Photoshop CS4: The Missing Manual

Foreword

In the short but crowded history of consumer technology, only two products ever became so common, influential, and powerful that their names become verbs.

Google is one.

Photoshop is the other.

(“Did you Google that guy who asked you out?” “Yeah—he’s crazy. He Photoshopped his last girlfriend out of all his pictures!”)

It’s safe to say that these days, not a single photograph gets published, in print or online, without having been processed in Photoshop first. It’s usually perfectly innocent stuff: a little color adjustment, contrast boosting, or cropping.

But not always. Sometimes, the editing actually changes the photo so that it no longer represents the original, and all kinds of ethical questions arise. Remember when TV Guide Photoshopped Oprah’s head onto Ann-Margaret’s body? Or when Time magazine darkened O.J. Simpson’s skin to make him look more menacing on the cover? Or when National Geographic moved one of the pyramids closer together to improve the composition?

Well, you get the point: Photoshop is magic. Thanks to Photoshop, photography is no longer a reliable record of reality.

And now, all that magic is in your hands. Use it wisely.

There’s only one problem: Photoshop is a monster. It’s huge. Just opening it is like watching a slumbering beast heave into consciousness. Dudes: Photoshop CS4 has over 500 menu commands.

In short, installing Photoshop is like being told that you’ve just won a 747 jumbo jet. You sit down in the cockpit and survey the endless panels of controls ...