Adobe Photoshop CC Classroom in a Book (2014 release)
ByAndrew Faulkner
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Readers` Reviews
★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆
marissa barbieri
Why do they put directions for Windows first? Forgive me for not reading all the way through the tutorials before I start but my goodness. What a frustrating read. The tutorials are rather straightforward once you get through the directions for Windows 95-Windows 8, Linux and Commodore 64.
★ ★ ★ ★ ☆
davida
More like a beginners guide although there are a few projects (3D printing - I already know how to make 3D renderings) that are new from my old CS6 CIAB series - which makes it worthwhile as a purchase. A lot has changed from CS6 to CC (2014) but if you go through the Adobe video tutorials, there's no much you would miss. If you already have the Photoshop CC CIAB, I wouldn't bother with this one but coming from CS6 it was a real eye-opener.
★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆
susan hayes
One of the things that often overwhelms beginners when they first look at Photoshop software is its complexity. The number of tools and options is extensive. It's natural to think that this book would be an ideal way to learn Photoshop. Don't be fooled.
After a general introduction, including a quick survey of the Photoshop work area, the authors cover basic photo corrections, selections, quick fixes, masks, typography, vector drawing, compositing, the mixer brush, video editing, camera raw, preparing files for the web, color management and printing 3d files. (To a beginner some of these terms may be meaningless.) Each lesson includes one or more tutorials, supported by images that one can download from the internet and use in the tutorials. The steps of the tutorials that I ran through seemed simple, accurate and understandable.
Unfortunately this is a grand tour of Photoshop, and the amount of time spent in each place is just enough to know there is a function but not to apply it usefully. Moreover much of the information is aimed at new tools in Photoshop CC, 2014 Release. In fact, if you are using older Photoshop software, including anything up to CS6, the tools covered may not be available to you and you may be unable to do many of the exercises. Even when a tool like curves is covered, the tutorials just scratch the surface. The chapter on Adobe Camera Raw is even a bit misleading.
Part of this is due to the bi-polar personality of Photoshop which is designed for both graphic artists and photographers. As a photographer, I have no idea what book to recommend to graphic artists, but photographers would be better off with an introductory book aimed at photographers. (In fact, most tyro photographers would be better off starting with Lightroom, which is more intuitive photographically, than Photoshop.) For experienced photographers, while the book touches on many of the newer tools in Photoshop CC 2014, one will have to wade through a lot of introductory material that will be old hat.
That leaves a well written book with good tutorials suitable for those folks who are only looking for a quick tour of Photoshop CC 2014.
After a general introduction, including a quick survey of the Photoshop work area, the authors cover basic photo corrections, selections, quick fixes, masks, typography, vector drawing, compositing, the mixer brush, video editing, camera raw, preparing files for the web, color management and printing 3d files. (To a beginner some of these terms may be meaningless.) Each lesson includes one or more tutorials, supported by images that one can download from the internet and use in the tutorials. The steps of the tutorials that I ran through seemed simple, accurate and understandable.
Unfortunately this is a grand tour of Photoshop, and the amount of time spent in each place is just enough to know there is a function but not to apply it usefully. Moreover much of the information is aimed at new tools in Photoshop CC, 2014 Release. In fact, if you are using older Photoshop software, including anything up to CS6, the tools covered may not be available to you and you may be unable to do many of the exercises. Even when a tool like curves is covered, the tutorials just scratch the surface. The chapter on Adobe Camera Raw is even a bit misleading.
Part of this is due to the bi-polar personality of Photoshop which is designed for both graphic artists and photographers. As a photographer, I have no idea what book to recommend to graphic artists, but photographers would be better off with an introductory book aimed at photographers. (In fact, most tyro photographers would be better off starting with Lightroom, which is more intuitive photographically, than Photoshop.) For experienced photographers, while the book touches on many of the newer tools in Photoshop CC 2014, one will have to wade through a lot of introductory material that will be old hat.
That leaves a well written book with good tutorials suitable for those folks who are only looking for a quick tour of Photoshop CC 2014.
The Wake Up :: NFPA 70 National Electrical Code 2014 :: National Electrical Code (NEC) - 2014 Edition - NFPA 70 :: Ink Exchange (Wicked Lovely) :: Between the Lines (Between the lines #1)
★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆
grace bridges
One of the things that often overwhelms beginners when they first look at Photoshop software is its complexity. The number of tools and options is extensive. It's natural to think that this book would be an ideal way to learn Photoshop. Don't be fooled.
After a general introduction, including a quick survey of the Photoshop work area, the authors cover basic photo corrections, selections, quick fixes, masks, typography, vector drawing, compositing, the mixer brush, video editing, camera raw, preparing files for the web, color management and printing 3d files. (To a beginner some of these terms may be meaningless.) Each lesson includes one or more tutorials, supported by images that one can download from the internet and use in the tutorials. The steps of the tutorials that I ran through seemed simple, accurate and understandable.
Unfortunately this is a grand tour of Photoshop, and the amount of time spent in each place is just enough to know there is a function but not to apply it usefully. Moreover much of the information is aimed at new tools in Photoshop CC, 2014 Release. In fact, if you are using older Photoshop software, including anything up to CS6, the tools covered may not be available to you and you may be unable to do many of the exercises. Even when a tool like curves is covered, the tutorials just scratch the surface. The chapter on Adobe Camera Raw is even a bit misleading.
Part of this is due to the bi-polar personality of Photoshop which is designed for both graphic artists and photographers. As a photographer, I have no idea what book to recommend to graphic artists, but photographers would be better off with an introductory book aimed at photographers. (In fact, most tyro photographers would be better off starting with Lightroom, which is more intuitive photographically, than Photoshop.) For experienced photographers, while the book touches on many of the newer tools in Photoshop CC 2014, one will have to wade through a lot of introductory material that will be old hat.
That leaves a well written book with good tutorials suitable for those folks who are only looking for a quick tour of Photoshop CC 2014.
After a general introduction, including a quick survey of the Photoshop work area, the authors cover basic photo corrections, selections, quick fixes, masks, typography, vector drawing, compositing, the mixer brush, video editing, camera raw, preparing files for the web, color management and printing 3d files. (To a beginner some of these terms may be meaningless.) Each lesson includes one or more tutorials, supported by images that one can download from the internet and use in the tutorials. The steps of the tutorials that I ran through seemed simple, accurate and understandable.
Unfortunately this is a grand tour of Photoshop, and the amount of time spent in each place is just enough to know there is a function but not to apply it usefully. Moreover much of the information is aimed at new tools in Photoshop CC, 2014 Release. In fact, if you are using older Photoshop software, including anything up to CS6, the tools covered may not be available to you and you may be unable to do many of the exercises. Even when a tool like curves is covered, the tutorials just scratch the surface. The chapter on Adobe Camera Raw is even a bit misleading.
Part of this is due to the bi-polar personality of Photoshop which is designed for both graphic artists and photographers. As a photographer, I have no idea what book to recommend to graphic artists, but photographers would be better off with an introductory book aimed at photographers. (In fact, most tyro photographers would be better off starting with Lightroom, which is more intuitive photographically, than Photoshop.) For experienced photographers, while the book touches on many of the newer tools in Photoshop CC 2014, one will have to wade through a lot of introductory material that will be old hat.
That leaves a well written book with good tutorials suitable for those folks who are only looking for a quick tour of Photoshop CC 2014.
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
andrew said
After Effects (Ae) came into the Adobe corral of apps when they acquired Aldus, primarily to gain the technology which became Adobe InDesign. Even before the Aldus days. CoSA After Effects was producing dazzling motion graphics since 1993. It became a mainstay in video postproduction editing suites. It took time, but Ae has found its way into major Hollywood feature films and is a compelling animation engine behind broadcast news graphics all over the globe.
Once Adobe started their subscription Creative Cloud service, Ae became more accessible. A monthly fee gets subscribers the 16 core apps, which make up the full Adobe Creative Cloud (CC) desktop offering. So, those who sign-up for Premiere Pro, Photoshop, and Audition also get After Effects as part of the deal. Big broadcasters, film studios, and other media conglomerates are buying hundreds, sometimes thousands, of subscriptions for their staffers.
So why is this called "Adobe After Effects CC 2014 Release Classroom in a Book"? The "2014" is a new branding Adobe came up with to indicate that apps have made a full version number bounce forward. Ae CC went version 12, in June of 2013. In June of 2014, Ae 13.0 was announced.
Adobe pumps out new features to apps a few times a year. As we write this, After Effects 13.2 is the man of the hour. This is a change from the previous 18 to 24 month release cycle. So, our friends at Adobe Press find themselves sending a new set of Classroom in a Books to press once a year.
The Classroom in a Book Role + Legacy
Much like those who master Photoshop and Illustrator, the work of Ae artists can easily be so impressive that some feel After Effects is too intimidating to be approachable. Nothing could be further from the truth. Ae is packed with power and, yes, some After Effect masters do impressive work. Yet, as with many Adobe apps, which have a decades-long legacy, all you need is a well-planned and tested learning experience to give you a can-do attitude about Ae. That's part of the role which Classroom in a Book (CIB) plays.
After Effects was among the original titles for the first 1997 set of CIBs. At the time, CIB was supposed to be something of an official study guide to becoming an Adobe Certified Expert (ACE). 18 years ago, that was quite a goal to squeeze all those features into a single volume for each Adobe app. But, people were becoming certified in Microsoft Windows and the Windows Server functions, so it made sense for Adobe to have a similar proof of capabilities pathway.
This is the 112th CIB which we have carefully studied cover to cover and we have not studied all of them. However, the days of these books, and their matching lessons, being a complete guide to the ACE exam is long over. The desktop apps of the CC subscription, are way too big to fit into one volume for each app. There are 12 CIBs to cover that. The books follow the direction of the ACE exams. Adobe Bridge (Br) and Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) are in the Photoshop exam and CIB, just as Adobe Prelude (Pl) and Adobe Media Encoder (AME) are fused into Premiere Pro. Yet, you'll see Br and AME referenced in this volume, since they are apps which serve many other apps.
We're Adobe Creative Professionals (ACP) and we run media studies training centers which are within the Virginia higher education system. Obviously, Adobe and Apple play import roles in those programs. The Adobe Press (a.k.a. Peachpit and Pearson Educational) materials are important to us as we develop syllabuses. The majority of our Adobe/Apple Certified Instructors (ACIs) use CIB as the foundation of the classroom training they do with our company.
For us, these books are study guides as to how we can be sure that we are up to speed on every foundational, new, and important aspect of how apps, like After Effects, must be understood and mastered. We have created our "Mapped App" series as a study guide to important books for creative professionals. They are both our navigational tool, on each chapter, plus an item-by-item checklist of what needs to be mastered in each learning resource.
As anyone who has read our years of the store.com book reviews knows, we're quite candid and sometimes brutal. Since we are ACPs, published authors, and regular contributors to other author's books, we are buddies with hundreds of our fellow educators to the creative professional community. Andrew Faulkner and Brie Gynclid, the authors of this CIB, also do the CIB for Photoshop which has featured some of our work for the past three editions. We have never met either of them and the reviews we have written of their other works have not always been all laced with rose petals. In the spirit of full disclosure, we are not paid to write reviews nor have we ever met anyone who does that kind of thing.
Chapter 1 - The Workflow
There was a time when if you were new to all things Adobe, the After Effects UI (user interface) was easily intimidating. Now that most Ae users come into the app with a CC subscription, it may not be all that foreign anymore, since it shares a UI experience with other CC apps. This is a good thing since the book doesn't seem to gently ramp-up for the inexperienced reader. We understand this. Many new Ae users are those who have jumped ship from apps like Apple's Final Cut Pro (FCP) or those with CC subscriptions, for which they have already gathered some significant CC experiences. So, overburdening the CIB reader with things they already understand makes no sense.
If you are new to Ae, there's nothing to concern yourself with about this book's step-by-step lessons, complete with inspirational assets for use while studying them. Don't rush through the lessons. Take it slow. Find time for plenty of breaks. If you try to just do the lessons, getting from Point A to Point B, page after page, the learning won't sink in. Continually ask yourself, "Do I fully understand all of what I just studied?" If not, go back and revisit it.
The following is a checklist for this chapter. When you complete the chapter, go back to this list and ask yourself, "Have I mastered each of these?" Don't think in terms of just getting through the lessons. Instead, do these with the mindset that once you close the book, you will be able to successfully complete projects, with these same features, on your own. We find the best way to do this is to create some self-directed revisiting to these projects. Approach this by inventing your own projects.
Work Area 8
Getting Started 9
Create a Project + Import Footage 9-13
Create a Composition + Arrange Layers 13-17
Layers 16
Tools Panel 17
Add Effects + Modify Layer Properties 17-24
Prepare the Layers 17-18
Add a Radial Blur Effect 18-21
Add an Exposure Effect 21-22
Transform Layer Properties 22-24
Animate the Composition 24-31
Prepare the Text Composition 24-26
Timeline Panel 25
Animate Text w/Animation Presets 27-29
Timecode + Duration 28
Change Preset Settings in Effect Controls Panel 29-31
Preview Project 31-33
Standard Preview 31-32
RAM Preview 32-33
Optimize Performance 33
Render + Export a Composition 33
Customize Workspaces 34-35
Predefined Workspaces 34-35
Save a Customi Workspace 35
Control UI Brightness 35-36
After Effects Resources 36
The book suggests that it will take you an hour to complete this first chapter. If you are new to Ae, do not concern yourself if it has taken you twice that long.
This chapter has had some nice improvements since the previous edition.
For some CIBs, it takes a few chapters until you can feel as if you have taken control of the app. In this case, you feel as if you have gotten somewhere by the middle of page 32. That gives the reader a wonderful sense of empowerment.
Chapter 2 - Basic Animation Using Effects + Presets
We write these journals as we work through the lessons, comparing this CIB edition with the previous one. Two chapters into this, we are impressed with the nice changes which have been made.
This chapter is well-designed and developed as a smooth transition from understanding the fundamentals of the workspace, in the previous chapter, to animation basics with Ae. After about an hour, the readers should feel more comfortable in their abilities to accomplish great work in After Effects.
It's a chapter which should feel empowering to those coming into Ae from Bridge (Br) and Illustrator (Ai). This CIB jumps right into the role that those CC apps play in the overall picture of how Ae integrates into the complete Creative Cloud set of powerful tools. The more you learn about Ae, the more you'll see the app not only as an extensive team player with the other CC apps, but you'll see how you can use those applications in creating masterful After Effects projects, all the better.
It is possible to do things exclusively in After Effects. There are many well accomplished After Effects artists in the business. If you bring your Flash Professional, Illustrator, Photoshop, and Premiere Pro skills into Ae, you'll be all the more productive.
Getting Started 40
Import Footage w/Bridge 41-42
Create a New Composition 43-45
Import the Foreground Element 44-45
Imported Illustrator Layers 46-47
Apply Effects to a Layer 47-49
Apply + Control Effects 48
Apply an Animation Preset 50-52
Precompose Layers for a New Animation 51-52
Preview Effects 52
Add Transparency 53
Render the Composition 54-56
Beyond the hour this book suggests, that you'll need to complete these lessons, we'd suggest you double that and bring in some of your own Illustrator projects and just play around with them.
Chapter 3 - Text Animation
As mentioned in the introduction, broadcast news can be seen as a daily gallery of Ae projects. Motion text graphics are a means of keeping the audience engaged. Once again, the author has wisely chosen to integrate Photoshop (Ps) text into the lessons. The pros and cons of bringing Ps text into Ae is a frequently discussed topic by some of the best of the best among Ae users. We are pleased that this CIB prepares the reader for the normal Ae workflow that After Effects masters use every day, worldwide.
This is a fun chapter. The exercises pertain to other animating projects, so don't think of these lessons as text-specific.
Getting Started 60-62
Import Footage 60-61
Create the Composition 62
Text Layers 62
Install a Font Using Typekit 62-65
Create + Format Point Text 65-67
Character Panel 65
Paragraph Panel 66
Position Type 66-67
Text Animation Preset 67-70
Browse Animations Preset 68
Preview a Range of Frames 68-69
Customize an Animation Preset 69-70
Animate w/Scale Keyframes 70-72
Preview a Scale Animation 71
Add Easy Ease 71-72
Animate w/Parenting 72-73
Parent + Child Layers 73
Animate Imported Photoshop Text 74-77
Import Text 74
Edit Imported Text 75-76
Animate a Subtitle 76-77
Animate Text w/Path Animation Preset 77-79
Customize a Preset Path 78-79
Animate Type Tracking 80-81
Customize Placeholder Text 80
Apply a Tracking Preset 80
Customize the Tracking Animation Preset 81
Animate Text Opacity 82
Text Animator Group 82-86
Text Animator Groups 83
Skew the Range of Text 84-86
Clean Up Path Animation 86-87
Animate a Non-Text Layer Along a Motion Path 88-90
Copy the Mask Shape 88-89
Orient the Object 89
Coordinate the Text + Object Timing 89-90
Add Motion Blur 90
This is a very full chapter. If you're familiar with some of it, completing this in 2 hours is feasible. If you're new, it could be a half day project. Dig deep and master it all.
Chapter 4 - Working with Shape Layers
This chapter's previously odd lesson assets have been completely revised into pleasant, approachable exercises which are easy for the reader to approach, understand, and successfully complete. We especially appreciate the addition of 3D.
If you are more of someone who takes digital assets and places them in motion, as opposed to drawing new ones, from scratch, this chapter was created for you. Some of the key goals with chapter 4 is assisting you to work as efficiently as possible in After Effects. These are similar to skills to what allows Adobe Illustrator artists to complete tasks quickly. So, if you are to achieve your goals with this chapter, you need to be able to quickly draw shapes, duplicate them, make modifications, etc. You'll want to complete the extra credit project on page 114. Next, work some more shape projects of your own until you feel comfortable with the process.
Getting Started 94-95
Create the Composition 94-95
Add a Shape Layer 95-100
Draw a Shape 95
Apply a Fill + Stroke 96
Twist a Shape 97-100
Create Custom Shapes 100-101
Draw a Shape w/the Pen Tool 100-101
Create a Self-Animating Shape 101
Duplicate Shapes 102-105
Brainstorm to Experiment 105-106
Position Layers w/Snapping 106-109
Create a New Composition 106-108
Snap Layers into Position 108-109
Add Compositions to a 3D Project 109-113
Animate Layers to Match Audio 114
Chapter 5 - Animate a Multimedia Presentation
The chapter has been around for a while and, admittedly, there's something about the lesson assets that we have never liked. CIB is known as having inspirational exercises. They generally make you feel like you're upgraded to professional class, but this one is not as polished as we feel it should be. However, isn't it fair to ask, "Does it work?" and the answer is, "Yes. It teaches you how to create an animation for a multimedia presentation." But it's okay to also ask, "Do plenty of Ae users do multimedia presentations?" We have never met any. So, for the most part, put the multimedia thing out of your mind and concentrate on the techniques which this chapter teaches. Most of them can be applied to many After Effects animating projects.
Animation is one of the most powerful toolsets in Ae. A good example is keyframing, where you choose important places in the timeline and allow the app to handle the transitions between them, for you. That's common to Premiere Pro (Pr), Flash Professional (Fl), and Photoshop (Ps).
However, if you have not been working with those features in Fl, Ps, and Pr, and this is the first time you are keyframing, it could take a little while for you to fully grasp what it's all about. So, do not allow yourself to become frustrated. If you feel the need to go back a few pages, or start over, that's completely normal, and the best way to proceed with this learning.
The chapter has some very empowering exercises including motion blur, Easy Ease, and the addition of an audio track which integrates Adobe Audition.
Getting Started 118-119
Animate the Scenery w/Parenting 119-123
Set Up Parenting 119-120
Animate the Parent Layer 120-121
Animate a Position 121
Trim a Layer 122
Apply Motion Blur 122
Preview the Animation 122-123
Adjust an Anchor Point 123-124
Mask Video w/Vector Shapes 124-128
Create a New Composition 125-126
Animate Presets w/Shape Layers 126
Constrain a Layer w/an Alpha Matte 126-127
Swap a Composition into a Layer 127-128
Keyframe a Motion Path 128-131
Keyframe Scale + Rotation Transformations 129-131
Add Motion Blur 131
Preview 131
Animate Addition Elements 131-134
Animate a Project's Passing Traffic 131-132
Animate a Project's Buildings 132-133
Add Easy Ease 133
Copy the Project's Animation 134
Apply an Effect 135-138
Add a Solid Color Layer 135-136
Solid-Color Layers Overview 135
Apply an Effect 137-138
Create an Animated Slide Show 138-142
Import Slides 138-139
Make a New Composition 139-140
Position the Slide Show 140-141
Fade-in the First Slide 142
Supported Audio Formats 142
Adobe Sound Document 142
Advanced Audio Coding 142
Audio Exchange File Format 142
Moving Picture Experts Group 142
Video for Windows 142
Waveform 142
Add an Audio Track 143-144
Loop the Audio Track 143-144
Zoom in for a Close-up 144-145
Preview the Entire Composition 144-145
Edit Audio Files w/Audition 146
Chapter 6 - Animate Layers
This chapter opens with Photoshop (Ps) layering techniques which impresses us as to how Ae trainees, coming from a Ps background, can feel right at home, right away. We also don't know how many Adobe GoLive users (Adobe's go-to web design app prior to the Macromedia Dreamweaver acquisition) are out there, who are just coming into Ae, but on page 156, they'll say "Pick Whip!" These are good examples of how the CIB transitions the users of other Adobe apps into Ae.
Most of the chapter is based on that previously mentioned Ps image. For the more seasoned After Effects user, this might seem a little too fundamental. But, hang in there. For newbies this just temporarily lowers the steepness of the learning curve. By page 162 you'll transition into an exercise on track mattes and traveling mattes. These have been at the core of Hollywood postproduction, going back decades. However, if you are new to all of it, you may as well have awakened in a foreign land, where you don't speak the language, and have no idea how you got there. Fortunately, Ae CC 2014 has a new more simple UI which makes it easier to navigate. Carefully study and bookmark page 163 as a reference source on these mattes.
Adding motion blur and shadow movement is very cool and gives you the feeling that you're getting somewhere with Ae. The lens flare exercise makes you feel like you've learned a technique you have seen done many times and always wondered how that was possible.
Retiming a composition and the remapping with the Graph Editor will also seem foreign to some readers and but is quite familiar to Premiere Pro and Flash Professional users. If you are not among the latter, take a break before page 172.
Getting Started 150-153
Import Footage 151-152
Prepare Layered Photoshop Files 152
Create the Composition 152-153
Photoshop Layer Files Overview 153
Simulating Light Changes 154-156
Expressions 156
Duplicate an Animation w/the Pick Whip 156-157
Animate Movement in Scenery 158-161
Animate a Project's Sun 158-159
Animate a Project's Birds 159-160
Animate a Project's Clouds 160-161
Preview the Project's Animation 161
Adjust Layers + Create a Track Matte 162-165
Precompose Layers 162
Create Track Mattes 163-164
Track + Travel Mattes Overview 163
Add Motion Blur 164-165
Animate Shadows 166-168
Add a Lens Flare Effect 168-169
Animate a Project's Clock 170-172
Render the Animation 171-172
Retime the Composition 172-179
View Time Remapping in the Graphic Editor 174-175
The Graphic Editor to Remap Time 175-177
Add an Easy Ease Out 177
Scale the Animation in Time 177-178
Chapter 7 - Masks
Masking is familiar territory for many CC apps. These exercises are well-planned and make it easy, even for beginners, using the familiar pen tool. Page 185 is another one of those places which need a bookmark. There's a good graphic there on mask modes.
This is another lesson which is not as sexy as other CIBs offer. It's practical. However, we'd rather have readers working on a more exciting pro-level project.
Masks 182
Getting Started 182-183
Create a Composition 183
Create a Mask w/the Pen Tool 183-184
Edit a Mask 184-188
Invert a Mask 184-185
Mask Modes 185
Create Curved Masks 186-187
Break Direction Handles 187-188
Create a Bezier Mask 188
Feather Mask Edges 188-189
Replace the Content of a Mask 189-192
Reposition + Resize a Project's Clip 190-191
Rotate a Clip 191-192
Add a Reflection 192-196
Apply a Blend Mode 195
Create a Vignette 196-197
Rectangle + Ellipse Tools 197
Mask Creation 198
Chapter 8 - Distorting Objects w/the Puppet Tools
The Ae Puppet tools are something of an After Effects muscle car. An entire book could be written about them. In some postproduction circles, the cooler stuff you can do with Puppet tools, the higher your credibility climbs.
Photoshop borrowed the After Effects puppet tools a few cycles back. If you're used to puppet warping and pinning from Ps, you'll feel like you've already done these exercises.
However, if you a newbie, this should be a fun chapter.
Getting Started 202-205
Import Footage 202-203
Create a Composition 203
Add a Background 204
Scale an Object 204-205
Add a Character 205
Puppet Tools 206
Add Deform Pins 206-208
Define Areas of Overlap 208-209
Stiffen an Area 209
Animate Pin Positions 210-213
Create a Walking Cycle 210-211
Squash + Stretch 210
Animate a Slip 212
Move an Object 212-213
Record Animation 214
That said, a CIB can only allocate enough space for you to become acquainted with the basic feature set. And, yes, you can complete in around an hour.
You have to ask yourself, "Do I want to become a great After Effects artist?" If so, start dreaming up other puppet tool projects you can do on your own.
Chapter 9 - Roto Brush Tool
When Ae introduced the Roto Brush tool, they changed the game of Hollywood postproduction, forever. The ability to quickly identify one object (such as a face) in one frame of a clip, make adjustments to it, just as you would in Photoshop, and then watch it be applied to every single frame, as the object moves, is mesmerizing. For decades, artists tediously altered one frame at a time, laboring inside big machines. Traditional rotoscope work might make more than one day to do a second of finished footage.
This is where you put to use your previous learning about mattes. This chapter should make you feel like you're equipped to get into the big leagues. It should allow you to feel accomplished. However, that would be in your abilities alone. This is another case where you deserve to be working on examples which feel like they're from a Hollywood feature film. Instead the project seems like it's from someone's home movies.
Rotoscoping Overview 218
Getting Started 218-220
Create the Composition 219
After Effects w/Premiere Pro 220
Create a Segmentation Boundary 220-227
Create a Base Frame 220-223
Refine the Boundary Across the Initial Open 224-225
Add New Base Frames 225-227
Fine-Tune the Matte 227-229
Adjust the Roto Brush + Refine Edge Effect 227-228
Refine Edge Tool 228-229
Refine Soft + Hard Matte Effects 229
Freeze Roto Brush Tool Results 229-230
Change the Background 231-232
Add Animated Text 232-234
Output the Project 234
Chapter 10 - Color Correction
There's something important to understand about the role of this chapter in your overall After Effects learning. As previously mentioned, one of the many purposes of CIB is to act as a workbook to prepare you for taking the ACE exam in Ae.
There was a time when Ae was Adobe's best shot at color correction. Adobe acquired the renown giant for feature film colorists, SpeedGrade. Once that app became part of the Adobe family of products, which now bear the "CC" brand, they made it even better.
There's a fabulous CIB just for SpeedGrade CC.
So, a fair question is, "Do I really need this chapter?"
We have learned that there are many After Effects and Premiere Pro users who never work in SpeedGrade. The color correction tools in Ae are all they need, or at least, all they care to learn. This one is well-crafted to acquaint you with some not-so-simple technology. It does so with some more of those home movie-like lesson assets, which fail to excite us.
Chapter 11 - 3D Features
After Effects has had a nice 3D feature set, for many cycles, but Adobe really turned up the heat when they brought Cinema 4D (C4D) into the equation. C4D has long been Hollywood's gold standard for 3D animation. What you get, with Ae, is the Lite version. But for most Ae artists, it's all they'll ever need.
This is the most intense chapter some readers will have encountered, so far in this educational project. The concepts needed to navigate 3D lights is not simple nor are those involved in working with a virtual camera. On the latter point, you'll want to be sure you master the camera metaphor, in this chapter, before moving forward.
The exercises in this chapter are of the high calibre we feel the entire book deserves. It feels as if it's closer to the kind of projects you would expect an Ae artist to work with. Therefore, upon successful completion, you say to yourself, "Let's do more!"
Chapter 12 - 3D Camera Tracker
You may not know it, but you have seen Ae's 3D Camera Tracker on TV a zillion times. It's in those commercials where everything freezes and then the camera pans over a crowd and the objects in the crowd take on three-dimensions qualities, in frozen layers.
Admittedly, that's a very complex project. However, this chapter opens the door to enter that world of the kind of high-level coolness may budding Adobe professionals crave.
This chapter is easier to understand if you have some background in still photography. However, the entire chapter doesn't push the reader. The lessons assume no level of photographic expertise. Yet, it's not a free pass to anyone. This chapter is challenging, as well it should be.
It digs into some other Ae tools, as well, such as repairing issues with camera shutter distortion and rendering a project. Both of these just touch on the related technology.
Chapter 13 - Advanced Editing Techniques
Warp Stabilizer is another marquee aspect of Ae. It sounds like something out of a "Star Wars" episode, but that's only because it is from that genre of motion graphics.
If you are approaching this book in a cafeteria-like manner, picking and choosing the chapters you want to study, this one might throw you off course and you'll need to roll back and revisit a few chapters.
It furthers what was covered in the previous two chapters, getting into challenging motion tracking. Attention is focused on many of Ae's signature effects. As the book begins to wrap-up, the reader is being primed for where to go from here.
That's not to say that there isn't any hand holding. Page 319 tries to guide you through what could be a foreign term, Bicubic Scaling. There's a similar bookmark page at 323 about the Warp Stabilizer VFX settings. We applaud the foresight this book has in making the learning process as smooth as possible. A must-mark is page 328 on moving and resizing track points.
If just reading this makes you think, "Whoa!" Don't worry, you'll be fine, if you've gotten this far.
Chapter 14 - Rendering + Output
As with many of the huge CC apps, the people at Adobe/ Peachpit Press save the last chapter of the CIBs for the not so sexy, but absolutely essential understanding of how professionals bring a project to conclusion. This is nothing you want to gloss-over, after days of study, just to falsely say you have crossed the CIB finish line. If anything, take a break before starting Chapter 14. It delves into Adobe Media Encoder (AME), known to many as just "Media Encoder" or ME.
Some of the world's best technology writers have contacted us from Adobe press previews asking us to help them decode Media Encoder. That's not an easy one. ME is something akin to all the PDF export options in InDesign. It's also like Adobe's expectation that you'll understand all of Adobe Camera Raw's save options. That requires a huge comprehension of media technology, spanning decades. Nevertheless, fully knowing what each one of those requires is enough know-how to fill a not very exciting book, we appreciate how much of the groundwork was fit into this chapter. It's a substantial down payment. And, it's been updated with some of the new UI directions the AME team has fit into the current version.
All of this is covered in greater depth in the CIB for Premiere Pro CC 2014, which we highly recommend.
That said, some Ae artists never do output from Ae. Their work gets poured into Premiere Pro, where the output takes place. So, it's possible that some readers will have no need for this chapter and can call in quits after chapter 13's very cool exploration into particle simulation, high dynamic range footage, and time warping effects, the stuff Ae artists are made of.
Conclusion
There are some fabulous books available about After Effects. We have quite a library of them, as we try to constantly up our game on mastering Ae, no small task. If someone is new to After Effects, with nothing else in their Ae library, this CIB is their best choice. Other books are great for mastering the app. However, this book does a fabulous job of assuming that you know absolutely nothing about Ae. Yet it has done a good job of providing you with the most valuable single resource available to prepare you for becoming an Adobe Certified Expert in After Effects. We know of no other Ae home-study opportunity which is as complete as this.
Is it the ultimate?
No.
Some of the working assets feel a little old, as if the author understands the technology of Ae, but can't come up with anything truly exciting. That's where the other After Effects books are more stimulating. Does it provide the much needed resources to make a very complex app extremely approachable?
That's a solid "Yes!", without a doubt.
In our minds, this scores maybe 4.7 out of 5 stars. It could be better, but at this point, it's the best. "Adobe After Effects CC 2014 Classroom in a Book" gets our endorsement. We have our hopes set high for an even better Ae CC 2015 edition. We're anxious to see it jump to a solid 5 stars.
Once Adobe started their subscription Creative Cloud service, Ae became more accessible. A monthly fee gets subscribers the 16 core apps, which make up the full Adobe Creative Cloud (CC) desktop offering. So, those who sign-up for Premiere Pro, Photoshop, and Audition also get After Effects as part of the deal. Big broadcasters, film studios, and other media conglomerates are buying hundreds, sometimes thousands, of subscriptions for their staffers.
So why is this called "Adobe After Effects CC 2014 Release Classroom in a Book"? The "2014" is a new branding Adobe came up with to indicate that apps have made a full version number bounce forward. Ae CC went version 12, in June of 2013. In June of 2014, Ae 13.0 was announced.
Adobe pumps out new features to apps a few times a year. As we write this, After Effects 13.2 is the man of the hour. This is a change from the previous 18 to 24 month release cycle. So, our friends at Adobe Press find themselves sending a new set of Classroom in a Books to press once a year.
The Classroom in a Book Role + Legacy
Much like those who master Photoshop and Illustrator, the work of Ae artists can easily be so impressive that some feel After Effects is too intimidating to be approachable. Nothing could be further from the truth. Ae is packed with power and, yes, some After Effect masters do impressive work. Yet, as with many Adobe apps, which have a decades-long legacy, all you need is a well-planned and tested learning experience to give you a can-do attitude about Ae. That's part of the role which Classroom in a Book (CIB) plays.
After Effects was among the original titles for the first 1997 set of CIBs. At the time, CIB was supposed to be something of an official study guide to becoming an Adobe Certified Expert (ACE). 18 years ago, that was quite a goal to squeeze all those features into a single volume for each Adobe app. But, people were becoming certified in Microsoft Windows and the Windows Server functions, so it made sense for Adobe to have a similar proof of capabilities pathway.
This is the 112th CIB which we have carefully studied cover to cover and we have not studied all of them. However, the days of these books, and their matching lessons, being a complete guide to the ACE exam is long over. The desktop apps of the CC subscription, are way too big to fit into one volume for each app. There are 12 CIBs to cover that. The books follow the direction of the ACE exams. Adobe Bridge (Br) and Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) are in the Photoshop exam and CIB, just as Adobe Prelude (Pl) and Adobe Media Encoder (AME) are fused into Premiere Pro. Yet, you'll see Br and AME referenced in this volume, since they are apps which serve many other apps.
We're Adobe Creative Professionals (ACP) and we run media studies training centers which are within the Virginia higher education system. Obviously, Adobe and Apple play import roles in those programs. The Adobe Press (a.k.a. Peachpit and Pearson Educational) materials are important to us as we develop syllabuses. The majority of our Adobe/Apple Certified Instructors (ACIs) use CIB as the foundation of the classroom training they do with our company.
For us, these books are study guides as to how we can be sure that we are up to speed on every foundational, new, and important aspect of how apps, like After Effects, must be understood and mastered. We have created our "Mapped App" series as a study guide to important books for creative professionals. They are both our navigational tool, on each chapter, plus an item-by-item checklist of what needs to be mastered in each learning resource.
As anyone who has read our years of the store.com book reviews knows, we're quite candid and sometimes brutal. Since we are ACPs, published authors, and regular contributors to other author's books, we are buddies with hundreds of our fellow educators to the creative professional community. Andrew Faulkner and Brie Gynclid, the authors of this CIB, also do the CIB for Photoshop which has featured some of our work for the past three editions. We have never met either of them and the reviews we have written of their other works have not always been all laced with rose petals. In the spirit of full disclosure, we are not paid to write reviews nor have we ever met anyone who does that kind of thing.
Chapter 1 - The Workflow
There was a time when if you were new to all things Adobe, the After Effects UI (user interface) was easily intimidating. Now that most Ae users come into the app with a CC subscription, it may not be all that foreign anymore, since it shares a UI experience with other CC apps. This is a good thing since the book doesn't seem to gently ramp-up for the inexperienced reader. We understand this. Many new Ae users are those who have jumped ship from apps like Apple's Final Cut Pro (FCP) or those with CC subscriptions, for which they have already gathered some significant CC experiences. So, overburdening the CIB reader with things they already understand makes no sense.
If you are new to Ae, there's nothing to concern yourself with about this book's step-by-step lessons, complete with inspirational assets for use while studying them. Don't rush through the lessons. Take it slow. Find time for plenty of breaks. If you try to just do the lessons, getting from Point A to Point B, page after page, the learning won't sink in. Continually ask yourself, "Do I fully understand all of what I just studied?" If not, go back and revisit it.
The following is a checklist for this chapter. When you complete the chapter, go back to this list and ask yourself, "Have I mastered each of these?" Don't think in terms of just getting through the lessons. Instead, do these with the mindset that once you close the book, you will be able to successfully complete projects, with these same features, on your own. We find the best way to do this is to create some self-directed revisiting to these projects. Approach this by inventing your own projects.
Work Area 8
Getting Started 9
Create a Project + Import Footage 9-13
Create a Composition + Arrange Layers 13-17
Layers 16
Tools Panel 17
Add Effects + Modify Layer Properties 17-24
Prepare the Layers 17-18
Add a Radial Blur Effect 18-21
Add an Exposure Effect 21-22
Transform Layer Properties 22-24
Animate the Composition 24-31
Prepare the Text Composition 24-26
Timeline Panel 25
Animate Text w/Animation Presets 27-29
Timecode + Duration 28
Change Preset Settings in Effect Controls Panel 29-31
Preview Project 31-33
Standard Preview 31-32
RAM Preview 32-33
Optimize Performance 33
Render + Export a Composition 33
Customize Workspaces 34-35
Predefined Workspaces 34-35
Save a Customi Workspace 35
Control UI Brightness 35-36
After Effects Resources 36
The book suggests that it will take you an hour to complete this first chapter. If you are new to Ae, do not concern yourself if it has taken you twice that long.
This chapter has had some nice improvements since the previous edition.
For some CIBs, it takes a few chapters until you can feel as if you have taken control of the app. In this case, you feel as if you have gotten somewhere by the middle of page 32. That gives the reader a wonderful sense of empowerment.
Chapter 2 - Basic Animation Using Effects + Presets
We write these journals as we work through the lessons, comparing this CIB edition with the previous one. Two chapters into this, we are impressed with the nice changes which have been made.
This chapter is well-designed and developed as a smooth transition from understanding the fundamentals of the workspace, in the previous chapter, to animation basics with Ae. After about an hour, the readers should feel more comfortable in their abilities to accomplish great work in After Effects.
It's a chapter which should feel empowering to those coming into Ae from Bridge (Br) and Illustrator (Ai). This CIB jumps right into the role that those CC apps play in the overall picture of how Ae integrates into the complete Creative Cloud set of powerful tools. The more you learn about Ae, the more you'll see the app not only as an extensive team player with the other CC apps, but you'll see how you can use those applications in creating masterful After Effects projects, all the better.
It is possible to do things exclusively in After Effects. There are many well accomplished After Effects artists in the business. If you bring your Flash Professional, Illustrator, Photoshop, and Premiere Pro skills into Ae, you'll be all the more productive.
Getting Started 40
Import Footage w/Bridge 41-42
Create a New Composition 43-45
Import the Foreground Element 44-45
Imported Illustrator Layers 46-47
Apply Effects to a Layer 47-49
Apply + Control Effects 48
Apply an Animation Preset 50-52
Precompose Layers for a New Animation 51-52
Preview Effects 52
Add Transparency 53
Render the Composition 54-56
Beyond the hour this book suggests, that you'll need to complete these lessons, we'd suggest you double that and bring in some of your own Illustrator projects and just play around with them.
Chapter 3 - Text Animation
As mentioned in the introduction, broadcast news can be seen as a daily gallery of Ae projects. Motion text graphics are a means of keeping the audience engaged. Once again, the author has wisely chosen to integrate Photoshop (Ps) text into the lessons. The pros and cons of bringing Ps text into Ae is a frequently discussed topic by some of the best of the best among Ae users. We are pleased that this CIB prepares the reader for the normal Ae workflow that After Effects masters use every day, worldwide.
This is a fun chapter. The exercises pertain to other animating projects, so don't think of these lessons as text-specific.
Getting Started 60-62
Import Footage 60-61
Create the Composition 62
Text Layers 62
Install a Font Using Typekit 62-65
Create + Format Point Text 65-67
Character Panel 65
Paragraph Panel 66
Position Type 66-67
Text Animation Preset 67-70
Browse Animations Preset 68
Preview a Range of Frames 68-69
Customize an Animation Preset 69-70
Animate w/Scale Keyframes 70-72
Preview a Scale Animation 71
Add Easy Ease 71-72
Animate w/Parenting 72-73
Parent + Child Layers 73
Animate Imported Photoshop Text 74-77
Import Text 74
Edit Imported Text 75-76
Animate a Subtitle 76-77
Animate Text w/Path Animation Preset 77-79
Customize a Preset Path 78-79
Animate Type Tracking 80-81
Customize Placeholder Text 80
Apply a Tracking Preset 80
Customize the Tracking Animation Preset 81
Animate Text Opacity 82
Text Animator Group 82-86
Text Animator Groups 83
Skew the Range of Text 84-86
Clean Up Path Animation 86-87
Animate a Non-Text Layer Along a Motion Path 88-90
Copy the Mask Shape 88-89
Orient the Object 89
Coordinate the Text + Object Timing 89-90
Add Motion Blur 90
This is a very full chapter. If you're familiar with some of it, completing this in 2 hours is feasible. If you're new, it could be a half day project. Dig deep and master it all.
Chapter 4 - Working with Shape Layers
This chapter's previously odd lesson assets have been completely revised into pleasant, approachable exercises which are easy for the reader to approach, understand, and successfully complete. We especially appreciate the addition of 3D.
If you are more of someone who takes digital assets and places them in motion, as opposed to drawing new ones, from scratch, this chapter was created for you. Some of the key goals with chapter 4 is assisting you to work as efficiently as possible in After Effects. These are similar to skills to what allows Adobe Illustrator artists to complete tasks quickly. So, if you are to achieve your goals with this chapter, you need to be able to quickly draw shapes, duplicate them, make modifications, etc. You'll want to complete the extra credit project on page 114. Next, work some more shape projects of your own until you feel comfortable with the process.
Getting Started 94-95
Create the Composition 94-95
Add a Shape Layer 95-100
Draw a Shape 95
Apply a Fill + Stroke 96
Twist a Shape 97-100
Create Custom Shapes 100-101
Draw a Shape w/the Pen Tool 100-101
Create a Self-Animating Shape 101
Duplicate Shapes 102-105
Brainstorm to Experiment 105-106
Position Layers w/Snapping 106-109
Create a New Composition 106-108
Snap Layers into Position 108-109
Add Compositions to a 3D Project 109-113
Animate Layers to Match Audio 114
Chapter 5 - Animate a Multimedia Presentation
The chapter has been around for a while and, admittedly, there's something about the lesson assets that we have never liked. CIB is known as having inspirational exercises. They generally make you feel like you're upgraded to professional class, but this one is not as polished as we feel it should be. However, isn't it fair to ask, "Does it work?" and the answer is, "Yes. It teaches you how to create an animation for a multimedia presentation." But it's okay to also ask, "Do plenty of Ae users do multimedia presentations?" We have never met any. So, for the most part, put the multimedia thing out of your mind and concentrate on the techniques which this chapter teaches. Most of them can be applied to many After Effects animating projects.
Animation is one of the most powerful toolsets in Ae. A good example is keyframing, where you choose important places in the timeline and allow the app to handle the transitions between them, for you. That's common to Premiere Pro (Pr), Flash Professional (Fl), and Photoshop (Ps).
However, if you have not been working with those features in Fl, Ps, and Pr, and this is the first time you are keyframing, it could take a little while for you to fully grasp what it's all about. So, do not allow yourself to become frustrated. If you feel the need to go back a few pages, or start over, that's completely normal, and the best way to proceed with this learning.
The chapter has some very empowering exercises including motion blur, Easy Ease, and the addition of an audio track which integrates Adobe Audition.
Getting Started 118-119
Animate the Scenery w/Parenting 119-123
Set Up Parenting 119-120
Animate the Parent Layer 120-121
Animate a Position 121
Trim a Layer 122
Apply Motion Blur 122
Preview the Animation 122-123
Adjust an Anchor Point 123-124
Mask Video w/Vector Shapes 124-128
Create a New Composition 125-126
Animate Presets w/Shape Layers 126
Constrain a Layer w/an Alpha Matte 126-127
Swap a Composition into a Layer 127-128
Keyframe a Motion Path 128-131
Keyframe Scale + Rotation Transformations 129-131
Add Motion Blur 131
Preview 131
Animate Addition Elements 131-134
Animate a Project's Passing Traffic 131-132
Animate a Project's Buildings 132-133
Add Easy Ease 133
Copy the Project's Animation 134
Apply an Effect 135-138
Add a Solid Color Layer 135-136
Solid-Color Layers Overview 135
Apply an Effect 137-138
Create an Animated Slide Show 138-142
Import Slides 138-139
Make a New Composition 139-140
Position the Slide Show 140-141
Fade-in the First Slide 142
Supported Audio Formats 142
Adobe Sound Document 142
Advanced Audio Coding 142
Audio Exchange File Format 142
Moving Picture Experts Group 142
Video for Windows 142
Waveform 142
Add an Audio Track 143-144
Loop the Audio Track 143-144
Zoom in for a Close-up 144-145
Preview the Entire Composition 144-145
Edit Audio Files w/Audition 146
Chapter 6 - Animate Layers
This chapter opens with Photoshop (Ps) layering techniques which impresses us as to how Ae trainees, coming from a Ps background, can feel right at home, right away. We also don't know how many Adobe GoLive users (Adobe's go-to web design app prior to the Macromedia Dreamweaver acquisition) are out there, who are just coming into Ae, but on page 156, they'll say "Pick Whip!" These are good examples of how the CIB transitions the users of other Adobe apps into Ae.
Most of the chapter is based on that previously mentioned Ps image. For the more seasoned After Effects user, this might seem a little too fundamental. But, hang in there. For newbies this just temporarily lowers the steepness of the learning curve. By page 162 you'll transition into an exercise on track mattes and traveling mattes. These have been at the core of Hollywood postproduction, going back decades. However, if you are new to all of it, you may as well have awakened in a foreign land, where you don't speak the language, and have no idea how you got there. Fortunately, Ae CC 2014 has a new more simple UI which makes it easier to navigate. Carefully study and bookmark page 163 as a reference source on these mattes.
Adding motion blur and shadow movement is very cool and gives you the feeling that you're getting somewhere with Ae. The lens flare exercise makes you feel like you've learned a technique you have seen done many times and always wondered how that was possible.
Retiming a composition and the remapping with the Graph Editor will also seem foreign to some readers and but is quite familiar to Premiere Pro and Flash Professional users. If you are not among the latter, take a break before page 172.
Getting Started 150-153
Import Footage 151-152
Prepare Layered Photoshop Files 152
Create the Composition 152-153
Photoshop Layer Files Overview 153
Simulating Light Changes 154-156
Expressions 156
Duplicate an Animation w/the Pick Whip 156-157
Animate Movement in Scenery 158-161
Animate a Project's Sun 158-159
Animate a Project's Birds 159-160
Animate a Project's Clouds 160-161
Preview the Project's Animation 161
Adjust Layers + Create a Track Matte 162-165
Precompose Layers 162
Create Track Mattes 163-164
Track + Travel Mattes Overview 163
Add Motion Blur 164-165
Animate Shadows 166-168
Add a Lens Flare Effect 168-169
Animate a Project's Clock 170-172
Render the Animation 171-172
Retime the Composition 172-179
View Time Remapping in the Graphic Editor 174-175
The Graphic Editor to Remap Time 175-177
Add an Easy Ease Out 177
Scale the Animation in Time 177-178
Chapter 7 - Masks
Masking is familiar territory for many CC apps. These exercises are well-planned and make it easy, even for beginners, using the familiar pen tool. Page 185 is another one of those places which need a bookmark. There's a good graphic there on mask modes.
This is another lesson which is not as sexy as other CIBs offer. It's practical. However, we'd rather have readers working on a more exciting pro-level project.
Masks 182
Getting Started 182-183
Create a Composition 183
Create a Mask w/the Pen Tool 183-184
Edit a Mask 184-188
Invert a Mask 184-185
Mask Modes 185
Create Curved Masks 186-187
Break Direction Handles 187-188
Create a Bezier Mask 188
Feather Mask Edges 188-189
Replace the Content of a Mask 189-192
Reposition + Resize a Project's Clip 190-191
Rotate a Clip 191-192
Add a Reflection 192-196
Apply a Blend Mode 195
Create a Vignette 196-197
Rectangle + Ellipse Tools 197
Mask Creation 198
Chapter 8 - Distorting Objects w/the Puppet Tools
The Ae Puppet tools are something of an After Effects muscle car. An entire book could be written about them. In some postproduction circles, the cooler stuff you can do with Puppet tools, the higher your credibility climbs.
Photoshop borrowed the After Effects puppet tools a few cycles back. If you're used to puppet warping and pinning from Ps, you'll feel like you've already done these exercises.
However, if you a newbie, this should be a fun chapter.
Getting Started 202-205
Import Footage 202-203
Create a Composition 203
Add a Background 204
Scale an Object 204-205
Add a Character 205
Puppet Tools 206
Add Deform Pins 206-208
Define Areas of Overlap 208-209
Stiffen an Area 209
Animate Pin Positions 210-213
Create a Walking Cycle 210-211
Squash + Stretch 210
Animate a Slip 212
Move an Object 212-213
Record Animation 214
That said, a CIB can only allocate enough space for you to become acquainted with the basic feature set. And, yes, you can complete in around an hour.
You have to ask yourself, "Do I want to become a great After Effects artist?" If so, start dreaming up other puppet tool projects you can do on your own.
Chapter 9 - Roto Brush Tool
When Ae introduced the Roto Brush tool, they changed the game of Hollywood postproduction, forever. The ability to quickly identify one object (such as a face) in one frame of a clip, make adjustments to it, just as you would in Photoshop, and then watch it be applied to every single frame, as the object moves, is mesmerizing. For decades, artists tediously altered one frame at a time, laboring inside big machines. Traditional rotoscope work might make more than one day to do a second of finished footage.
This is where you put to use your previous learning about mattes. This chapter should make you feel like you're equipped to get into the big leagues. It should allow you to feel accomplished. However, that would be in your abilities alone. This is another case where you deserve to be working on examples which feel like they're from a Hollywood feature film. Instead the project seems like it's from someone's home movies.
Rotoscoping Overview 218
Getting Started 218-220
Create the Composition 219
After Effects w/Premiere Pro 220
Create a Segmentation Boundary 220-227
Create a Base Frame 220-223
Refine the Boundary Across the Initial Open 224-225
Add New Base Frames 225-227
Fine-Tune the Matte 227-229
Adjust the Roto Brush + Refine Edge Effect 227-228
Refine Edge Tool 228-229
Refine Soft + Hard Matte Effects 229
Freeze Roto Brush Tool Results 229-230
Change the Background 231-232
Add Animated Text 232-234
Output the Project 234
Chapter 10 - Color Correction
There's something important to understand about the role of this chapter in your overall After Effects learning. As previously mentioned, one of the many purposes of CIB is to act as a workbook to prepare you for taking the ACE exam in Ae.
There was a time when Ae was Adobe's best shot at color correction. Adobe acquired the renown giant for feature film colorists, SpeedGrade. Once that app became part of the Adobe family of products, which now bear the "CC" brand, they made it even better.
There's a fabulous CIB just for SpeedGrade CC.
So, a fair question is, "Do I really need this chapter?"
We have learned that there are many After Effects and Premiere Pro users who never work in SpeedGrade. The color correction tools in Ae are all they need, or at least, all they care to learn. This one is well-crafted to acquaint you with some not-so-simple technology. It does so with some more of those home movie-like lesson assets, which fail to excite us.
Chapter 11 - 3D Features
After Effects has had a nice 3D feature set, for many cycles, but Adobe really turned up the heat when they brought Cinema 4D (C4D) into the equation. C4D has long been Hollywood's gold standard for 3D animation. What you get, with Ae, is the Lite version. But for most Ae artists, it's all they'll ever need.
This is the most intense chapter some readers will have encountered, so far in this educational project. The concepts needed to navigate 3D lights is not simple nor are those involved in working with a virtual camera. On the latter point, you'll want to be sure you master the camera metaphor, in this chapter, before moving forward.
The exercises in this chapter are of the high calibre we feel the entire book deserves. It feels as if it's closer to the kind of projects you would expect an Ae artist to work with. Therefore, upon successful completion, you say to yourself, "Let's do more!"
Chapter 12 - 3D Camera Tracker
You may not know it, but you have seen Ae's 3D Camera Tracker on TV a zillion times. It's in those commercials where everything freezes and then the camera pans over a crowd and the objects in the crowd take on three-dimensions qualities, in frozen layers.
Admittedly, that's a very complex project. However, this chapter opens the door to enter that world of the kind of high-level coolness may budding Adobe professionals crave.
This chapter is easier to understand if you have some background in still photography. However, the entire chapter doesn't push the reader. The lessons assume no level of photographic expertise. Yet, it's not a free pass to anyone. This chapter is challenging, as well it should be.
It digs into some other Ae tools, as well, such as repairing issues with camera shutter distortion and rendering a project. Both of these just touch on the related technology.
Chapter 13 - Advanced Editing Techniques
Warp Stabilizer is another marquee aspect of Ae. It sounds like something out of a "Star Wars" episode, but that's only because it is from that genre of motion graphics.
If you are approaching this book in a cafeteria-like manner, picking and choosing the chapters you want to study, this one might throw you off course and you'll need to roll back and revisit a few chapters.
It furthers what was covered in the previous two chapters, getting into challenging motion tracking. Attention is focused on many of Ae's signature effects. As the book begins to wrap-up, the reader is being primed for where to go from here.
That's not to say that there isn't any hand holding. Page 319 tries to guide you through what could be a foreign term, Bicubic Scaling. There's a similar bookmark page at 323 about the Warp Stabilizer VFX settings. We applaud the foresight this book has in making the learning process as smooth as possible. A must-mark is page 328 on moving and resizing track points.
If just reading this makes you think, "Whoa!" Don't worry, you'll be fine, if you've gotten this far.
Chapter 14 - Rendering + Output
As with many of the huge CC apps, the people at Adobe/ Peachpit Press save the last chapter of the CIBs for the not so sexy, but absolutely essential understanding of how professionals bring a project to conclusion. This is nothing you want to gloss-over, after days of study, just to falsely say you have crossed the CIB finish line. If anything, take a break before starting Chapter 14. It delves into Adobe Media Encoder (AME), known to many as just "Media Encoder" or ME.
Some of the world's best technology writers have contacted us from Adobe press previews asking us to help them decode Media Encoder. That's not an easy one. ME is something akin to all the PDF export options in InDesign. It's also like Adobe's expectation that you'll understand all of Adobe Camera Raw's save options. That requires a huge comprehension of media technology, spanning decades. Nevertheless, fully knowing what each one of those requires is enough know-how to fill a not very exciting book, we appreciate how much of the groundwork was fit into this chapter. It's a substantial down payment. And, it's been updated with some of the new UI directions the AME team has fit into the current version.
All of this is covered in greater depth in the CIB for Premiere Pro CC 2014, which we highly recommend.
That said, some Ae artists never do output from Ae. Their work gets poured into Premiere Pro, where the output takes place. So, it's possible that some readers will have no need for this chapter and can call in quits after chapter 13's very cool exploration into particle simulation, high dynamic range footage, and time warping effects, the stuff Ae artists are made of.
Conclusion
There are some fabulous books available about After Effects. We have quite a library of them, as we try to constantly up our game on mastering Ae, no small task. If someone is new to After Effects, with nothing else in their Ae library, this CIB is their best choice. Other books are great for mastering the app. However, this book does a fabulous job of assuming that you know absolutely nothing about Ae. Yet it has done a good job of providing you with the most valuable single resource available to prepare you for becoming an Adobe Certified Expert in After Effects. We know of no other Ae home-study opportunity which is as complete as this.
Is it the ultimate?
No.
Some of the working assets feel a little old, as if the author understands the technology of Ae, but can't come up with anything truly exciting. That's where the other After Effects books are more stimulating. Does it provide the much needed resources to make a very complex app extremely approachable?
That's a solid "Yes!", without a doubt.
In our minds, this scores maybe 4.7 out of 5 stars. It could be better, but at this point, it's the best. "Adobe After Effects CC 2014 Classroom in a Book" gets our endorsement. We have our hopes set high for an even better Ae CC 2015 edition. We're anxious to see it jump to a solid 5 stars.
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
cyrelle
Everyone’s heard of Photoshop (Ps). It’s one of the world’s most recognizable brand names.
In a few weeks, it’ll be 18 years since Adobe Press published their very first Classroom in a Book. It was for Photoshop 4.
What’s known as “Photoshop CC 2014” is, as the year comes to a close, Photoshop 15.2.2. If you are a CC subscriber, you already know that the days of back Adobe product roll-outs, every 18 to 24 months are over. Adobe now pushes out “dot releases” every few months, as part of the Creative Cloud subscription.
It looks like once a year Adobe will declare the start of a new cycle, hence the “CC” designation in June 2013, and “CC 2014” in June of this year. Apparently Adobe Press plans new CIBs annually, for most of the 16 core CC desktop apps, too. (We’ll have a few more thoughts on that, in a few paragraphs).
Adobe Press (a.k.a Peachpit Press) has produced many Classroom in a Book (CIB) volumes, not all of which were applicable to what we do, yet, this is the 107th CIB that we have carefully studied from cover to cover.
Why Do Creative Professionals Keep Getting These Books?
We have written, photographed, illustrated, and sometimes even designed three books. Every year, we are asked to contribute to other people’s books. We go back to the original little beige 1984 Macs and were the first people to place an order for Windows 2.0. In 1985, the founder Aldus (which Adobe acquired), the guy who coined the term “desktop publishing,” asked us to beta test PageMaker 1.0. We’re Adobe Community Professionals (ACPs). So, with all that background, why do we need to be studying every one of the CIBs for the core CC desktop apps?
We mention all of this, not to boast, but to help you in understanding the importance of this book and the role it plays in the lifelong learning ecosystem. In cooperation with the Virginia higher education system, we run an Apple Authorized Training Center which offers courses in all things Adobe CC. At the main college technology center where we and our team of Apple and Adobe Certified Instructors (ACIs) work, you can not only take some extremely intense courses on all 16 of those core CC apps, but you can take your exam to become an Adobe Certified Expert (ACE) or Adobe Certified Associate (ACA).
We write quite a few college-level syllabuses a year, but at the core of our Adobe training are the CIB volumes. These learning packages are not just another set of books on Adobe apps. They are carefully crafted to play an integral role in how people train to become certified in Adobe apps.
Does that mean that everything you need to know to become a Photoshop expert is within these 384 pages?
That was part of the concept back in 1997, when the first Photoshop CIB was released for version 4.0, but to cover everything in Photoshop 15.2.2 could not be contained in 1,384 pages, much less 384.
However, if you study one of the CIB volumes for those 16 core CC 2014 apps, or get all 12 books, which total 4,811 pages, you should have an excellent foundational knowledge of this world’s most powerful app collection for media technology. We say, “should have” because over the past 17+ years not all of the CIBs have had stellar results. Over the years, we became the “complainers-in-chief” for Adobe Press.
We write these reviews as a journal, which we put together as we study the materials. These things become our personal quick-glance guides as to the CIB contents.
Our Disclaimer
To temper this review with even more candor, we’re not strangers to the people at Adobe, Apple, Canon, Epson, HP, Nikon, Sony, Wacom or dozens of photographic lighting companies. Many of our fellow Adobe Community Professionals write books.
In truth, on page 236 of this book is one of our illustrations. Does that mean this whole review is fixed?
Though we were asked to proof one of the new CIBs (we were too busy), the first time we ever see a freshly printed CIB is just like everyone else, after it goes into retail distribution. Though many of the writers of the CIBs and books by other authors Peachpit, Random House, and Focal Press are good friends of ours, they never know what we’ll say until our PDFs appear on our website, m2media dot com, and as a review on the store dot com.
So, in short, the process is clean on both sides of the fence.
With that out of the way, let’s get started:
Chapter 1 - Getting to Know the Work Area
In the past, we have complained about this first chapter. It tended to throw people into the fire. If (and it sometimes seemed like a bug “if”) they made their way through those initial twenty or so pages, that was good news. As we mentioned previously, Photoshop 15.2.2 is huge. It’s important to start small and not overwhelm the trainees.
This time, someone got the memo.
We liked the days when the Photoshop CIB started with Adobe Bridge (circa CS2).
If you are not familiar with how this works, there are 12 CIBs for the 16 core CC desktop apps. Adobe Bridge (Br) and Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) are included in the Photoshop CIB, just as Adobe Prelude (Pl) and Adobe Media Encoder (AME) are included in the Premiere Pro CIB.
Why is that?
For one, there isn’t a market for CIBs for Br, ACR, Pl, and AME, at least not yet. Second, as we mentioned earlier, part of what CIB does is prepare you for your certification. Br and ACR are touched upon in the Photoshop ACE exam as knowledge of Pl and AME are needed for the Premiere Pro ACE.
We’ll get to more on Br and ACR in a little bit.
This edition’s chapter one is well-crafted. The sole focus is getting the trainees used to how you navigate your way around Ps, use tools, make selections, use menus, and work with panels.
Everyone should breeze through it without trouble.
Use these line items as your checklist. For each one of these ask yourself, “Do I fully understand these points?”
Starting to Work in Adobe Photoshop 10-12
Open a File from the Desktop 10-12
Tools 12-18
Zoom + Scroll w/the Navigator Panel 16
Brighten an Image 16-18
Sample a Color 18-19
Tools + Tool Properties 19-25
Context Menus 19-21
Hidden Tools 21-22
Set Tool Properties in the Options Bar 22-23
Panels + Panel Menus 24-25
Tools Panel Gallery 356-359
Undoing Actions 25-26
Panels + Panel Locations 26-29
Expand + Collapse Panels 28
Tools Panel + Option Bar 29
Find Resources 29
Change Interface Settings 30
If you’ve dabbled in Photoshop before, you should polish off this first chapter in less than an hour. Newbies should take all the time they need. Go back and review anything which is not crystal clear to you, before going further.
Chapter 2 - Basic Photo Corrections
Though learning the basics of photographic retouching are essential Photoshop skills, the Ps CIB team appears to have an excellent strategy to ease trainees into doing actual Ps projects. In the process this makes the reader even more comfortable with the app, itself. That explains why there are some topics which include overviews of media technology. We are pleased at how the Ps CIB team gradually ramps up the trainees.
The same is true of Adobe Bridge. Unfortunately, all Br gets in this CIB is two pages. If you need to use Br to do any editing of photos or launch ACR, after rough-editing the photos you just captured, this chapter’s narrow focus on Bridge will not suffice. Do we fault the CIB team for that? As previously mentioned, there’s way too much which needs to fit into these lessons. 384 pages have to use the space judicially.
Retouching Strategy 34
Organizing an Efficient Sequence of Tasks 34
Adjust Your Process for Different Intended Uses 34
Resolution + Image Size 35-36
Open a File in Bridge 36-37
Straighten + Crop 38-39
Adjust Color + Tone 40-41
Restoration 42-43
Spot Healing Brush Tool 44-45
Content Aware Patch 45-46
Repair Areas w/the Clone Stamp Tool 46-47
Image Sharpening 48-49
Black and White Conversion 50
Now that we have offered plenty of praise, let’s prevent you from falling into a learning trap. It’s too easy to learn how to use the Spot Healing Tool on page 44, apply a content-aware patch on page 45 and do a Clone Stamp on the next two pages. You successfully complete the lessons, but you have to ask yourself, “Did I really learn how to use those important tools?” If all you do is follow along, you learned the concepts, but you probably are not ready to do retouching. That means you have to determine if you want to move onto the next chapter or explore some, on your own.
The chapter’s learning concepts conclude with an Extra Credit page. We’d suggest that you do extra credit with every topic in this book. We find that as soon as trainees move on, they don’t always come back. Our fellow instructors often discuss how some programs are for passing the certification exam and others intend to make trainees proficient, on the job. We want you to do both.
Chapter 3 - Working With Selections
On the surface, this seems like a chapter you can browse through in less than an hour. It’s to easy to over-estimate your skills and pay for it a few chapters later. Consider the following points as your checklist.
By way of example, when you’re on page 58 and 59, ask yourself, if you’ve become a master at repositioning a selection while you’re making it. If not, your skill sets have not been honed sufficiently to move onto working with the Magic Wand or Lasso tools. Consider this learning to be like health care, where you have to be the primary and wise decision-maker when it comes to your wellness. Do the same with your Adobe learning:
Selecting + Selection Overview 54
Getting Started 55
Quick Selection Tool 55-56
Move a Selected Area 56-57
Manipulating Selections 57-60
Reposition a Selection Marque While Creating It 58-59
Move w/Keyboard Shortcuts 59
Move Arrow Keys 59-60
Magic Wand Tool 60-62
Soften Edges of a Selection 62
Select w/the Lasso Tool 63-64
Rotating a Selection 64
Select w/a Magnetic Lasso 65-66
Selecting from a Center Point 66
Resize + Copy a Selection 67-69
Resize the Contents of a Selection 67
Move + Duplicate a Selection Simultaneously 68
Copy Selections 69
Crop an Image 69-70
Chapter 4 - Layer Basics
If you know a little bit about layers, then you don’t know enough, and you better pay attention to this one.
Scott Valentine has done an entire book on just a portion of this topic, “The Hidden Power of Adjustment Layers.” (And, “Yes!” We did contribute to that book, too. And “No!” We don’t get a single penny of royalties from any of our book contributions). Our point is that layers are a very valuable tool set, even if it appears as if they are just some mechanical function of the app. They open creative opportunities.
By way of example, rearranging layers on page 80 seems mundane, but when you get started with the lesson, you see that it has power. Then, on page 82, you start to toy with a layer’s opacity. Pages 82-84 take it further with the blend modes. Pages 90-96 take you into layer styles. The principles in the above mentioned 12 pages have enough coolness in them to build an entire career.
Layers Overview 74
Getting Started 74
Layers Panel 75-80
Background Layer 76
Rename + Copy a Layer 77-78
Viewing Individual Layers 78-79
Add a Border to a Layer 79-80
Rearrange Layers 80-88
Change the Opacity of a Layer 82
Duplicate a Layer + Change the Blend Mode 82-84
Blending Modes 83
Multiply 83
Lighten 83
Overlay 83
Luminosity 83
Difference 83
Resize + Rotate Layers 84-85
Use a Filter to Create Artwork 86
Drag to Add a Layer 87-88
Add Text 88-89
Apply a Gradient to a Layer 89-90
Apply a Layer Style 91-96
Blending Effects 93
Add an Adjustment Layer 96-97
Update Layer Effects 98
Add a Border 98-99
Flatten + Save Files 100-101
Layer Comps 101
Merging Photos 102
To further the discussion on what’s not covered in the book (Feel free to translate that into, “There’s a bunch you need to study.”) page 101 offers just a portion of the page to Layer Comps. This is another topic which a career can be built upon, if you become a talented Photoshop artist.
Chapter 5 - Quick Fixes
Quick Fixes is a much-needed new chapter. In previous editions, some of this used to be crammed into the chapter on Adobe Camera Raw (ACR).
This refreshingly new organization is something of a second step from chapter two’s basic photo correction. It makes so much more sense than how it was done in the past.
Again, don’t get too cocky by thinking, “Snapshots! I don’t need this.” Play along, on page 101 you’ll get into some powerful, relatively new tools for blurring backgrounds to gain control of the viewers’ focus.
Even if you don’t shoot panoramas, now, carefully follow every step on pages 114-118. The techniques are empowering. The same is true of correcting distortion and creating depth of field. Mastering the Content-Aware Move tool, starting on page 125, is a must-do.
Admittedly, what’s on pages 127-131, about perspective looks a little intimidating to some people. Just do it. It’s not difficult, at all.
On page 132, al photographers should love the new Camera Shake Reduction. That said, most of this chapter is about cool new features which deserved a place at the CIB table.
Getting Started 106
Improving a Snapshot 106-109
Correct Red Eye 106-108
Brighten an Image 108-109
Blur a Background 110-113
Blur Gallery 112-113
Create a Panorama 114-118
Best Results w/Photomerge 116
Overlay Images Approximately 40% 116
Consistent Focal Length 116
Tripod 116
Same Position 116
Avoid Distortion Lenses 116
Same Exposure 116
Different Layout Options 116
Correct Image Distortion 119-121
Add Depth of Field 122-124
Move Objects w/Content-Aware Move Tool 125-127
More on the Content-Aware Move Tool 127
Adjust Perspective 127-132
Change to Perspective of a Building 131
Camera Shake Reduction 132
When you’re done with the chapter it’s okay to ask, “These are ‘Quick Fixes’? Really?!!” But, what the author may be telling you is that, “The process which used to take a few dozen complex steps, to complete, is now considerably more approachable.” So, “Yes.” these new approaches do not take weeks of mastery.
Chapter 6 - Masks and Channels
Interestingly enough, chapter five’s “What used to be painful…” topics flow right into a chapter on, “What shouldn’t be painful…” The pain level of a feature set is sometimes an illusion in the mind of the user. After all, many Photoshop users, who are otherwise on top of the app’s power, try to avoid masking, and hide under their desks, when it comes to channels.
Why is that?
They’re not difficult.
When we look at these lessons on masking (and they are the same ones which go back quite a few editions of this CIB, so we have seen them many, many times), we remember how painful masking used to be. (This doesn’t mean that it’s 100% easy, now.)
The Ps CIB team, feels you only need 8 pages to learn about masking, as we agree. Chances are, at a marathon pace, you can complete them in 30 minutes. If each spread takes at least 15 minutes a piece, don’t feel bad.
The pages on channels is not a deep dive. In fact, crossing these channels is only about ankle deep water, but it gives you the general concept.
Mask + Channel Overview 136
Getting Started 136
Create a Mask 137-138
Masks and Masking 138
Alpha Channel 138
Layer Mask 138
Vector Mask 138
Clipping Mask 138
Channel Mask 138
Refine a Mask 139-142
Zoom Tool Shortcuts 141
Create a Quick Mask 143-144
Manipulating an Image w/Puppet Warp 144-145
Channels 146-152
Alpha Channel for Shadows 146-148
Adjust an Individual Channel 148-149
About Alpha Channels 149
Masking Tips and Shortcuts 152
Before we forget, each chapter ends with review questions. Don’t cheat and look at the answers on each page. Cover them up and test what you’ve learned. Go back and revisit anything that you missed.
Chapter 7 - Typographic Design
Type has been on board with Photoshop for quite a while, but until CS6 (Photoshop 13), text in Ps was tolerable, at best. However, the Photoshop team turned that around for CS6 and it’s now quite impressive.
This chapter is no newbie hand-holder and it’s not a revisit to type basics from InDesign or Illustrator. It gets down to business with the aspects of using type as a design element, right away. Still, every step is clear and easy to follow. The results should empower trainees.
Type Overview 156
Getting Started 156-157
Clipping Mask from Type 157-161
Add Guides to Position Type 157-158
Add Point Type 158-159
Make a Clipping Mask + Apply a Shadow 160-162
Paragraph + Character Styles 163
Type on a Path 163-166
Type Tool Tricks 164
Warping Point Type 167-168
Design Paragraphs of Type 168-170
Guides for Paragraphs 168
Add Paragraph Type from a Sticky Note 169-171
OpenType in Photoshop 171
OpenType Menu 171
Discretionary Ligatures 171
Swashes 171
True Fractions 171
Add a Rounded Rectangle 171-172
Add Vertical Text 172-174
Save as Photoshop PDF 174
If adding text in Ps is in your workflow, we urge you to complete this chapter and then create some of your own extra credit activities.
Chapter 8 - Vector Drawing Techniques
While the Photoshop team dramatically corrected typography for CS6, they were equally hard at work with vector art. This was something which never was a smooth experience for anyone jumping back and forth between Photoshop and Illustrator.
We have seen many failed attempts to teach vector art to Photoshop users. It is a significant topic, which requires attention to instructional detail.
A book could be devoted to this topic and anyone well versed in Ps should have an initial reaction that 17 pages is a ridiculous attempt at making trainees proficient in this feature set. However, once fully explored, even the most doubtful reviewer will need to admit that the techniques used here are quite impressive and do a thorough job.
We must admit, though, that there’s no way for a newbie to breeze through this chapter. If you complete it in an hour and a half, you need to be sure that you understand all of the techniques presented. For accomplished Flash Professional, Illustrator, and InDesign users, the 90 minute estimated time allocation could be possible. For those in their Photoshop “freshman year,” give this one a couple hours.
Chapter 9 - Advanced Compositing
You’ve seen Photoshop compositing projects everywhere, even if you’ve never hear the term before. All those actors standing together for the movie theatre posters? They were put together in a composite just like web graphics of the entire team of anchors for the morning television news shows.
There are many way to composite elements in Photoshop and this CIB uses some silly horror film examples to teach the basic concepts. Though the examples could be more inspiring, the techniques are spot-on.
If Photoshop compositing is in your future, expand your learning experiences on this topic. There are other books and videos on this topic. It’s another one of those examples of how some accomplished Photoshop artists have found their way into a lucrative marketplace.
Chapter 10 - Painting with The Mixer Brush
Painting in Photoshop has not always been our specialty. We started with Fractal Design (now Corel) Painter 1.0 the day in was released in August 1991.
For CS5, the Photoshop team introduced a powerful paint engine and some very serious painting tools at a time when Painter will technically limping along. We got on board from the minute we discovered Photoshop’s paint tools, as did many of our fellow authors who had been talking up Painter for all of their careers, too.
Painter, however, for the accomplished media technology professional, is a relatively plug-and-play experience, for the basic features of that app. Users can buy the program, browse through the quick start guide, and begin doing some basic brush strokes in less than a half hour.
Unless you are a technically brilliant pre-teen, we doubt anyone can do that with Photoshop painting, especially since no quick start guides exist. The Ps painting UI is something of a kluge of adapted Ps parts, going back to the previous century. That sounds like it should be easy for accomplished Photoshop users to get used to, however, if there is such a person who feels that’s true, we have yet to meet them.
What we’re getting to is that it is not easy to teach Photoshop painting. Nevertheless, the team, which put together this chapter has mastered concise communication. Follow these steps and you will have a sense as to what painting is all about:
Does this give you the know-how you need to feel comfortable with painting? There’s much more you need to learn.
Fear not; there are many books, videos, and other online learning tools available about Photoshop painting.
For now, do a little self-exploration. The day after you complete this book, do more of your own extra credit painting, before you forget what it’s all about.
We highly recommend that you delve into cloning a painting from a photo. That way no one feels they need years of traditional painting on their resume. Wedding/portrait professionals have discovered that painting from a photograph can add a few hundred extra dollars to every package.
Chapter 11 - Editing Video
We must confess that when video was introduced to Photoshop, that made no sense to us. Why not do video in Premiere Pro, instead? No one on the Photoshop team could give us a reason as to why this is a needed feature set.
The end users did that for them. As much as cool animations are created in After Effects and dropped into Premiere Pro, people are animating their Photoshop creations.
Unfortunately, this Photoshop feature set, much like painting, has had its development stall out, while Adobe concentrates on other Photoshop demands. At the same time, the timeline features of After Effects, Audition, Flash Professional, Prelude, and Premiere Pro have moved forward with each development cycle, making the Photoshop timeline feel like an unwelcome member of the CC family.
We mention this since those who have mastered one or more of the above noted apps are likely to want to explore Ps CIB. If you are amongst them, don’t let the UI make you feel lost. Your brain might stutter a bit, but you’ll quickly adapt. As you go through these lessons, with other timeline background, try to set that knowledge aside. This is different.
We have two or three extra credit projects for you.
1. While the Timeline panel is fresh in your mind, open a multi-layered project. In the lower left of the Timeline panel is a button to convert the panel to Convert to Frame Animation. Now you’re ready to create GIF animations for websites. It’s super useful. Do that with a Photo project which has multiple layers. Do each animation step, one layer at a time.
2. While you’re used to the Ps video timeline, don’t render the end result in Photoshop. Do it in Adobe Media Encoder, instead. (The Premiere Pro CIB cover AME).
3. Bring a Photoshop video project into Premiere Pro. Suddenly the purpose behind this entire chapter will make sense and tickle your creativity with more that you can do.
Chapter 12 - Working with Camera Raw
We were thrilled to see Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) finally get a chapter of its own. Millions of new dSLR (digital Single Lens Reflex) cameras are sold every year. Unlike in February 2003, when ACR 1.0 was introduced, and dSLRs were only for brave pioneering professional photographers, great digital cameras are now very affordable. Learning to give those raw files the opportunity to attain their full potential has been much needed.
There are plenty ACR features covered in this chapter. This is good. There are very few resources available for mastering the Camera Raw plug-in. (It seems like ACR is an app, but technically it’s a plug-in). Adobe has a difficult to find manual for both Bridge and Camera Raw. It’s not a very complete look at learning everything about either one of them, but at least it gives you a list of features you need to study.
This chapter covers plenty of ground, including some nice extras on further corrections within Photoshop.
The start of the chapter says that you should set aside an hour. The ACR user interface hasn’t changed much in its almost 11 years. Camera Raw doesn’t resemble the other UIs of its fellow 15 CC desktop apps. (Yes, like most, we used the “app” word). To fully study this one and do enough extra credit (if, you don’t want to play around with your own raw files, something’s wrong) please set aside a couple hours before you feel you are beginning to approach a decent comfort level with Adobe Camera Raw.
Another important note is that many Photoshop users will want to rough cut a shoot in Bridge and then process the finished edit in Camera Raw. ACR launches from within Bridge. This may use fewer of your computer’s resources if a big package of raw files are launched from Br rather than Ps.
Chapter 13 - Preparing Files for the Web
Making Photoshop images into JPEGs and GIFs, for the web and mobile projects, goes back to Photoshop 5.5. Of course, imaging for such needs has changed dramatically over the years and Photoshop has responded with new and updated features.
At times, the Photoshop group of products (Bridge, Camera Raw, Lightroom, and Photoshop) appears to have been kept a few inches from arm’s length of the other 12 CC apps. Yet, Photoshop has become a little more inclusive with Generator. As found on page 312-315, this feature set is a terrific means of using Photoshop to design complete web/mobile projects and get those creations into a form acceptable to electronic media.
If you are new to exploring imaging for an internet environment, study this one carefully. For newbies, these are a bunch of unique technical challenges which need to be understood. A one pixel mistake or incorrect file extension can mess up everything.
These lessons could require at least a couple hours to fully absorb. Take breaks, if needed.
Chapter 14 - Producing and Printing Consistent Color
Much like preparing images for web and mobile, printing is another aspect of Photoshop which addresses the end result. Jeff Schewe has written an excellent book on printing.
To get printing to work perfectly takes a little tweaking. One of the beauties of a lesson, which comes with print samples, is that you have a tried and tested method of making actual application of this learning to your own workflow. The book claims that you can get through the 19 pages of this chapter in less than an hour. If you have a Photoshop printing background, that’s probably true. However, if the technology of this is something you have never tackled, and you want to run more of you own printing tests, you’re in for at least a half day.
At one of the college technology centers, where we and our certified instructors teach, there are 3D printers. Those things are not plentiful. It’s an emerging market.
Upon initially browsing through this book we were glad to see a chapter on 3D printing, but we thought it was a little odd that the chapter on 3D, itself, was cut from this edition. Don’t jump to conclusions, based on the chapter title. 3D basics are in this chapter.
In fact, some of what seemed unapproachable, in past editions, should read as more doable, this time around, even though the projects are quite simple and don’t have this high-level of coolness, which some Photoshop 3D projects can boast about.
Even if you have no immediate plans of creating a 3D object or printing it, and getting your certification in Photoshop is not on your bucket list, this is an important chapter. Don’t skip it. That’s especially true if you plan to also explore After Effects, Flash Professional, and Illustrator. Trading off 3D projects, between the apps, is an ever-growing field.
Conclusion
We have been highly critical of recent editions of Ps CIB.
Our taking any credit for the changes to this edition is not going to happen. However, our friends at Adobe Press have made significant changes to this one. And, yes, they are changes for the better.
Here’s our take on what’s happened. Someone has come to the conclusion that CIB cannot be all things to all people. The best outcomes of a roughly 400 page, tightly packed volume, is that there’s enough material to build a firm foundation.
There’s nothing in here which should overwhelm anyone who is moving through the lessons with all due diligence.
At the turn of the century, the Photoshop CIB editions had more room to include exercises with more visually inspiring projects. CIB soared above all other books, from that aspect.
Like many things in creative technologies, those days are over. Affordable, single volume learning has to be directed toward a very specific audience.
If you came to us, to learn all the topics covered in this book, and then some, doing a deep dive into all the points you need to become an Adobe Certified Expert, we’d put you through a nearly 70-hour intense boot camp which would make your brain beg for mercy. We would need to charge you many times more than the price of this book. Yet, the essence of everything we have written into our Bridge, Camera Raw, and Photoshop syllabuses is here, for you to do on your own. Yes, you will need to drill deeper but successfully completing these lessons pours a very firm foundation.
It has been many years since we have completed a Ps CIB and had no issues with anything in it.
We are pleased to finally, once again, give the CC 2014 edition 5.0 stars out of a possible 5.0.
In a few weeks, it’ll be 18 years since Adobe Press published their very first Classroom in a Book. It was for Photoshop 4.
What’s known as “Photoshop CC 2014” is, as the year comes to a close, Photoshop 15.2.2. If you are a CC subscriber, you already know that the days of back Adobe product roll-outs, every 18 to 24 months are over. Adobe now pushes out “dot releases” every few months, as part of the Creative Cloud subscription.
It looks like once a year Adobe will declare the start of a new cycle, hence the “CC” designation in June 2013, and “CC 2014” in June of this year. Apparently Adobe Press plans new CIBs annually, for most of the 16 core CC desktop apps, too. (We’ll have a few more thoughts on that, in a few paragraphs).
Adobe Press (a.k.a Peachpit Press) has produced many Classroom in a Book (CIB) volumes, not all of which were applicable to what we do, yet, this is the 107th CIB that we have carefully studied from cover to cover.
Why Do Creative Professionals Keep Getting These Books?
We have written, photographed, illustrated, and sometimes even designed three books. Every year, we are asked to contribute to other people’s books. We go back to the original little beige 1984 Macs and were the first people to place an order for Windows 2.0. In 1985, the founder Aldus (which Adobe acquired), the guy who coined the term “desktop publishing,” asked us to beta test PageMaker 1.0. We’re Adobe Community Professionals (ACPs). So, with all that background, why do we need to be studying every one of the CIBs for the core CC desktop apps?
We mention all of this, not to boast, but to help you in understanding the importance of this book and the role it plays in the lifelong learning ecosystem. In cooperation with the Virginia higher education system, we run an Apple Authorized Training Center which offers courses in all things Adobe CC. At the main college technology center where we and our team of Apple and Adobe Certified Instructors (ACIs) work, you can not only take some extremely intense courses on all 16 of those core CC apps, but you can take your exam to become an Adobe Certified Expert (ACE) or Adobe Certified Associate (ACA).
We write quite a few college-level syllabuses a year, but at the core of our Adobe training are the CIB volumes. These learning packages are not just another set of books on Adobe apps. They are carefully crafted to play an integral role in how people train to become certified in Adobe apps.
Does that mean that everything you need to know to become a Photoshop expert is within these 384 pages?
That was part of the concept back in 1997, when the first Photoshop CIB was released for version 4.0, but to cover everything in Photoshop 15.2.2 could not be contained in 1,384 pages, much less 384.
However, if you study one of the CIB volumes for those 16 core CC 2014 apps, or get all 12 books, which total 4,811 pages, you should have an excellent foundational knowledge of this world’s most powerful app collection for media technology. We say, “should have” because over the past 17+ years not all of the CIBs have had stellar results. Over the years, we became the “complainers-in-chief” for Adobe Press.
We write these reviews as a journal, which we put together as we study the materials. These things become our personal quick-glance guides as to the CIB contents.
Our Disclaimer
To temper this review with even more candor, we’re not strangers to the people at Adobe, Apple, Canon, Epson, HP, Nikon, Sony, Wacom or dozens of photographic lighting companies. Many of our fellow Adobe Community Professionals write books.
In truth, on page 236 of this book is one of our illustrations. Does that mean this whole review is fixed?
Though we were asked to proof one of the new CIBs (we were too busy), the first time we ever see a freshly printed CIB is just like everyone else, after it goes into retail distribution. Though many of the writers of the CIBs and books by other authors Peachpit, Random House, and Focal Press are good friends of ours, they never know what we’ll say until our PDFs appear on our website, m2media dot com, and as a review on the store dot com.
So, in short, the process is clean on both sides of the fence.
With that out of the way, let’s get started:
Chapter 1 - Getting to Know the Work Area
In the past, we have complained about this first chapter. It tended to throw people into the fire. If (and it sometimes seemed like a bug “if”) they made their way through those initial twenty or so pages, that was good news. As we mentioned previously, Photoshop 15.2.2 is huge. It’s important to start small and not overwhelm the trainees.
This time, someone got the memo.
We liked the days when the Photoshop CIB started with Adobe Bridge (circa CS2).
If you are not familiar with how this works, there are 12 CIBs for the 16 core CC desktop apps. Adobe Bridge (Br) and Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) are included in the Photoshop CIB, just as Adobe Prelude (Pl) and Adobe Media Encoder (AME) are included in the Premiere Pro CIB.
Why is that?
For one, there isn’t a market for CIBs for Br, ACR, Pl, and AME, at least not yet. Second, as we mentioned earlier, part of what CIB does is prepare you for your certification. Br and ACR are touched upon in the Photoshop ACE exam as knowledge of Pl and AME are needed for the Premiere Pro ACE.
We’ll get to more on Br and ACR in a little bit.
This edition’s chapter one is well-crafted. The sole focus is getting the trainees used to how you navigate your way around Ps, use tools, make selections, use menus, and work with panels.
Everyone should breeze through it without trouble.
Use these line items as your checklist. For each one of these ask yourself, “Do I fully understand these points?”
Starting to Work in Adobe Photoshop 10-12
Open a File from the Desktop 10-12
Tools 12-18
Zoom + Scroll w/the Navigator Panel 16
Brighten an Image 16-18
Sample a Color 18-19
Tools + Tool Properties 19-25
Context Menus 19-21
Hidden Tools 21-22
Set Tool Properties in the Options Bar 22-23
Panels + Panel Menus 24-25
Tools Panel Gallery 356-359
Undoing Actions 25-26
Panels + Panel Locations 26-29
Expand + Collapse Panels 28
Tools Panel + Option Bar 29
Find Resources 29
Change Interface Settings 30
If you’ve dabbled in Photoshop before, you should polish off this first chapter in less than an hour. Newbies should take all the time they need. Go back and review anything which is not crystal clear to you, before going further.
Chapter 2 - Basic Photo Corrections
Though learning the basics of photographic retouching are essential Photoshop skills, the Ps CIB team appears to have an excellent strategy to ease trainees into doing actual Ps projects. In the process this makes the reader even more comfortable with the app, itself. That explains why there are some topics which include overviews of media technology. We are pleased at how the Ps CIB team gradually ramps up the trainees.
The same is true of Adobe Bridge. Unfortunately, all Br gets in this CIB is two pages. If you need to use Br to do any editing of photos or launch ACR, after rough-editing the photos you just captured, this chapter’s narrow focus on Bridge will not suffice. Do we fault the CIB team for that? As previously mentioned, there’s way too much which needs to fit into these lessons. 384 pages have to use the space judicially.
Retouching Strategy 34
Organizing an Efficient Sequence of Tasks 34
Adjust Your Process for Different Intended Uses 34
Resolution + Image Size 35-36
Open a File in Bridge 36-37
Straighten + Crop 38-39
Adjust Color + Tone 40-41
Restoration 42-43
Spot Healing Brush Tool 44-45
Content Aware Patch 45-46
Repair Areas w/the Clone Stamp Tool 46-47
Image Sharpening 48-49
Black and White Conversion 50
Now that we have offered plenty of praise, let’s prevent you from falling into a learning trap. It’s too easy to learn how to use the Spot Healing Tool on page 44, apply a content-aware patch on page 45 and do a Clone Stamp on the next two pages. You successfully complete the lessons, but you have to ask yourself, “Did I really learn how to use those important tools?” If all you do is follow along, you learned the concepts, but you probably are not ready to do retouching. That means you have to determine if you want to move onto the next chapter or explore some, on your own.
The chapter’s learning concepts conclude with an Extra Credit page. We’d suggest that you do extra credit with every topic in this book. We find that as soon as trainees move on, they don’t always come back. Our fellow instructors often discuss how some programs are for passing the certification exam and others intend to make trainees proficient, on the job. We want you to do both.
Chapter 3 - Working With Selections
On the surface, this seems like a chapter you can browse through in less than an hour. It’s to easy to over-estimate your skills and pay for it a few chapters later. Consider the following points as your checklist.
By way of example, when you’re on page 58 and 59, ask yourself, if you’ve become a master at repositioning a selection while you’re making it. If not, your skill sets have not been honed sufficiently to move onto working with the Magic Wand or Lasso tools. Consider this learning to be like health care, where you have to be the primary and wise decision-maker when it comes to your wellness. Do the same with your Adobe learning:
Selecting + Selection Overview 54
Getting Started 55
Quick Selection Tool 55-56
Move a Selected Area 56-57
Manipulating Selections 57-60
Reposition a Selection Marque While Creating It 58-59
Move w/Keyboard Shortcuts 59
Move Arrow Keys 59-60
Magic Wand Tool 60-62
Soften Edges of a Selection 62
Select w/the Lasso Tool 63-64
Rotating a Selection 64
Select w/a Magnetic Lasso 65-66
Selecting from a Center Point 66
Resize + Copy a Selection 67-69
Resize the Contents of a Selection 67
Move + Duplicate a Selection Simultaneously 68
Copy Selections 69
Crop an Image 69-70
Chapter 4 - Layer Basics
If you know a little bit about layers, then you don’t know enough, and you better pay attention to this one.
Scott Valentine has done an entire book on just a portion of this topic, “The Hidden Power of Adjustment Layers.” (And, “Yes!” We did contribute to that book, too. And “No!” We don’t get a single penny of royalties from any of our book contributions). Our point is that layers are a very valuable tool set, even if it appears as if they are just some mechanical function of the app. They open creative opportunities.
By way of example, rearranging layers on page 80 seems mundane, but when you get started with the lesson, you see that it has power. Then, on page 82, you start to toy with a layer’s opacity. Pages 82-84 take it further with the blend modes. Pages 90-96 take you into layer styles. The principles in the above mentioned 12 pages have enough coolness in them to build an entire career.
Layers Overview 74
Getting Started 74
Layers Panel 75-80
Background Layer 76
Rename + Copy a Layer 77-78
Viewing Individual Layers 78-79
Add a Border to a Layer 79-80
Rearrange Layers 80-88
Change the Opacity of a Layer 82
Duplicate a Layer + Change the Blend Mode 82-84
Blending Modes 83
Multiply 83
Lighten 83
Overlay 83
Luminosity 83
Difference 83
Resize + Rotate Layers 84-85
Use a Filter to Create Artwork 86
Drag to Add a Layer 87-88
Add Text 88-89
Apply a Gradient to a Layer 89-90
Apply a Layer Style 91-96
Blending Effects 93
Add an Adjustment Layer 96-97
Update Layer Effects 98
Add a Border 98-99
Flatten + Save Files 100-101
Layer Comps 101
Merging Photos 102
To further the discussion on what’s not covered in the book (Feel free to translate that into, “There’s a bunch you need to study.”) page 101 offers just a portion of the page to Layer Comps. This is another topic which a career can be built upon, if you become a talented Photoshop artist.
Chapter 5 - Quick Fixes
Quick Fixes is a much-needed new chapter. In previous editions, some of this used to be crammed into the chapter on Adobe Camera Raw (ACR).
This refreshingly new organization is something of a second step from chapter two’s basic photo correction. It makes so much more sense than how it was done in the past.
Again, don’t get too cocky by thinking, “Snapshots! I don’t need this.” Play along, on page 101 you’ll get into some powerful, relatively new tools for blurring backgrounds to gain control of the viewers’ focus.
Even if you don’t shoot panoramas, now, carefully follow every step on pages 114-118. The techniques are empowering. The same is true of correcting distortion and creating depth of field. Mastering the Content-Aware Move tool, starting on page 125, is a must-do.
Admittedly, what’s on pages 127-131, about perspective looks a little intimidating to some people. Just do it. It’s not difficult, at all.
On page 132, al photographers should love the new Camera Shake Reduction. That said, most of this chapter is about cool new features which deserved a place at the CIB table.
Getting Started 106
Improving a Snapshot 106-109
Correct Red Eye 106-108
Brighten an Image 108-109
Blur a Background 110-113
Blur Gallery 112-113
Create a Panorama 114-118
Best Results w/Photomerge 116
Overlay Images Approximately 40% 116
Consistent Focal Length 116
Tripod 116
Same Position 116
Avoid Distortion Lenses 116
Same Exposure 116
Different Layout Options 116
Correct Image Distortion 119-121
Add Depth of Field 122-124
Move Objects w/Content-Aware Move Tool 125-127
More on the Content-Aware Move Tool 127
Adjust Perspective 127-132
Change to Perspective of a Building 131
Camera Shake Reduction 132
When you’re done with the chapter it’s okay to ask, “These are ‘Quick Fixes’? Really?!!” But, what the author may be telling you is that, “The process which used to take a few dozen complex steps, to complete, is now considerably more approachable.” So, “Yes.” these new approaches do not take weeks of mastery.
Chapter 6 - Masks and Channels
Interestingly enough, chapter five’s “What used to be painful…” topics flow right into a chapter on, “What shouldn’t be painful…” The pain level of a feature set is sometimes an illusion in the mind of the user. After all, many Photoshop users, who are otherwise on top of the app’s power, try to avoid masking, and hide under their desks, when it comes to channels.
Why is that?
They’re not difficult.
When we look at these lessons on masking (and they are the same ones which go back quite a few editions of this CIB, so we have seen them many, many times), we remember how painful masking used to be. (This doesn’t mean that it’s 100% easy, now.)
The Ps CIB team, feels you only need 8 pages to learn about masking, as we agree. Chances are, at a marathon pace, you can complete them in 30 minutes. If each spread takes at least 15 minutes a piece, don’t feel bad.
The pages on channels is not a deep dive. In fact, crossing these channels is only about ankle deep water, but it gives you the general concept.
Mask + Channel Overview 136
Getting Started 136
Create a Mask 137-138
Masks and Masking 138
Alpha Channel 138
Layer Mask 138
Vector Mask 138
Clipping Mask 138
Channel Mask 138
Refine a Mask 139-142
Zoom Tool Shortcuts 141
Create a Quick Mask 143-144
Manipulating an Image w/Puppet Warp 144-145
Channels 146-152
Alpha Channel for Shadows 146-148
Adjust an Individual Channel 148-149
About Alpha Channels 149
Masking Tips and Shortcuts 152
Before we forget, each chapter ends with review questions. Don’t cheat and look at the answers on each page. Cover them up and test what you’ve learned. Go back and revisit anything that you missed.
Chapter 7 - Typographic Design
Type has been on board with Photoshop for quite a while, but until CS6 (Photoshop 13), text in Ps was tolerable, at best. However, the Photoshop team turned that around for CS6 and it’s now quite impressive.
This chapter is no newbie hand-holder and it’s not a revisit to type basics from InDesign or Illustrator. It gets down to business with the aspects of using type as a design element, right away. Still, every step is clear and easy to follow. The results should empower trainees.
Type Overview 156
Getting Started 156-157
Clipping Mask from Type 157-161
Add Guides to Position Type 157-158
Add Point Type 158-159
Make a Clipping Mask + Apply a Shadow 160-162
Paragraph + Character Styles 163
Type on a Path 163-166
Type Tool Tricks 164
Warping Point Type 167-168
Design Paragraphs of Type 168-170
Guides for Paragraphs 168
Add Paragraph Type from a Sticky Note 169-171
OpenType in Photoshop 171
OpenType Menu 171
Discretionary Ligatures 171
Swashes 171
True Fractions 171
Add a Rounded Rectangle 171-172
Add Vertical Text 172-174
Save as Photoshop PDF 174
If adding text in Ps is in your workflow, we urge you to complete this chapter and then create some of your own extra credit activities.
Chapter 8 - Vector Drawing Techniques
While the Photoshop team dramatically corrected typography for CS6, they were equally hard at work with vector art. This was something which never was a smooth experience for anyone jumping back and forth between Photoshop and Illustrator.
We have seen many failed attempts to teach vector art to Photoshop users. It is a significant topic, which requires attention to instructional detail.
A book could be devoted to this topic and anyone well versed in Ps should have an initial reaction that 17 pages is a ridiculous attempt at making trainees proficient in this feature set. However, once fully explored, even the most doubtful reviewer will need to admit that the techniques used here are quite impressive and do a thorough job.
We must admit, though, that there’s no way for a newbie to breeze through this chapter. If you complete it in an hour and a half, you need to be sure that you understand all of the techniques presented. For accomplished Flash Professional, Illustrator, and InDesign users, the 90 minute estimated time allocation could be possible. For those in their Photoshop “freshman year,” give this one a couple hours.
Chapter 9 - Advanced Compositing
You’ve seen Photoshop compositing projects everywhere, even if you’ve never hear the term before. All those actors standing together for the movie theatre posters? They were put together in a composite just like web graphics of the entire team of anchors for the morning television news shows.
There are many way to composite elements in Photoshop and this CIB uses some silly horror film examples to teach the basic concepts. Though the examples could be more inspiring, the techniques are spot-on.
If Photoshop compositing is in your future, expand your learning experiences on this topic. There are other books and videos on this topic. It’s another one of those examples of how some accomplished Photoshop artists have found their way into a lucrative marketplace.
Chapter 10 - Painting with The Mixer Brush
Painting in Photoshop has not always been our specialty. We started with Fractal Design (now Corel) Painter 1.0 the day in was released in August 1991.
For CS5, the Photoshop team introduced a powerful paint engine and some very serious painting tools at a time when Painter will technically limping along. We got on board from the minute we discovered Photoshop’s paint tools, as did many of our fellow authors who had been talking up Painter for all of their careers, too.
Painter, however, for the accomplished media technology professional, is a relatively plug-and-play experience, for the basic features of that app. Users can buy the program, browse through the quick start guide, and begin doing some basic brush strokes in less than a half hour.
Unless you are a technically brilliant pre-teen, we doubt anyone can do that with Photoshop painting, especially since no quick start guides exist. The Ps painting UI is something of a kluge of adapted Ps parts, going back to the previous century. That sounds like it should be easy for accomplished Photoshop users to get used to, however, if there is such a person who feels that’s true, we have yet to meet them.
What we’re getting to is that it is not easy to teach Photoshop painting. Nevertheless, the team, which put together this chapter has mastered concise communication. Follow these steps and you will have a sense as to what painting is all about:
Does this give you the know-how you need to feel comfortable with painting? There’s much more you need to learn.
Fear not; there are many books, videos, and other online learning tools available about Photoshop painting.
For now, do a little self-exploration. The day after you complete this book, do more of your own extra credit painting, before you forget what it’s all about.
We highly recommend that you delve into cloning a painting from a photo. That way no one feels they need years of traditional painting on their resume. Wedding/portrait professionals have discovered that painting from a photograph can add a few hundred extra dollars to every package.
Chapter 11 - Editing Video
We must confess that when video was introduced to Photoshop, that made no sense to us. Why not do video in Premiere Pro, instead? No one on the Photoshop team could give us a reason as to why this is a needed feature set.
The end users did that for them. As much as cool animations are created in After Effects and dropped into Premiere Pro, people are animating their Photoshop creations.
Unfortunately, this Photoshop feature set, much like painting, has had its development stall out, while Adobe concentrates on other Photoshop demands. At the same time, the timeline features of After Effects, Audition, Flash Professional, Prelude, and Premiere Pro have moved forward with each development cycle, making the Photoshop timeline feel like an unwelcome member of the CC family.
We mention this since those who have mastered one or more of the above noted apps are likely to want to explore Ps CIB. If you are amongst them, don’t let the UI make you feel lost. Your brain might stutter a bit, but you’ll quickly adapt. As you go through these lessons, with other timeline background, try to set that knowledge aside. This is different.
We have two or three extra credit projects for you.
1. While the Timeline panel is fresh in your mind, open a multi-layered project. In the lower left of the Timeline panel is a button to convert the panel to Convert to Frame Animation. Now you’re ready to create GIF animations for websites. It’s super useful. Do that with a Photo project which has multiple layers. Do each animation step, one layer at a time.
2. While you’re used to the Ps video timeline, don’t render the end result in Photoshop. Do it in Adobe Media Encoder, instead. (The Premiere Pro CIB cover AME).
3. Bring a Photoshop video project into Premiere Pro. Suddenly the purpose behind this entire chapter will make sense and tickle your creativity with more that you can do.
Chapter 12 - Working with Camera Raw
We were thrilled to see Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) finally get a chapter of its own. Millions of new dSLR (digital Single Lens Reflex) cameras are sold every year. Unlike in February 2003, when ACR 1.0 was introduced, and dSLRs were only for brave pioneering professional photographers, great digital cameras are now very affordable. Learning to give those raw files the opportunity to attain their full potential has been much needed.
There are plenty ACR features covered in this chapter. This is good. There are very few resources available for mastering the Camera Raw plug-in. (It seems like ACR is an app, but technically it’s a plug-in). Adobe has a difficult to find manual for both Bridge and Camera Raw. It’s not a very complete look at learning everything about either one of them, but at least it gives you a list of features you need to study.
This chapter covers plenty of ground, including some nice extras on further corrections within Photoshop.
The start of the chapter says that you should set aside an hour. The ACR user interface hasn’t changed much in its almost 11 years. Camera Raw doesn’t resemble the other UIs of its fellow 15 CC desktop apps. (Yes, like most, we used the “app” word). To fully study this one and do enough extra credit (if, you don’t want to play around with your own raw files, something’s wrong) please set aside a couple hours before you feel you are beginning to approach a decent comfort level with Adobe Camera Raw.
Another important note is that many Photoshop users will want to rough cut a shoot in Bridge and then process the finished edit in Camera Raw. ACR launches from within Bridge. This may use fewer of your computer’s resources if a big package of raw files are launched from Br rather than Ps.
Chapter 13 - Preparing Files for the Web
Making Photoshop images into JPEGs and GIFs, for the web and mobile projects, goes back to Photoshop 5.5. Of course, imaging for such needs has changed dramatically over the years and Photoshop has responded with new and updated features.
At times, the Photoshop group of products (Bridge, Camera Raw, Lightroom, and Photoshop) appears to have been kept a few inches from arm’s length of the other 12 CC apps. Yet, Photoshop has become a little more inclusive with Generator. As found on page 312-315, this feature set is a terrific means of using Photoshop to design complete web/mobile projects and get those creations into a form acceptable to electronic media.
If you are new to exploring imaging for an internet environment, study this one carefully. For newbies, these are a bunch of unique technical challenges which need to be understood. A one pixel mistake or incorrect file extension can mess up everything.
These lessons could require at least a couple hours to fully absorb. Take breaks, if needed.
Chapter 14 - Producing and Printing Consistent Color
Much like preparing images for web and mobile, printing is another aspect of Photoshop which addresses the end result. Jeff Schewe has written an excellent book on printing.
To get printing to work perfectly takes a little tweaking. One of the beauties of a lesson, which comes with print samples, is that you have a tried and tested method of making actual application of this learning to your own workflow. The book claims that you can get through the 19 pages of this chapter in less than an hour. If you have a Photoshop printing background, that’s probably true. However, if the technology of this is something you have never tackled, and you want to run more of you own printing tests, you’re in for at least a half day.
At one of the college technology centers, where we and our certified instructors teach, there are 3D printers. Those things are not plentiful. It’s an emerging market.
Upon initially browsing through this book we were glad to see a chapter on 3D printing, but we thought it was a little odd that the chapter on 3D, itself, was cut from this edition. Don’t jump to conclusions, based on the chapter title. 3D basics are in this chapter.
In fact, some of what seemed unapproachable, in past editions, should read as more doable, this time around, even though the projects are quite simple and don’t have this high-level of coolness, which some Photoshop 3D projects can boast about.
Even if you have no immediate plans of creating a 3D object or printing it, and getting your certification in Photoshop is not on your bucket list, this is an important chapter. Don’t skip it. That’s especially true if you plan to also explore After Effects, Flash Professional, and Illustrator. Trading off 3D projects, between the apps, is an ever-growing field.
Conclusion
We have been highly critical of recent editions of Ps CIB.
Our taking any credit for the changes to this edition is not going to happen. However, our friends at Adobe Press have made significant changes to this one. And, yes, they are changes for the better.
Here’s our take on what’s happened. Someone has come to the conclusion that CIB cannot be all things to all people. The best outcomes of a roughly 400 page, tightly packed volume, is that there’s enough material to build a firm foundation.
There’s nothing in here which should overwhelm anyone who is moving through the lessons with all due diligence.
At the turn of the century, the Photoshop CIB editions had more room to include exercises with more visually inspiring projects. CIB soared above all other books, from that aspect.
Like many things in creative technologies, those days are over. Affordable, single volume learning has to be directed toward a very specific audience.
If you came to us, to learn all the topics covered in this book, and then some, doing a deep dive into all the points you need to become an Adobe Certified Expert, we’d put you through a nearly 70-hour intense boot camp which would make your brain beg for mercy. We would need to charge you many times more than the price of this book. Yet, the essence of everything we have written into our Bridge, Camera Raw, and Photoshop syllabuses is here, for you to do on your own. Yes, you will need to drill deeper but successfully completing these lessons pours a very firm foundation.
It has been many years since we have completed a Ps CIB and had no issues with anything in it.
We are pleased to finally, once again, give the CC 2014 edition 5.0 stars out of a possible 5.0.
★ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
bryan457
Having used Photoshop CC and the related, older Classroom in a Book (CIB), I have just bought the Kindle edition of this new CC 2014 version. Yet again, there are errors that should have been removed during proof-reading and checking. Worse still, as the Adobe Creative Cloud subscription service provides updates every few months, this book will soon be out of date.
My view is that the "Classroom in a Book" series for Adobe products is obsolescent. Instead, I am now using the subscription Lynda.com tutorials. Like the CIB (Kindle edition) I can view these on my laptop or tablet whilst doing the exercises on my Desktop PC. Also, like the CIB, there are downloadable exercise files and photos to work with. However, the huge advantage over the CIB is that when a major revision of the software comes out, new tutorials are usually released to explain the new features. In addition, if you need a reference book, the free PDF manual from Adobe is generally kept up to date.
My view is that the "Classroom in a Book" series for Adobe products is obsolescent. Instead, I am now using the subscription Lynda.com tutorials. Like the CIB (Kindle edition) I can view these on my laptop or tablet whilst doing the exercises on my Desktop PC. Also, like the CIB, there are downloadable exercise files and photos to work with. However, the huge advantage over the CIB is that when a major revision of the software comes out, new tutorials are usually released to explain the new features. In addition, if you need a reference book, the free PDF manual from Adobe is generally kept up to date.
Please RateAdobe Photoshop CC Classroom in a Book (2014 release)