Photoshop CS6: The Missing Manual

The Missing Credits

About the Author

Lesa Snider is on a mission to teach the world to create—and use!—better graphics. She’s an internationally acclaimed speaker, a stock photographer, and the founder of the creative tutorial site PhotoLesa.com. Lesa is the author of many video-training workshops (www.lesa.in/clvideos) and the coauthor of iPhoto ’11: The Missing Manual. She writes a regular column for Photoshop User, Elements Techniques, and Macworld magazines, and contributes frequently to Design-Tools.com and PlanetPhotoshop.com. Lesa is also a long-time member of the Photoshop World Dream Team of instructors and can be spotted teaching at many other conferences around the globe. She also teaches Advanced Photoshop for the international graphic design school, Sessions.edu. You can connect with her online on Facebook (www.facebook.com/PhotoLesa), YouTube (www.lesa.in/ytvideochannel), Twitter (@PhotoLesa), and www.PhotoLesa.com.

During her free time, you’ll find Lesa carving the twisties on her sportbike, dressed up in her Star Trek best at a sci-fi convention, or hanging with fellow Apple Mac enthusiasts. Lesa is a proud member of the BMWMOA, F800 Riders Club, and the Colorado Mac User Group (www.CoMUG.com) a.k.a. the Boulder Mac Maniacs. Email: [e-mail].

About the Creative Team

Dawn Mann (editor) is associate editor for the Missing Manual series. When not working, she hikes, beads, and causes trouble. Email: [e-mail].

Melanie Yarbrough (production editor) lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where she works as a production editor. When not ushering books through production, she’s writing and baking whatever she can think up. Email: [e-mail].

Julie Van Keuren (copy editor) quit her newspaper job in 2006 to move to Montana and live the freelancing dream. She and her husband, M.H. (who is living the novel-writing dream), have two sons, Dexter and Michael. Email: [e-mail].

Ron Strauss (indexer) is a full-time freelance indexer specializing in IT. When not working, he moonlights as a concert violist and alternative medicine health consultant. Email: [e-mail].

Charles Holt (technical reviewer) is an aerodynamic man of random talents. He’s created computer games, ghost-written parts of a book about tea, and won a ukulele design contest. He currently works with his wife, Melissa, as an Apple Consultant in beautiful Colorado (www.PEBMAC.com), but he dreams of once again snorkeling in Napili Bay.

Shangara Singh (technical reviewer) is the author of the popular exam aids for Photoshop and Lightroom—study guides for people who want to become an Adobe Certified Expert—published by Examaids.com. He has also authored a keyword hierarchy for stock photographers (Keyword-Catalog.com) and has his own stock photo website: SensaStockImages.com.

Acknowledgements

This book is dedicated to my beloved cat of 16 years, Sylvester, who returned to The Realm of Feline Gods during the creation of this edition. His laid-back nature and unconditional love will remain with me always.

I’d like to express galactic thanks to iStockphoto.com for providing most of the imagery you see throughout this book: An image really is worth a thousand words (if you ever need high-quality, affordable graphics, visit www.lesa.in/istockdeal). A big hug and thanks to David Pogue who roped me into this project and so graciously wrote the foreword for this book. To Jeff and Scott Kelby for believing in me and nurturing my career in immeasurable ways throughout many years. To Derrick Story for his wisdom and guidance before I got started on this project, and a great big jug of Umbrian vino rosso to Dawn Mann for editing this book and keeping me on track. Her input has made me a better writer and for that I will forever be grateful! To my brilliant tech-editors, Shangara Singh and J. Charles Holt, whose expertise and watchful eyes helped create the best Photoshop book yet.

Special thanks to Jeff Gamet (www.macobserver.com) for keeping me sane and helping with the first edition, to Richard Harrington (www.photoshopforvideo.com) for his help on the actions chapter, to Taz Tally (www.taztallyphotography.com) for helping with the print chapter, to Marcus Conge (www.digitalmanipulation.com) and Bert Monroy (www.bertmonroy.com) for their help with all things 3-D and vector-related, and to the brilliant Veronica Hanley who helped make the drawing chapter make sense to mere mortals. To Deborah Fox (www.deborahfoxart.com) for the beautiful art in the painting chapter, to Tanya and Richard Horie (for their expert advice on the painting chapter and brush customization options), to Karen Nace (www.karennace.com) for her HDR and wide-angle photography, and to Tony Corbell (www.corbellproductions.com) for his guidance on the plug-ins chapter. And without the determination of Jay Nelson (www.design-tools.com) and the expertise of Rod Harlan (www.dvpa.com), the new video chapter would not exist.

To my esteemed colleagues—and good friends—Andy Ihnatko, Ben Willmore, Peter Cohen, Kevin Ames, Dave Cross, Larry Becker, Jack Davis, Gary-Paul Prince, Terry White, Dave Moser, Matt Kloskowski, and Eddie Tapp who all expressed how very proud of me they are and who each, in their own special way, convinced me I could survive writing (and subsequently updating) a book of this magnitude.

Last but not least, buckets of appreciation to my friends and neighbors who continually gave their support—or a cocktail!—when I needed it most: Carol Morphew, Elsbeth Diehl, Leslie Raguso, Kathryn Kroll, Ruth Lind, Leslie Fishlock, Melissa Olilla, Erica Gamet, Kirk Aplin, Lorene Romero, and most importantly, Fran Snider, the best mama a girl could have (wish Daddy could’ve held this book!). To my true love, Jay Nelson, whose respect, support, and caring nature makes me strive to be a better person every single day, and to our beautiful kitties, Samantha and Sherlock, who forced me to get out of my pretty purple Aeron chair and play The Laser Pointer Game with them at exactly 5:15 pm each day.

May the creative force be with you all!

—Lesa Snider