Cover
Adobe Photoshop: A Complete Course and Compendium of Features
Steve Laskevitch
luminousworks.com
Editor: Jocelyn Howell
Project manager: Lisa Brazieal
Marketing coordinator: Mercedes Murray
Interior and cover design, layout, and type: Steve Laskevitch
ISBN: 978-1-68198-515-2
1st Edition (1st printing, June 2020)
2020 Stephen Laskevitch
Rocky Nook Inc.
1010 B Street, Suite 350
San Rafael, CA 94901
USA
www.rockynook.com
Distributed in the UK and Europe by Publishers Group UK
Distributed in the U.S. and all other territories by Ingram Publisher Services
Library of Congress Control Number: 2019939058
All rights reserved. No part of the material protected by this copyright notice may be reproduced or utilized in any form, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission of the publisher.
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While reasonable care has been exercised in the preparation of this book, the publisher and author assume no responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting from the use of the information contained herein or from the use of the discs or programs that may accompany it.
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About the Author
Steve Laskevitch is lead instructor and founder of Luminous Works, the only Adobe Authorized Training Center in the northwestern United States ( https://luminousworks.com ). He is an Adobe Certified Expert (and Adobe Certified Instructor) in Photoshop, Lightroom, Illustrator, and InDesign.
While studying as a physics undergraduate, Steve was invited to instruct a few courses and immediately fell in love with teaching. He discovered his creative passions while learning photography and designing posters and flyers for the organizations he led in college. The worlds of graphic design and photography led him merrily away from a career in physics.
Steve has spent the 21st century both teaching and doing desktop publishing and building production workflows for many companies and individuals. Hes taught at Cornish College of the Arts (where he was awarded the Excellence in Teaching Award), University of Washington Professional & Continuing Education (nominated for their Excellence in Teaching Award), and Seattle Central College.
Steve has regularly helped Adobe Systems prepare expert- and instructor-certification exams, and for nearly five years he led the InDesign User Group in Seattle, InDesigns birthplace. Now he is Luminous Works curriculum director and lead instructor, author of this volume and InDesign: A Complete Course and Compendium of Features, and speaker to user groups and conferences.
Steve is obsessed with New Havenstyle pizza. Dont tell, but the best of that is to be had in Portland, Oregon. Despite this fact, he and his wife teach and live in Seattle.
Acknowledgments
There are too many people to thank, and all of them deserve my gratitude. But, for the sake of brevity, I will restrict myself to just a few.
Id have nothing to write about had it not been for Thomas Knoll and the many people who are and have been on the Photoshop team. I thank them heartily for providing this marvelous instrument to play.
To Liz Atteberry and the others who encouraged my teaching over the years, I owe tremendous thanks. Teaching is what I love to do most and Im forever grateful you gave me the chance to do it.
My Photoshop students over these decades have kept me inspired and, with their awesome questions, have allowed me to explore this applications deep secrets. To all of you, thanks.
To the Rocky Nook crew, especially editor Jocelyn Howell, I thank you for being so fabulous to work with. Its a great partnership!
No greater inspiration is there than Carla Fraga, my wife. And no greater thanks are owed to anyone.
Steve Laskevitch
Seattle, February 2020
Introduction
Start Here
In this book, you will be working your way through a full course curriculum that will expose you to all of the essential features and functions of Adobe Photoshop. Along the way, youll learn the concepts and vocabulary of digital images. Between several larger projects are chapters of lessons. In those lessons, each action that Id like you to try looks like this:
- This is what an action looks like.
The paragraphs surrounding the action explain some of the why and how. For greater depth, the second section of this book is a Compendium of those features and functions, providing the deep dive needed for true mastery of this powerful application. Throughout the Course section, I will suggest readings in the Compendium section. Although you may be able to complete the entire course without them, I think if you do those readings youll find yourself regularly nodding and muttering, oh, thats why it works that way.
Software and Files
Have you installed Photoshop yet? If you work for a company with an enterprise license, its likely your IT people have installed it for you. We will be using the Creative Cloud app as our hub for launching Adobe applications and accessing the services that come with a Creative Cloud (CC) license. This app also checks to make sure your software license is up to date, so it should remain running whenever you use your creative applications. I use the CC apps Preferences to have it launch on startup and auto-update software so I dont have to worry about it.
I most often launch Photoshop by clicking the Open button below the Photoshop icon. If theres an update available, itll be available in the Update s section.
To follow along with the projects and lessons in this book, youll need the files. Launch your favorite web browser and go to rockynook.com/photoshopCandC , answer a simple question, and download the files. Put them somewhere convenient (and memorable).
Image File Formats
Raster and Vector
Digital image files fall into two major categories: raster images, those composed of pixels, and