Adobe® Photoshop® CS2 Studio Techniques

Channels

In the ancient days of Photoshop (that would be five or six years ago), you were almost forced to use channels to isolate complex images from their backgrounds. These days, I mainly use them with simpler images, especially when I'm working with an illustration instead of a photographic image. When that's the case, I often convert the image into spot colors so that each color in the image prints with a different color of ink (instead of printing with standard CMYK inks). Channels are the subject of one of the Bonus Chapters that are found on the CD at the back of this book, but in this chapter, because we're learning how to isolate objects, it's useful to look at channels from a different angle and see how to use the Channels palette ...