Channels+Masks

It's Friday, but seriously, deeple, get your entertainment and education at the same time as you enjoy this video which I pilfered for your enjoyment from the companion DVD of Deke's Photoshop CS4 Channels & Masks One-on-One book.

In this lesson, Deke introduces you to the Calculations command which can be a little tricky, but oh-so-very useful and important to understand. As Deke notes:

Now I won’t sugarcoat it, Calculations is not easy—in fact, it might be Photoshop’s single most difficult feature to master. But it is the command that’s going to increase the quality of your masks.

When you're done, you can return to your less edifying Friday festivities. Happy Weekending, Deeps. Read more » 

In Lesson 8 from Photoshop CS4 Channels & Masks One-on-One, Deke proves that not all masks require arduous, meticulous hand work and complicated sets of steps. (I know, I can't believe this is our same Deke, either.) Here, Deke gives your brain (and fingers) a bit of a rest by showing you how to use "found" channel information to create masks with very little effort. Read more » 

(Well, if you're going to refer to me as the "Incomperable Colleen" I'm certainly going to try....)

If you've made it to Lesson 7 in Photoshop CS4 Channels & Masks One-on-One and are finding that the practice file Ancient doorway.psd is behaving badly, it's because the file is truncated, i.e., corrupt. (No idea how it happened, just that it did happen.)

But no fear. I've attached the full file in all its splendor. Just right-click on this link here or the image below and choose Save or Download. Unzip the 18.8MB download and it'll grow into a 26.2MB PSD doc. Copy it over the bad file included with the book and you'll be good to go.

Read more » 

Well, after an exhausting week of filming the next dekePod video and launching our new audio podcast, it finally occurred to me that I owe you good dekeFolk a new video from Photoshop CS4 Channels and Masks One-on-One. It didn't hurt that Deke called to say, "Hey, I thought you were going to post another video."

In this episode, this tempting creature introduces you to layer masks and actually demos how one can use the new (CS4) Masks palette. Although y'all know by now Deke's feelings -- that the Masks palette is not essential to the task of creating and editing layer masks -- it can nevertheless be quite helpful in this situation, permitting you to apply powerful selection functions, such as Color Range and Refine Edge, to layer masks as well as make temporary modifications. And the Masks palette happens to be exclusively applicable to layer masks, so that makes it a win-win for everybody. Read more »