Photoshop CS4: Advanced

Introduction
Welcome to Photoshop CS4 Advanced
Installing 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

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 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

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 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

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 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

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 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

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 Camera Raw tips and tricks
Correcting JPEG and TIFF images
Still to Come
Until next time

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