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Learning Photoshop the fast and easy way

By: Dan Feildman

In order to have a fully color controlled environment you must have all devices displaying or printing color, profiled. How is this accomplished? Color management software (CMS) takes readings from your specific devices and compares their color with reference files of what color "should be" as defined by the ICC. For example, to profile a scanner you would scan in what is called an IT8 target. This scan is then compared with a reference file by the CMS. The differences between what the reference file says the color should be, and what the color your device actually output is meat of the profile. Basically, a profile says what's not perfect about your particular device. If your scanner always seems to scan things in a little green, or your printer always seems to print things with a magenta cast-these are the things that are taken into account when color profiling your devices. To complicate matters a little further, this process also takes into account the differences in color between various paper and ink combinations.

This is where professional level CMS's and entry level ones differ. At this point with the entry level you will scan in the printed target and the CMS will actually use the before generated scanner profile to correct the scan, so it can the correct your printed target. A professional level CMS will have a separate hardware device designed specifically for reading printed media targets.

I would recommend using Relative Colorimetric as your Rendering Intent when doing the Convert to Profile step and when printing with Print with Preview out of Photoshop. Rendering intents control how the profile is applied to either the scanner or printed image. Relative Colorimetric has proven to be the best in my testing. Read the documentation that came with your CMS in order to learn more about the other available rendering intents.

For those who do not know, Adobe Photoshop is a program designed to let people edit various images on their computers. Its primary purpose is to let people perform touch ups on pictures before printing them. Of course, each succeeding version of Adobe Photoshop included more and more tools which let people add effects and do various other things to their photographs. The Adobe Photoshop of today actually allows people to add sound and animation to their photographs for sharing on the internet. In the past, people who took bad pictures were stuck with them. A lot of things can go wrong in a picture. There's the usual red-eye, skewed angles, shaky focus and others. Adobe Photoshop was the tool that made all of these things disappear. With Adobe Photoshop, people can take pictures like amateurs and still produce images like pros!

However, like almost any other person who has been held back by the fear that the Photoshop CS might be too sophisticated and complicated to be learned, there is a need to first familiarize with the basic and the advanced functions of the software. Even Adobe Systems recognize the fact that its Photoshop CS offering is challenging to use. Do not fret. There are now numerous ways on how you could easily and conveniently get a tutorial for the software. You would logically not be able to learn how to use the computer program for yourself. However, there are many centers and firms that aim to provide crash courses and lessons for the initiative. Find a personal tutorial center for Adobe Photoshop within your community. Usually, such centers train and educate people about many other computer programs as well. Enroll in such sessions. You would be left to decide whether you would prefer the classroom setup or the personal instruction or the one-on-one session.

Perform non-destructive scaling with Smart Objects. You know how it is: You try to make an imported object larger, and it goes all blurry and pixelated. With Smart Objects, that's a thing of the past, because you can scale, warp and rotate vector graphics in a non-destructive way. Do neat things in perspective with the new Vanishing Point feature. With Vanishing point you can cut and paste in perspective. Now you're able to turn a photograph of a wall into a "virtual art gallery" with all the pictures correctly skewed, or move a window from one side of a building to another and, because the perspective is correct, have it look like it's always been there. You can also draw lines that taper off into the distance - wide nearest the camera, narrow further away - just like in "real life". Get more accurate printing. With Photoshop CS2, the people at Adobe have improved the printing workflow. Now it's even easier to configure your inkjet printer to get more accurate colour printing.

PhotoshopSecrets Special FX: This tutorial video contains 19 lessons packed in approximately 2 hours of fast-loading CD-ROM. If 'cool!' is the one word that you want to hear to feel validated for your Photoshop efforts, this video tutorial will teach you exactly how to use special effects like the pros. Learn about 3D lathing, liquid splashes, CS branding, pixel stretching, thermal vision, toxic waste and lots more. These are cutting-edge effects, the kind you find in more advanced Photoshop users' works so you might want to try it out for yourself. Photoshopsupport.com. This site features some of the best and latest Photoshop tutorials, including those in video. Use Photoshop confidently in no time with the free video tutorials. You can even click on the links provided to find out about Photoshop products for more detailed tutorials. If you're using Photoshop to come up with a cooler, meaner website, you'll like the short tutorials on SiteGrinder 2, an Adobe Photoshop Plugin.

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