How to Cheat in Photoshop CS3The art of creating photorealistic montagesFocal Press is an imprint of Elsevier
By: Steve Caplin
ISBN–13: 978-0-240-52062-9
416 Pages {PDF}
May 28, 2007
33.09 MB
With his in-depth knowledge of the little-known secrets used by the pros to produce awardwinning illustrations, Steve is THE go-to guru for professional designers, graphic artists, illustrators, retouchers and students of design media and illustration who want to create photorealistic effects using Photoshop. Updated for Photoshop CS3, this must-have resource unlocks your creativity and helps you save time in the software so you can spend more time creatively.
The book is also relevant to any version of Photoshop.
• Create convincing smoke effects and make effective explosions the simple way
• Take years off someone's appearance
• Turn a photograph of someone looking straight into the camera into a different perspective with the entire head (not just the eyes)
• Modify a statue so it looks like a living person or paint hair directly on any surface
• Produce the perfect cutout in the shortest time with Photoshop CS3's new Quick Selection tool
• and more ...
How to cheat, and why:The truth about cheating:I’ve used the word ‘cheating’ in the title of this book in two ways.
The most obvious is that I’m describing how to make images look as much as possible like photographs, when they’re not. In this sense, it simply means creating photographic work without the need for a studio.
The other sense of ‘cheating’ is finding shortcuts to help you work more quickly and more economically. Too often you’ll see Photoshop techniques explained using long-winded, complex operations that take an age to complete
Wherever possible, I’ve used quicker solutions to achieve the same results.
For the artist on a deadline, the difference between a perfect work of art and one that’s turned in on time means the difference between a happy
client and one faced with a blank page in the next day’s newspaper.
Workthroughs and examples:Each workthrough in this book is designed as a double page spread.
That way, you can prop the book up behind your keyboard while going through the associated file on the CD.
Some of the workthroughs take the form of case studies, where I dissect an illustration I’ve done as a commissioned job; many of the sections open with one of my illustrations as a real-world example of
the technique I’m talking about.
One reason I’ve used my own artwork is that I know how it was created, and have the original files to take apart.
Messing about in Photoshop can be the most fun you can have without breaking the law, and it’s tempting to experiment with filters and special effects.
But it’s not until you produce an illustration to a specific brief that you realize the issues and problems involved – and then find a way around them.
Almost all the techniques I describe in this book have been learned out of necessity; there’s nothing like a tight deadline to concentrate the mind.
Adrenaline is sometimes the best drug there is.
At the end of each chapter you’ll find an Interlude, in which I discuss an issue of relevance to the Photoshop artist.
Think of them as light relief.
Photoshop terminology:In Photoshop 7, a collection of layers in a folder was called a Layer Set, and using one layer to mask those above it was called Grouping. In Photoshop CS,
the word Grouping was replaced with the cumbersome ‘Make a Clipping Mask’;in Photoshop CS2 the term Layer Set was replaced with the word Group. I’ve
updated all the references so they apply to the latest version; and I’ve used the term ‘clipping’ to refer to making a clipping mask with the underlying layer.
It’s bound to cause some confusion for those using earlier versions, but it was necessary to update the terminology as the program has evolved.
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