Book Image

Mastering Adobe Photoshop 2024

By : Gary Bradley
Book Image

Mastering Adobe Photoshop 2024

By: Gary Bradley

Overview of this book

Unlock the full potential of Photoshop, the go-to app for content creators by mastering its complex tools and features. This book quickly builds on your existing Photoshop knowledge with proven industry techniques, serving as a launchpad to develop professional skills and transformative personal growth. You’ll start by fine-tuning color and tone in your images with non-destructive adjustment layers and conceal content like backdrops with precise masking techniques for fine details like hair. Working through a series of real-world editing projects, crafting realistic brand mockups and traditional marketing collateral, you’ll learn robust methods for building social media assets in Photoshop, from images to animated GIFs and videos. You’ll also be able to bring your typography to life with styles and effects that are simple to edit and store as preset effects. The final section of the book encapsulates all of your learning to create complex montages using advanced masking and compositing techniques. You’ll have fun elevating your designs with surreal art styles and conceptual imagery using retouching, blending, and liquify filters. By the end of this Adobe Photoshop book, you’ll soar to new heights with your designs, creating captivating visuals that leave a lasting impression on your audience.
Table of Contents (19 chapters)
1
Part 1:Raising Your Photoshop Game
5
Part 2:Bringing Brands Front and Center
10
Part 3:Building Visual Components
14
Part 4:World Building

Building collages with texture and paint

In this exercise, you are going to transform a portrait photo into a collage by turning the source image into defined bands of grayscale. These will then be turned into selections, within which will appear our collage artwork.

Posterizing the source photo

  1. Go to FileOpen, browse to the 11-Blend folder, and select LayeredMan.jpg. Click Open when done.
  2. Duplicate the background layer by dragging the layer onto the New layer icon at the bottom of the Layers panel. Rename the duplicated layer Subject. Turn off background layer visibility.
  3. With the Subject layer active, right-click on the layer name and choose Convert to Smart Object from the list of options:
Figure 11.6: Duplicating the background layer and masking the subject

Figure 11.6: Duplicating the background layer and masking the subject

  1. Switch to the Magic Wand tool and click on Select Subject from the Options bar. With the selection in place, click on the Add a mask button at the bottom of...