The Photoshop Channels Book

The Barnes & Noble ReviewChannels are the secret behind many of today s best Photoshop images. If you re not comfortable using them, major Photoshop guru Scott Kelby will fix that ASAP.

Kelby s new hands-on guide assumes no channels experience whatsoever. You ll start with the absolute basics: viewing existing channels (including some nifty keyboard shortcuts); creating and isolating new alpha channels; and preparing channel masks. Every chapter ends with shortcuts and Q&As — many, we suspect, drawn from Kelby s live teaching.

You ll learn how to use channels to improve detail and crispness without oversaturating color. Kelby shows how to make landscapes more vibrant; sharpen images without exaggerating noise; blend channels to create one great image from two photos. There are chapters on special effects (check out the “infrared” example); and even optimizing web images. Didn t realize channels could do all that? They can. So can you. Bill Camarda, from the March 2006 Read Only