Photoshop CS6 and Lightroom 4: A Photographer’s Handbook

Book Preface

In some ways, digital technology has fundamentally changed photography and printing. Photographers have almost unlimited options to achieve the precise image that they intend. Printing has become infinitely more flexible and pushed closer to the control of the image creator—you. The level of control at our disposal now exceeds even some of the most powerful darkroom techniques used in the past. This power and flexibility is dazzling, even confusing, to many.

The Adobe Photoshop products are some of the most complex programs many of us will ever use. There is a reason “Photoshop” has become a verb! Despite that, my goal is to present them in a reasonably accessible way. Although we are provided with thousands of complex techniques for editing images, most users (and most images) don’t need all of that complexity. In fact, only a few steps are needed to get the vast majority of images to shine. In this book, I’ll introduce you to the processes that I and my students have found most valuable: from organizing a large image library, through editing density, contrast, and color, to more detailed processing like converting images from color to black-andwhite, sharpening, and basic retouching. The workflow discussed is complete, but I will not discuss the more bizarre techniques common to the Photoshop marketplace.

In this book’s two main sections, you’ll find both the foundational concepts and vocabulary you’ll need to use the software discussed, and the pieces you’ll need to build your full photographic workflow from capture through print or online output. Let’s get working!