to fit your needs
• Creating a canvas texture
• Masking objects against a white background
• Scaling an image to fit a composition
• Aligning one layer to fit another
• Changing the Image Interpolation
• Merging faces
• Rotating the first clock hand
• Adding hands and pasting styles
• Series duplication in Photoshop
• Masking objects against a black background
• Skews and perspective distortions
• Envelope-style warps
• Old-school distortion filters
• Introducing the Liquify filter
• Reconstructing an image
• Using the Warp tool
• The Pucker and Bloat tools
• Push, Turbulence, and Twirl
• The Freeze and Thaw mask tools
• Saving and loading a mesh file
• Creating and applying a texture layer

21. Mastering Layer Styles

• Effects vs. styles
• Of layer styles and masks
• Everything about drop shadow
• Adding a directional glow
• Colorizing with Color Overlay
• Stroke and fill opacity
• Creating a multicolor Outer Glow
• Introducing Bevel and Emboss
• Contour and Texture
• Simulating liquid reflections
• Saving layer styles
• Applying and appending styles
• Saving and swapping style presets
• The five effect helpers
• Blending the effect before the layer
• Colorizing a signature
• Clipping an effect with a mask

22. Working with Camera Raw

• Welcome to the digital darkroom
• Opening Camera Raw in the Bridge
• The Camera Raw 5 interface
• Adjusting the white balance
• Finessing and saving changes
• Using the White Balance tool
• Working with the Exposure controls
• Straightening and cropping a raw image
• Applying automatic exposure adjustments
• Exposure warnings
• Clarity, Vibrance, and Saturation
• Using the Graduated Filter tool
• Dodging with the Adjustment brush
• Tone Curve adjustments
• Using the Spot Removal tool
• Removing noise and sharpening detail
• Adjusting HSL values
• Adjusting luminance, color by color
• Black and white and split toning
• Camera Raw tips and tricks
• Correcting JPEG and TIFF images

Still to Come

• Until next time