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Adobe Photoshop CS4 One-on-One (Digital Media) | 
 enlarge | Author: Deke Mcclelland
Publisher: O'Reilly Media
Category: Book
List Price: $49.99
Buy New: $27.00
You Save: $22.99 (46%)
New (33) Used (7) from $27.00
Avg. Customer Rating:  11 reviews
Sales Rank: 7630
Media: Paperback
Edition: Pap/Cdr
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 544
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2.7
Dimensions (in): 9.6 x 7.9 x 0.9
ISBN: 0596521898
Dewey Decimal Number: 006
EAN: 9780596521899
ASIN: 0596521898
Publication Date: October 28, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Amazon.com Review
How can you master the fundamentals of Photoshop CS4, with all of its incredible features? Deke McClelland's proven One-on-One learning system offers step-by-step tutorials, five hours of DVD-video demonstrations, and hands-on projects to improve your knowledge and hone your skills. Read about features such as Photoshop's new Adjustments panels in the book, and see how they're used first-hand in the video.
Author Deke McClelland's Photoshop CS4 One-on-One Top Ten New Features Roundup
10) Spring-loaded tools. Temporarily select a tool by pressing and holding its shortcut key. For example, when retouching an image with the healing brush: Press and hold Y to temporarily get the history brush, erase part of your modification, and then release Y to return to the healing brush.
9) The Adjustments palette. Nondestructive adjustment layers (which are independent layers of editable color adjustment) are now handled in a palette. Some folks will love the convenience, others will lament the many changes that were required to accommodate this feature. Mostly, though, the palette aggregates stuff that’s been there for ages. One new item, Vibrance, enhances color intensity without exaggerating noise.
8) The Masks palette. CS4’s other new palette is largely another aggregator, providing convenient access to old features. Three new items: The wonderful Color Range command can now directly generate masks. Color Range can see base colors based on proximity. And you can blur edges parametrically (meaning non-permanently, by the numbers).
7) The enhanced Bridge 3.0. The Bridge is CS4’s asset manager, permitting you to preview and organize your images. Auto-updating workspaces, a review mode complete with image carousel, full-screen preview, folder-independent image collections, and search-based smart collections are just a few improvements. Oh, and you can assemble multipage PDF contact sheets from the Output panel.
6) Improved toning tools. Paint with the dodge tool to lighten an image; paint with the burn tool to darken. Only thing, the tools used to suck. Now they’re so good, I actually use them on a regular basis. They’re still destructive (meaning they permanently change pixels), but in a good way!
5) Camera Raw 5. Essentially a logically organized and altogether independent color adjustment application, Camera Raw continues to be that top-secret tool that makes every version of Photoshop worth buying. This time, it offers the equivalent of nondestructive and highly customizable dodge and burn. Which you can apply as brushstrokes or gradients. Plus you can add vignettes inside crop boundaries. It’s like a free copy of Lightroom bundled inside every version of Photoshop. Which given that Lightroom costs more than a Photoshop upgrade, and this is just feature 5 of 10, is fairly significant.
4) Target adjustment tool. Associated with three color adjustments—Hue/Saturation, Black & White, and Curves—the target adjustment tool lets you selectively modify colors and luminance levels by dragging in an image. For example, drag on a model’s lips to boost their saturation. No need to isolate a hue range. Just drag. Honestly, if you aren’t loving this tool within a week, check to make sure you have a pulse.
3) The tabbed-window interface. This feature has already proved controversial, with a few noisy Macintosh users in particular voicing disapproval. But speaking as a cross-platform guy with a decidedly Mac bias, it’s a net-sum gain. You now have the option of docking every image in a tabbed window. Click a tab to switch documents. Drag a tab to reassign priority. Plus, you can drag-and-drop a layer onto a tab to move that layer from one image to another. The tabbed window interface is a masterpiece of design and a thing of beauty.
2) Content-aware scaling. Part of Adobe’s advance compositing suite, the Content Aware Scale command lets you stretch or squish low-contrast “background” elements independently of high-contrast “foreground” ones. Which means you can bring people together, turn horizontal images into vertical ones, and otherwise transform photographs intelligently. My guess: five years from now we’ll all be mocking this feature for what it got wrong. (The degree to which it can mess up certain images is fantastic!) But in the moment, you’re going to be singing its praises. This is Photoshop’s first truly magical feature since the magic wand. And that was 18 years ago, babies. (Okay, the healing brush was also magical. And that was, what, seven years ago? So we’re talking three magical features in two decades. Got to admit, magic is rare.)
1) OpenGL navigation. Forget all that other stuff. Seriously, content-aware scaling? As if. So far as I’m concerned, Photoshop CS4 offers one and only one new feature: OpenGL navigation. Assuming you have a video card that supports OpenGL (most do), then here’s what you get: Slow continuous zooms. Rotate the view. Get the hand tool, toss the image, and watch it sail across the screen. Hold down H and click and hold for bird’s eye. And by God if every zoom level isn’t a thing of bicubically rendered beauty. (No idea what I’m talking about? Trust me, huge.) OpenGL navigation is so good it makes me hate CS3. Some nights, OpenGL navigation and I open a bottle of wine and just talk about how lucky we are just to have met each other. It’s that good.
Product Description
The DVD videos are available on Safari. Please click here. Master the fundamentals of Photoshop CS4 and then some with One-on-One, Deke McClelland's unique and effective learning system. Adobe Photoshop CS4 One-on-One includes step-by-step tutorials, more than five hours of DVD-video demonstrations, and hands-on projects to help you improve your knowledge and hone your skills. Once you read about a particular technique, you can see how it's done first-hand in the video. The combination is uniquely effective.
Whether you're new to Photoshop or a creative professional interested in the groundbreaking features of CS4, Deke's conversational style and carefully structured lessons guide you easily through the program's fundamental and advanced concepts and techniques. More than 850 full-color photos, diagrams, and screen shots illustrate every key step. With this book, you will: - Learn at your own speed with 12 self-paced tutorials
- Master Photoshop's workflow and file handling features
- Try out techniques and best practices with engaging real-world projects
- Discover how Bridge and Camera Raw can help you optimize digital photos
- Create beautiful multilayered documents, including posters and flyers
- Test your knowledge with multiple-choice quizzes in each chapter
And more. Written and produced by a Photoshop expert with well over 20 years of experience, Adobe Photoshop CS4 One-on-One simulates a classroom environment that provides one-on-one attention as you proceed from lesson to lesson. You'll learn to use Photoshop faster, more creatively, and more efficiently than you thought possible.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 6 more reviews...
 Essential reading for intermediate Photoshop users January 7, 2009
There are plenty of PS (Photoshop) books out there; most are good. The problem is picking the right one.
Certain things are essential. High quality printing. Easy to follow examples and tutorials. Logical flow (simple to complex).
Then, it has to match and be just slightly better than the reader's current capabilities. Just as a beginner would get lost in an advanced book (like Deke's Channels and Masks) and an advanced reader would find an introductory book a waste of money, middle level PS users need to find just the right book for their current skill set.
For me, this book was a perfect fit. Photography (and digital darkroom work) are a hobby that takes 10-15 hours a week. I like to learn new tricks and techniques. I like to learn ways to work faster and smarter. This book helped me with that on all points.
First, some advice: The first chapter has a series of settings and shortcuts that Deke uses and that he recommends. Follow this chapter carefully; it will make the tutorials that follow easier to work through. You can always reset things later if his workflow isn't the best for you.
Aside from that, the book starts out with a recommendation to watch the video (there's a high quality video for each chapter that shows him working through the techniques. It is an overview and not meant as a stop-start-follow-along tutorial. Then, he recommends reading the text first, followed by editing the sample pictures that match the tutorials.
I did just that and even did them again so that they'd become natural for me. After that, I went back to some of my own inventory of images and worked the steps on them -- and often wound up with better end results that I had previously achieved. (Perhaps that's the best measure of a book like this.)
Nothing is perfect, and I do have a few minor wishes.
1. A much better index.
2. A summary of the tips at the end of each chapter
3. A few blank pages at the end of each chapter or at the end of the book for jotting down notes.
4. Some advice on when to use Bridge (comes with PS) vs Lightroom (a separate but more robust product).
In summary, it really felt like Deke was sitting there giving me personalized training at my own pace.
 Adobe Photoshop CS4 One-on-One (Digital Media) December 20, 2008
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
The author rushed to print with this book! While the basic data is accurate, the book is full of grammatical errors and omissions. I am only into Ch 5 and have found several errors. Also, the accompanying disk is missing files that are supposed to be used in the lessons. While I admire the author for his knowledge I wish that he had hired a good proof reader before publishing the book.
 Exceedingly elementary December 20, 2008
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
The book might be adequate for a total newbie, but anybody that has any Photoshop experience would find it a big waste of time.
CS4 or CS3 reviewed? December 16, 2008
3 out of 6 found this review helpful
the biggest change in this book, compared to the previous CS3 One on One, is the cover sheet, Deke barely touched the most important changes on the CS4 version. If you have CS3 One on One, don't bother buying this one.
Adobe One-on-One CS4 December 12, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I am a big fan of the Deke Adobe training books. This one is very good at providing information to the new user as well as providing tips to the more advanced user. The books are well written with very good graphics and the DVD information is very good for following along and performing the exercises.
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