Okay, the title is an attempt at humour à la Scott Kelby. If you’ve read any of his books you’ll know what I mean. In reality I did spend a few hours today learning more about his 7-point system for Photoshop and the way Scott writes he might as well have been sitting right beside me. He has a very warm and engaging way of covering very technical information punctuated with lighthearted humour. I picked up the book yesterday because I started the Microstock course on Friday and I wanted to make sure that the images I am submitting for my weekly assignments were up to snuff. Since I am also taking the Layers course with Jon Canfield, I figured it might not be a bad resource for that class too.
The book is actually written for PS CS3; I am using the CS4 version. I was concerned about this when I thought about buying the book but it was published in 2008 and I don’t think Scott will do a revised version any time soon. My concerns were somewhat justified as I am relatively new to Photoshop or least this version. After labouriously ploughing through the first lesson I realized that I could probably run through this book and write a companion summary to help others who have CS4 and want to still use this edition of Scott’s book. I’ll do that in a later posting when I have completed all 21 lessons; I promise.
The first photo above is the original, unprocessed image taken in RAW. It is Vancouver’s West End skyline including English Bay as seen from the Kitslano side. Key techniques that were applied include Adobe Camera RAW processing, Curves adjustments, Painting with Light, Layer Blend modes and Layer Masks, and Sharpening. It sounds like a lot but as you can see the original image is quite close to the final image. This is what my photog friend Ron would classify as “finishing” as opposed to “fixing” i.e. correcting errors made when the photo was taken or “fabricating” i.e. adding elements to the final image that were not present in the original. Overall I am happy with this image and the opportunity it presented to improve my knowledge of Photoshop.
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