Photoshop CC: The Missing Manual, 2nd Edition

Foreword

In the short but crowded history of consumer technology, only two products ever became so common, influential, and powerful that their names become verbs.

Google is one.

Photoshop is the other.

(“Did you Google that guy who asked you out?” “Yeah—he’s crazy. He Photoshopped his last girlfriend out of all his pictures!”)

It’s safe to say that these days, not a single photograph gets published, in print or online, without having been processed in Photoshop first. It’s usually perfectly innocent stuff: a little color adjustment, contrast boosting, or cropping.

But not always. Sometimes, the editing actually changes the photo so that it no longer represents the original, and all kinds of ethical questions arise. Remember when TV Guide Photoshopped Oprah’s head onto Ann-Margaret’s body? When Time magazine darkened O.J. Simpson’s skin to make him look more menacing on the cover? Or when National Geographic moved two of the pyramids closer together to improve the composition?

Well, you get the point: Thanks to Photoshop, photography is no longer a reliable record of reality. Photoshop is magic.

And now, all that magic is in your hands. Use it wisely.

Trouble is, Photoshop is a monster. It’s huge. Just opening it is like watching a slumbering beast heave into consciousness. Dudes, Photoshop has over 500 menu commands.

In short, installing Photoshop is like being told that you’ve just won a 747 jumbo jet. You sit down in the cockpit and survey the endless panels of controls and switches. Now what?

You don’t even get a printed manual.

If there were ever a piece of software that needed the Missing Manual treatment, it was Photoshop.

The beast has been tamed at last by its new master, Lesa Snider: a natural-born Missing Manual author with Photoshop credentials as long as your arm.

She had worked on Missing Manuals, side by side with me in my office, for four years, in all kinds of editorial and production capacities. Today, when she’s not writing the bestselling Photoshop book (you’re reading it), she’s out in the real world, teaching Photoshop seminars, writing Photoshop articles, reviewing Photoshop for magazines, and generally serving as Photoshop guru to the masses.

The Missing Manual mantra runs through her blood: Make it clear, make it entertaining, make it complete (hence the thickness of this book). And above all, don’t just identify a feature: Tell us what it’s for. Tell us when to use it. (And if the answer is, “You’ll never use it,” tell us that, too.)

Now, I’ll be the first to admit that this book isn’t for everybody. In fact, it’s aimed primarily at two kinds of people: people who have never used Photoshop, and people who have.

But seriously, folks. If you’re new to Photoshop, you’ll find patient, friendly introductions to all those nutty Photoshoppy concepts like layers, color spaces, image resolution, and so on. And, mercifully, you’ll find a lot of loving attention to a time-honored Missing Manual specialty—tips and shortcuts. As Photoshop pros can tell you, you pretty much have to learn some of Photoshop’s shortcuts or it will crush you like a bug.

On the other hand, if you already have some Photoshop experience, you’ll appreciate this book’s coverage of Photoshop CC 2014’s new features: Focus Area, perspective warp, new blur filters, new font features, smarter smart guides, 3D printing, and so on.

In 2013, Adobe announced that from now on, you must rent Photoshop, monthly or yearly. You can no longer buy it outright. One of the motivations, Adobe said, was a desire to create an ever-changing, ever-improving Photoshop. There wouldn’t be one megalithic new version every couple of years. Instead, little enhancements would come along all year long, added as soon as they were ready.

So what are we to make of this “Photoshop CC 2014” thing? Are we back to yearly megalithic releases? Has Adobe abandoned its Photoshop Forever concept?

Yes and no. The company still plans to update Photoshop all year long. But it also plans to create the periodic “milestone” edition of Photoshop, a breather, a catch-up version that rolls in all the little changes (and a few more) since the last one. In part, this idea is a crumb thrown to people who write (and buy) books about Photoshop; nobody would be served well if Photoshop were a shape-shifting target forever.

In any case, get psyched. You now have both the most famous, powerful, magical piece of software on earth and a 900+-page treasure map to help you find your way.

The only missing ingredients are time, some photos to work on, and a little good taste. You’ll have to supply those yourself.

Good luck!

—David Pogue

David Pogue is the founder and anchor columnist for YahooTech.com, having been groomed for the position by 13 years as the tech columnist for the New York Times. He’s an Emmy-winning TV correspondent (CBS News and NOVA on PBS), a Scientific American columnist, and the creator of the Missing Manual series.