Derrick Story - The Photoshop Cs4 Companion for Photographers: Portable Photoshop Advice You Can Take Anywhere

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• Selective downloading of pictures from your memory card. You pick the shots you want.

• Automatic addition of your copyright and other valuable metadata during download.

• Automatic backup of your files to a separate drive during download.

• Simplified sorting, searching, rating, and keywording.

• Virtual collections that can be automated. Your best shots collection, for example, can automatically grow as you go about the daily business of rating your images.

• Advanced, nondestructive image editing using tools that photographers understand and actually like.

• Batch processing of your images.

• A simplified approach to using layers in Photoshop.

• Automatic construction of panoramas and high-dynamic-range merges.

• Slide shows, Web albums, and much, much more.

Well, my friend Deke McClelland has published his comprehensive Adobe Photoshop CS4 One-on-One that takes care of everything else. Its a deep dive, but its not tailored for photographers, and its definitely not a book to lug around in your bag.

One last thing I want to mention: Its no mistake that the word Companion is part of this books title. For you, the photographer who wants Photoshop to be a joyous, fulfilling experience, this book is your friend. And I think the two of you are going to have a great time together.

For many of you, the traditional Photoshop workflow has been to jump in and dig your way out. I want to change that. This story has a beginning, middle, and end. Ive designed every step along the way to make your Photoshop experience efficient, productive, and enjoyable. Youll actually feel in control of the software instead of the other way around. In this chapter, Ill provide you with an overview of how this works.

Before I do that, though, I want to share an anecdote. While I was working on this book, I was lucky enough to land an assignment at the Beijing Summer Olympics working in the Main Press Center. My sponsors were Kodak and Apple. My job was to help photographers manage their work in the digital photography lab. I was able to see many beautiful shots as they were transferred from full memory cards to dozens of workstations in the Main Press Center.

I was fascinated by the various workflows photographers had cobbled together over the years. Those using Photoshop as their primary software rarely took advantage of its bundled tools, such as Photo Downloader, Bridge, and Adobe Camera Raw. Instead, they often dragged the contents of their memory cards to the computer desktop and proceeded to open the pictures directly in Photoshop, trying to sort out the shoot from there. Watching these great photographers working under deadline with stacks of Photoshop windows open gave me empathy for their situation. I helped as many of them as I could, but often they were just too stressed to consider a new approach.

I hope you can spare a little time to learn about, and embrace, the amazing workflow that Adobe has built into Photoshop CS4. I say with complete confidence that every hour you invest here will save you hundreds of hours in the coming monthstime that you can better use to perfect and enjoy your photography. Lets start at the beginning.