Complete Idiot's Guide to Adobe (R) Photoshop (R) 6

Introduction. Why You Need This Book. Getting the Most Mileage from This Book. Trademarks. I. LEARNING PHOTOSHOP 6 THE SMART WAY. 1. A Tour of the Interface. What Are All of These Things? Choosing from the Menu. Context Menus. Examining the Options Bar. Exploring the Toolbox. Examining the Tool Groups. Using the Image Navigation Tools. Picking Apart Palettes. Getting Your Feet Wet. Making the Jump into ImageReady. 2. What's Your Preference, Sonny? Choosing Your Initial Preferences. Determining How You Pick Colors. Super-Size Your Work with Interpolation. Setting Correction Preferences. Choosing Other Preferences. Preferences for Saving Files. Sneak Previews. File Extension Options. Maximize Backwards Compatibility. Selecting the Number of Recent Files to Display. Options for Your Video Display and Cursor. Looking at Your Display Options. Cursors and Their Options. Transparency and Color Alerts. Picking a Color to Warn About Color Printing Problems. Sizing Up Units and Rulers. Choosing Colors for Alignment Tools. Connecting Third-Party Software and Choosing Number-Crunching Areas. Hooking Up Your Plug-Ins. Choosing Hard-Drive Locations for Photoshop's Calculations. Memory Use Settings. Storing Your Image Cache Preferences. Tweaking ImageReady Preferences. Maximizing Optimization. 3. Color Your World. ICC Profiles: Ahead of Their Time and Beyond Your Needs. Color a la Mode. Changing Modes. Additional Ideas for Color Manipulating Mode. Stirring Things Up with the Channel Mixer. Find Ancient Treasure Using the Gradient Map. The Color Selection Tools. Why Is There a Foreground and a Background Color? Using the Color Picker. Exploring the ImageReady Color Palette. Painting with the Color Palette. Using Color Swatches. Pulling Apart Palettes Like a Teamster. Keep Your Eye on the Dropper. 4. Opening and Saving Grace. Short Attention Span? Open As? What's Up with That? Accessing the Open As Command. Save As the Correct Extension. Transferring Your Images onto Photo CD. Opening an Image on Photo CD. Naming Your Source and Destination. Getting into the Import/Export Business. Getting Scans and Digital Pictures into Photoshop. Saving Text and Audio Notes in Image Files. Creating Text Notes in Photoshop. Recording and Playback of Audio Notes. Preparing for the Coming Crash. Saving Grace. Why Save As? Weighing the Advantages and Dangers of Save As. Using File Details to Determine a File's Format. Saving Files for the Web. Using Save For Web. 5. Wanna Trade PC Files, Mac? Not All Formats Are Covered. Comparing Apples Andu. Photoshop's Native File Format. Exploring Windows' File Format. BMP Format Performance. Using Macintosh's File Format. Relying on a Versatile Format. TIFF Dialog Box Choices. Using TIFF's LZW Compression. TIFF Format Performance. The Compression King. The Flavors of JPEG. The JPEG Dialog Box. Using Save For Web to Optimize JPEG Images. JPEG Format Performance. Final Thoughts on JPEG. The Web Wonder. Saving GIFs Using Save For Web. GIF Format Performance. PNGing the Web. 6. In Through the Output. What Options Do You Have? Previewing Your Print. Changing Image Scale for Printing. Reposition Your Image for Printing. Setting Up the Page for a Successful Print. Changing Your Masterpiece's Orientation for Printing. Selecting a Printer. Opting for Different Paper Sizes. Exploring Print Properties. Tweaking Your Printer's Main Properties. Setting Your Printer's Quality. Paper Options with Your Printer. Saving Printer Settings. Avoid the Separation Buttons! Rely on the Experience of a Professional Printer. How to Print a Page or a Pixel. Printing Multiple Images. Printing a Contact Sheet. Printing Multiple Sizes of the Same Image on a Single Page. Hey, This Print Doesn't Look Like What I See on My Monitor! Locating the Adobe Gamma Control. Choose the Adobe Gamma Step-by-Step Setup. See What Your Printed Image Looks Like Before You Print. 7. Size Matters. Screen Pixels Aren't the Same As Image Pixels. Resolution and Document Size. Resolution Rules of Thumb. Resampling and Its Links to Resolution. Thinking Differently About Resolution. Did You Resample or Resize? Blowing Resolution Out of Proportion. The Loss of Sharpness from Resampling. Make It Big! Upsample Your Work. The Happy Upsampler. Stretch That Crazy Canvas, Leonardo. That Shrinking Feeling: Downsampling. A Warning About Downsampling. II. TOOLIN' AROUND. 8. Drawing Inspiration from the Paint Tools. Portrait of the Paint Tools. Painting Techniques. Squeezing a Little Extra out of the Paint Tools. Creating Special Effects with Blending Modes. Exploring Other Painting Options. Brush with Greatness. Using Brush Options. Making a Brush of Your Own. Using the Pen Tool. Getting in Shapes. 9. Singled Out: Using Selections. Making Basic Selections. Geometric Selection Tools. Choosing Marquee Options. The Crop Tool: The Ultimate Selection. Freehand Selection Tools. Let's Lasso the Eiffel Tower! Waving the Magic Wand. Adding, Subtracting, and Intersecting Selections. Making Menu Selections. Making Selection Modifications. Loading and Saving Selections. Moving and Copying Selections. 10. Selections: The Sequel. Using Paths for Making Selections. Using the Freeform Pen Tool. A Pen Tool You'll Be Magnetically Drawn To. Converting a Path to a Selection. The Path Leading to Selections. Why You Want to Use Paths to Create Selections. Selecting People and Objects. The Standard Mode. Utilizing Quick Mask Mode. Quick Mask Options. Setting Up Quick Mask Mode. Quick Mask Concepts. Painting Soft Edges in Quick Mask Mode. 11. Send In the Clones. Digitally Retouching a Portrait. Repairing a Damaged Background. Using the Opacity Option for Atmospheric Effects. Cloning from One Image to Another. Stamping Out Patterns. 12. So, What's Your Type? Working with the Type Tool. Using the Type Tool Options. Moving Type and Type Layers. The Lord of the Fonts. Font Tricks and Tips. Working with Font Substitution. Finding Fonts and Foundries on the Net. Setting the Size of Your Type. Are You Antialias? Creating Color Harmony with Your Type. Using the Character Palette. Running the Baselines. Crossing the Imaginary Baseline. Learning About Kerning. Some Space About Tracking. Using the Paragraph Palette. Warping Text. Silly Type Tricks. 13. Fill 'er Up! Using the Fill Command. Using New Fill Layer. Doin' the Stroke. Throwing Around the Paint Bucket. Making Fills That Gradually Change Colors. The Gradient Tool Test Drive. Tips for Gradient Variations. Graduating to the Gradient Editor. 14. You Can Change History. Choosing How to Correct Your Mistakes. Setting Up Your History Options. Jumping from One State to Another. Trashing a Part of the History List. Turn Back Time with a Stroke of the Brush. Make History and Then Undo It. The End of History (As We Know It). Creating New Snapshots. A Little Warning About System Resources. 15. Repeatable Actions. Using Preset Actions. Road-Testing Actions. Creating a New Action Set. Recording an Action. Actions Options. Having a Dialog Box Option. Changing the Display of the Actions List. Making Your Own Web Photo Gallery. Automated Web Photo Gallery Creation. Creating Droplets. III. LAYERING IT ON THE LINE. 16. Layers in Plane English. How Do Layers Work? Creating Multiple Levels. Working with Copies of Layers. Using Multiple Layers. Managing Layers. Creating Layer Sets. Merging Layers. Unflattening Layers. Protecting Layers Using Locks. Locking Transparency. 17. Taking Layers to the Next Level. Layer Blending Modes. More Layer Modes. Adjustment Layer Possibilities. Playing with Adjustment Layers. Understanding Layer Blending Modes. Creating Layer Masks. Using Layer Masks. 18. Amazing Layer Styles and Transformations. Becoming an Expert on Styles. The Ins and Outs of the Layer Styles. Creating a Drop Shadow Effect. Applying Multiple Layer Styles. Saving a Layer Style As a Preset. The Limits of Layer Styles. Transformation Concepts. The Transformation Pitfall (and What to Do About It). Using Transformations to Create Shadows. IV. ORDERING FROM THE MENU. 19. Plug-In Power. Getting Connected with Import/Export. The Creative Plug-Ins. Experimenting with Creative Plug-Ins. The Lighting Effects Filter. Using Layers and the Watercolor Filter. Using the Texturizer Plug-In. Liquifying Your Images. When to Stop Using Plug-Ins. 20. Toning Up. Setting the Tone. Global Toning Choices. Automatically Adjusting Tone. Manually Adjusting Tonal Curves. Using Curves. Adjusting Color Through Variations. Expose on the Local Toning Tools. Spot Toning, Part I. Lose 20 Pounds Permanently in Just a Few Minutes. 21. Stay Sharp. Losing Your Focus. Global Sharpening tools. Properly Applying the Unsharp Mask. Employing the Sharpen Tool. What If You Go Too Far? Making Your Boss Look Sharper Than He Really Is! 22. Acquiring the Soft Touch. The Magic of Blur. Global Blur Filters. Creating a Softly Diffused Image. Controlling Blur. Shifting the Focus to Your Subject. Blurring Small Image Areas. Blending Composited Images with the Smudge Tool. Creating Fur and Smoke with the Smudge Tool. 23. Photoshop Rules. Using Rulers. Using Guides for Aligning Image Elements. Getting on the Grid. Making Precision Measurements. Exploring Additional Measurement Options. Calculations for Image Compositing. Aligning Layers. V. WORKIN' THE WEB. 24. Mapping Out the Web Essentials. Previewing Images Destined for the Web. Previewing Images on Other Platforms. Previewing Your Image in Different Browsers. Wanna Slice? Cutting Up with the Slice Tool. Using the Slice Select Tool. Linking and Unlinking Slices. Adding URL Information to Slices. Mapping Web Images. Exploring the Image Map Tools. Using the Image Map Palette. Applying an Imagemap to a Layer. 25. Rockin' Rollovers. Rollover Basics. Using Additional Rollover States. Linking a Rollover to Another Web Page. Saving a Rollover. Using Rollovers and Slices Together. 26. Let's Get Animated Understanding Web Animation Principles. The Mechanics of the Animation Palette. Creating a Basic Animation. Setting the Stage for Your Animation. Getting a Moving Performance from Ducky. Adding Animated Text. Polishing Your Ducky. VI. PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER. 27. The Big Picture. Applying What You've Learned. Creating the Background Image. Adding Text to Your Diploma. Wrapping Up in ImageReady. Where Do I Go from Here? Continuing Your Photoshop Education. "Art" and Computers. Creating Your Own Ideas. Get Inspired! 28. Useful Peripherals. Getting Images into Photoshop. Buy a Scanner or Photo CDs? Scanning for Scanners. Going Directly to Digital. The Scoop on Digital Cameras. Images on the Cheap. Plugging the Plug-Ins. Third-Party Plug-Ins. Platform-Specific Peripherals. i-us on the Web. Sending and Opening Images via Email. Placing an Image into an Email. A Final Thought. Appendix A. Speak Like a Geek. Index.