Photoshop CC: The Missing Manual

Chapter 1. Introduction

Congratulations on buying one of the most complicated pieces of software ever created. Fortunately, it’s also one of the most rewarding. No other program on the market lets you massage, beautify, and transform images like Photoshop. It’s so popular that people use its name as a verb: “Dude, you Photoshopped the heck out of her!” You’d be hard-pressed to find a published image that hasn’t spent some quality time in this program, and those that didn’t probably should have.

The bad news is that it’s a tough program to learn; you won’t become a Photoshop guru overnight. Luckily, you hold in your hot little hands a book that covers the program from a practical standpoint, so you’ll learn the kinds of techniques you can use every day. It’s written in plain English for normal people, so you don’t have to be any kind of expert to understand it. You’ll also learn just enough theory (where appropriate) to help you understand why you’re doing what you’re doing.

Note

Adobe used to offer two versions of the program: Photoshop Standard and Photoshop Extended, which included extra features such as 3D tools. However, they combined the two versions in CC.