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Posted on 26/11/03 12:36:18 PM |
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Steve Caplin
Administrator Posts: 7009 Reply  |
What's in the second edition
The second edition of How to Cheat in Photoshop is now finished, and should hit the bookshelves in early January. It's a new edition of the original rather than a sequel, but there is a load of new material in it (an extra 64 pages, at no extra cost). There's one wholly new chapter, Image Adjustment, covering the basics and intricacies of some of the most useful Photoshop adjustment techniques. In addition, the new edition includes 100 high resolution, royalty-free images that I've selected from the AbleStock collection as being of particular use for the photomontage artist. It includes people, objects and background scenes, complete with clipping paths where appropriate - a total value of $12,999 if each image was purchase separately! Wow! The new tutorials include: Lasso and Magic Wand: How and where you should use these tools. A couple of surprising examples for the Lasso tool! QuickMask: This section has now been rewritten and expanded to 6 pages to cover the topic in much more detail. It now covers tips and tricks for semi-transparent areas, as well as showing how to use QuickMask to select such tricky regions as skewed ellipses. Brush-on Color: Getting the most out of the Color Replacement Tool in Photoshop CS. Its surprisingly useful, once you work out how to use it properly. Shadows and Highlights: A stunning new adjustment in Photoshop CS that's worth the upgrade price on its own, in my opinion. The tutorial shows how to rescue dark areas, and how to tone down over-bright areas. Learning Curves: The Curves dialog is the best tool for fixing images, far better than Brightness/Contrast - and it's one that every Photoshop artist should be familiar with. This is a fairly detailed analysis of how to use it to its best advantage. Matching Colors with Curves: How to use Curves to make two images match each other's tonal ranges using just the Curves adjustment. You'll be amazed what you can do with Curves. Multi-Layer Enhancement: Strengthening images quality, particularly in digital captures, by using additional copies of the base layer set to different transfer modes to boost contrast and sharpen focus without degrading the image. Unsharp Mask: Everyone wants to use it, few people know how it works. I've finally got around to detailing the rather bizarre workings of this most useful of filters. Natural Healing: How to use the Healing brush, found in Photoshop 7 and later, especially around difficult border areas. Mood, Light and Emphasis: A case study, showing how to use lighting and the Lens Flare filter to unify a scene. Combining Body Parts: Enter Dr Frankenstein. How to take different bits of different bodies and put them together to make a figure in exactly the pose you want. Beards and Stubble: I have to admit, I'm really please with this little feature. I worked out what I think is a really cool technique for drawing light beards and unshaven faces using Noise, Radial Blur and Hard Light. A Change of Clothing: A curious little case study - turning Bob the Builder into a fat cat businessman. How to draw pinstripes, pink shirts with white collars. bit of fun, really. A Change of Expression: Using Photoshop's Liquify filter to create subtle alterations in the expressions on faces. It's a really powerful tool that's easy to overuse, but with care it can produce great results. Coloring Black & White Images: Hand colouring that doesn't look like it. This one includes color swatches on the CD for creating skintones, blush, beard and eye colors. Snow and Icicles: Creating a wintry scene. How to add realistic snow and ice effects. Rather good, this one. Glass of Water: How to fill a photograph of an empty glass with convincing water and ice cubes. Through Grimy Windows: This is based on a photograph I took inside the old Brighton Pier before it fell down earlier this year. How to add a scene beyond the window without losing any of the dirt and grime on the glass. Metal with Layer Styles: I talked about using EyeCandy 4000 in the first edition: this time I'll show you how to make metallic gold and silver using Layer Styles alone. The great thing about this method is that it can be applied to editable text. The style presets for both gold and silver are included on the CD. Photographing Shiny Objects: Metallic surfaces are the hardest things to photograph with a digital camera unless you have a full studio set-up. Here's how to enhance the image and remove unwanted reflections. Making and Aged Photograph: A simple technique for making any photograph look like it's an old and tattered postcard. Includes the base image you can use to apply to your own photos. Custom Fibers: The new Fibers filter in Photoshop CS is a bit of an oddity, but it has more uses than you might imagine. In this workthough I've built a stage, with wood floor, curtains and performance placard, all using this filter. 3D Transform Filter: This is one of the trickiest filters to get your head around. In this two-part turtorial I look at how to make both boxy objects and irregular cylinders, such as glasses and bottles, viewable from different angles. Enter the Terminator: This one came as the response to a suggestion in the How to Cheat in Photoshop thread on the Photoshop Cafe website. It's to do with building a Terminator head, complete with glowing eyes, metal skull, and of course plenty of gore. The Cover of this Book: Needless to say, the new edition has a new cover. It seems that I'm the only one who liked the last cover. This tutorial covers neon, extreme perspectives, rain and lighting effects. Carry On Spending: This section now looks at what's new in Photoshop CS, as well as covering new plug-ins from Alien Skin Software and the new KPT suite from Corel. There's also a printed sampler showing all the 100 AbleStock images that are included on the CD.  |
Posted on 26/11/03 1:13:38 PM |
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David
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Re: New edition
All I can say is wow! Roll on January - Some great looking tutorials there and some more with Brighton, which I have to say one was of the reasons the original caught my eye, there's something special about seeing your (almost) hometown in print! I thought the cover was good, especially when you see how it was created. |
Posted on 26/11/03 1:31:34 PM |
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Paul K
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Re: What
Excellent, the new book looks jam packed with great new content, especially some new tutorials on Photoshop CS, which should be interesting. As for the book .. "It seems that I'm the only one who liked the last cover".. That must make two of us then Steve - The cover is what attracted me to the book initially! Roll on January! Paul. |
Posted on 26/11/03 2:33:12 PM |
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Carl
Guest Reply |
Re: What
Can't wait to check out the 2 nd edition Steve, are you planning on posting any sample pages from the new book? Carl |
Posted on 26/11/03 2:38:06 PM |
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Steve Caplin
Administrator Posts: 7009 Reply |
Re: What
Good idea, Carl. I'll post a couple of samples when I redo the main website (which will probably be some time in December). |
Posted on 29/12/03 8:07:14 PM |
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Rachel
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Re: What
Have you placed any samples, as promised, in your website? I couldn't find any. Also, why doesn't Amazon have any mention of the new edition? Other books on Photoshop CS that are due to appear much later are announced and can be pre ordered. Rachel.  |
Posted on 30/12/03 02:00:51 AM |
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Me
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Re: What
Silly woman !! http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0240519531/qid=1072749612/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_2_2/026-6846684-6731657 |
Posted on 30/12/03 10:47:06 AM |
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trinityofone
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Re: What
Woohoo! Just preordered, how am I going to survive until January 21st? _________________ It must be Thursday, I never could get the hang of Thursdays |
Posted on 01/01/04 10:15:16 PM |
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PitchBlack
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Re: Book
Can't wait 2 see the new book, especially the terminator tutorial  |
Posted on 05/01/04 08:48:14 AM |
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Steve Caplin
Administrator Posts: 7009 Reply |
Re: What
Sorry, I haven't had a chance to redo the website yet - expect it any day now. I should be posting a couple of new samples there. Steve |
Posted on 14/01/04 6:12:25 PM |
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Juan
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Should I buy the first edition
I just bought photoshop CS and I wanted to wait for a CS version. should I also buy the first edition or is the 2nd edition enough, in other words am I going to miss out if I only buy the second edition. |
Posted on 14/01/04 6:15:24 PM |
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Steve Caplin
Administrator Posts: 7009 Reply |
Should I buy the first edition
The 2nd edition includes just about everything from the first edition, plus a lot more stuff (and, of course, it covers CS). So if I were you I'd hang on another couple of weeks or so - it should be out any day now. |
Posted on 15/01/04 01:35:32 AM |
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trinityofone
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Should I buy the first edition
Eeek! I wish I could read, I didn't notice it was two books welded together (Ron, sic)! Still, I'm looking forward to receiving it none the less! Psssst..anyone want to buy a genuine second edition, first edition of HTCiPS (well used)?  _________________ It must be Thursday, I never could get the hang of Thursdays |
Posted on 16/01/04 2:50:56 PM |
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Carl
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Has any author / publisher tried this?
I just purchased the 1st edition of HTCIP and of course think its great. Unfortunately I was not aware of the 2 nd edition at the time of purchase. It seems most Photoshop books work the same way. When a new 2nd edition comes out it has most of the same stuff that was in the first and then expanded sections. It leaves me in a tough postition on all these books, as much as I would love to have the new material the 2nd editions offer, my wife would shoot me if I went out and spent another $50.00 to get another 30 pages of extra stuff. From the sounds of it, Steves 2nd edition packs much more new material than some of the other 2nd editions, but in either case it would be a tough sell for me So my question is, has anyone thought of experimenting with selling a supplement only version, either via website download or a cd/dvd. This supplement would just contain the new material. Maybe its only available for a limited period of time. Recognizing that there is a limited market, that might not justify actually printing the suppliment and distributing it at retail, but it would seem to me this would be a way for the author / publisher to gain additional sales that maybe would not occur otherwise. I would like to hear Steve's thoughts on this, but I hope some others would comment in your feeling of this idea. Carl |
Posted on 16/01/04 3:06:57 PM |
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Steve Caplin
Administrator Posts: 7009 Reply |
Has any author / publisher tried this?
Carl, The reason publishers are keen on second editions is for several reasons: 1. They get a 'new' product to sell in to bookstores, which is the hardest market for them to tackle. 2. The fact that a book has warranted a second edition implies that the first edition sold well enough for the publishers to want to bring it out again. This helps with bookstores, of course. 3. Some readers of the first edition will then buy the second for the updated material. 4. Particularly with computer books, readers are unlikely to purchase them if the material relates to old software - hence a new edition each time a new version of, say, Photoshop comes out. I agree with what you're saying, of course, and I do think it's a shame for people who have just shelled out for a book to find there's a new edition just around the corner. It's for this reason that I asked the publishers for an extra 64 pages - they wanted the second edition to be the same size as the first - and why I was keen for them not to charge any more for it. Recognizing that many readers would have already bought the first edition, I was particularly keen for them not to feel cheated by the second. So there are 100 wholly new, royalty free images on the CD with the second edition - and the StockByte images from the first edition aren't on there. So look at it this way: by buying the first edition you've got a whole load of images you wouldn't have got just if you'd bought the second edition. These images are worth an awful lot more than the cover price of the book! $50? Where on earth are you buying this book? It's $25.89 on Amazon! Hope you enjoy it anyway Steve |
Posted on 16/01/04 5:01:08 PM |
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carl
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Re: What
Hey Steve, That was quick. Alright you sold me ! The $50 example was pulled out of the air because that is the average price of most Photoshop books I have bought . I can't remember what I paid for yours but I got it at B&N. I don't think I ever looked at the price because I knew it was exactly the type of book I was looking for. I think as an author, you are being very forward thinking in providing a lot of extra material (images ect.) that was not in the first edition. Additionally you are adding more material than what is usually added on most 2nd editions I have seen. This will definitely make a 2nd purchase on this book easier to swallow. But I do not think that is the case with most other Photoshop 2 nd edition books in my opinion. While they all offer some wonderful new material, the extra value to me is not worth it. So I tend to buy a completely different book that caught my eye instead. I was just thinking that if a 2 nd edition book retailed for $50.00 but I already owned the first edition, I would probably pay up to say $19.99 for a downloadable PDF or CD for just the new material, if I thought the book was worth it. Carl |
Posted on 24/01/04 3:07:37 PM |
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iz
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Re: What
I bought your book in America yesterday and now I find out there's another one!!!!. Will it be published in England too?. By the way, great book, can't wait for the next one. |
Posted on 26/01/04 09:18:44 AM |
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Steve Caplin
Administrator Posts: 7009 Reply |
Re: What
Oh, yes - of course it will be published in England! That's where I live, and where my publishers are based. But bear in mind it's a second edition of the first book, not a wholly new book - see the top of this section for details. |
Posted on 26/06/04 11:15:57 AM |
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russ davey
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Re: What's in the second edition
It is an excellent book, thanks Steve. Although Im not sure if youre aware but the website www.stevecaplin.com under the books section still points to the 1st edition of the book on Amazon.co.uk |
Posted on 24/05/12 04:57:30 AM |
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Artwel
Satire Supremo Posts: 607 Reply  |
Re: What's in the second edition
Wow has this site been going since 2003?! Back then I think was the first time I used photosohop.. I remember I took some photos and destroyed them by slapping on just about every filter, And over using the lens flare!, I'd liked to have found this site back then but I didn't have internet or even my own computer so not much use!  _________________ “Art Is Never Finished, Only Abandoned.” |