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Create, correct, and control with layers,
the most powerful tool in Photoshop and Photoshop Elements
Imagine yourself in total control of every adjustment to your photos. You've seen the illustrations in glossy magazines, the fine art reproductions in museum catalogs, the award-winning pictures of professional photographers. To produce this kind of magic, understanding how to use layers for your entire breadth of image correction is key.
Discover the best ways to showcase your talent with the full power of layers from best-selling author/digital image specialist Richard Lynch. Learn what layers can do for you as an integral part of organizing image development, creating and storing image versions with nondestructive editing, and promoting a positive workflow.
Timeless, not version specific, this book will help you take layers to a new level to increase your efficiency and produce better end results, whatever release of the software you use. Step-by-step instructions and practical examples illustrate how to.
Don't make your work harder than it needs to be when you can use layers to control any adjustment using multiple forms of blending concurrently - transparency, clipping, opacity/fill, masking, modes, channel targeting, Blend If, and styles.
Author Richard Lynch is a photographer, designer, editor, web developer, and author of the popular "Hidden Powers" series on Photoshop and Photoshop Elements. He also writes for PCPhoto, Popular Photography, Digital Photographer, and Digital Photography Techniques.
* Leverage layer power to correct and enhance color, fix problems in composition, repair damage or flaws, and isolate image areas for changes, adjustments and experimental concepts
* Incorporate layers in a workflow that extracts the maximum from your camera, exploits the potential in every image and helps you organize your perceptions and ideas according to your unique vision
* Recombine layers to form new images in a nondestructive process that preserves both the original image and intermediate layers for further editing - or tomorrow's inspirations
* Dip into the accompanying CD with a robust library and presets of practice images. Create your own set of favorite composition techniques
Product Details
* Amazon Sales Rank: #171774 in Books
* Published on: 2007-07-30
* Original language: English
* Number of items: 1
* Binding: Paperback
* 288 pages
Editorial Reviews
Review
Praise for author's previous books:
Hidden Power of Photoshop Elements 4
Review 1:
'As a "collectionner" of the best Photoshop books on the market I must recommend this excellent book from Richard Lynch to all the digital photographers among us.Other reviewers explained the content of the book in detail so I won't do the same,I can only agree their comments!
This book is not for beginners, but if you want to understand how "digital photography" sees the real world and how a camera or a scanner tranlate all what you see in the digital format then this book is for you.
Lynch is a real PRO and takes the patience to explain ALL the hidden secrets behind this tremendous Adobe's software.
This is a cheap investment for YEARS believe me; you'll learn on your own pace the multiple facets of "seeing images" like a photographer and by following the exercises and explanations of the 11 chapters (take your time to re-read from time to time and practice,practice...)you NEVER take photos the same way you did before!
The greatest bonus is the companion cd with all the hidden tools(above 100 and the images used in the book).
Richard Lynch has given us an enormous homework to do but it's worth more than any training course that costs you a hundred of bucks!
Terrific,awesome,well explained,I can't find words enough to recommend this book.'
Review 2:
'the book is full of invaluable advice. Workflow, separations, masking... The combination of Elements 4 with the book and tools covers all my expectations for a dedicated amateur. And yes, I like shooting raw, taking advantage of 16 bits,black and white... and I have still much too learn from the book!'
Review 3:
'It's an advanced book that does provide you with information about hidden features, undocumented capabilities, and things you never thought of doing with Photoshop Elements 4. As the program itself is based on Photoshop CS, there are lots of things to reveal, and Lynch does a good job of presenting them in a clear and concise way.'
Praise for Hidden Power of PS Elements 3:
Review 1: 'This book provides great information on digital color reproduction and alteration.The book has many good examples for teaching techniques for digital photographic enhancement using Elements 3. The plug-ins are great! Well worth the $$ Best book I,ve found on digital imagery and Elements 3.'
Review 2: 'I wish I could give more stars to this book....The book is written almost like a text book. I found the lessons to be deep, but the text to be very well written and very concise. Mr. Lynch writes to teach and not to show how much he knows (although this is quite evident by reading the book). The book is not just how to use the tools supplied in Photoshop Elements 3, but is about obtaining a deep understanding of the makeup of an image and how to manipulate the image with the knowledge.
Extremely impressive. At this price, it really is a gift from Richard Lynch!
Customer Reviews
Mixed Feelings3
I really wanted to like this book. I enjoyed the author's approach, his web site, and, for the most part, his explanations. I may have learned the basics of layering, though some techniques that I use are done via a cookbook approach without any understanding of the actions I am taking.
I was greatly disappointed in his treatment of Masking, the technique that takes layering to a new level. I knew nothing about it before I purchased the book and, if that is possible, know less now. Chapter 4, Masking, is a complete disaster. He abandoned his patient approach and plowed into the subject, leaving me bewildered and lost. I'm sure he feels differently, but his ability to sense the confusion of the neophyte abandoned him at that point. Masking comes up often enough after that to make the book increasingly frustrating, like hearing a conversation in which you miss every fourth word.
Had I learned even a bit about masking, and more about why certain layering actions are taken, I would have given the book five stars. As it stands, I'm still looking for the layering book that puts it all together.
Better than average4
This book is more complete than the average Photoshop book. (I currently have 6 books in my personal library on various Photoshop and Photoshop Lightroom topics.) The approach that is taken with this book provides more funadmentals than usual - the "why's" of what is presented rather than the usual cookbook, "follow along" style that is typically used in these type books. While the book does provide some of the underlying fundamentals, I took off one star from my rating because more improvements in describing the "whys" could be made to make it even more useful. But overall, this is better than most, and I would recommend it for both beginning and intermediate users of Photoshop programs (from Elements to CS3 versions).
Good but flawed4
I added this volume to my rapidly growing photoshop library in order to learn more about layers, which is indeed a very powerful and most useful weapon in the photoshop arsenal.
And there is a lot of very useful information in here, which I reckon is both the blessing and the curse of this book. After reading this book, you will definitely understand layers. However, there is a lot of text and, as a reviewer before me pointed out, not that many pictures, which to my mind, is not a very good combination. The text can be a bit hard to follow without any prior understanding of photoshop I should imagine. I was certainly glad, that I had already purchased and read other books before this one.
I'm not a big fan of the Scott Kelby approach to photography or photo editing. I think he oversimplifies the learning process in a way that makes you learn some of the hows but none of the whys. This book takes the exact opposite of Kelby's approach and loads everything you could possibly want to know about photoshop layers in your lap. This does make the book a bit heavy. You need to concentrate while using this book and you probably need to go over some of the things a couple of times.
So in conclusion I'll say, that this book is very good and very thorough, but does need an effort to go through. I wouldn't recommend it to a complete novice either, but once you get into photoshop I think it is defintely worth acquiring.
