Welcome

Welcome to the Adobe Photoshop CS6 for Photographers Help Guide. This website is like an extra Photoshop book in itself, containing the equivalent of over 300 pages of content. On this website you will find a guide to all the tools and panels in Photoshop and over 170 minutes of movie tutorials, which complement some of the step-by-step examples shown in the book. You can also use this site to download demo images, as well as supplementary PDF chapters on topics such as digital capture, sharpening scanned images, color management and Photoshop shortcuts.

Adobe Photoshop CS6.1 update
Customers who have a Creative Cloud subscription are now able to install the latest Photoshop CS6.1 update. This contains a number of interesting new feature, that may be of interest to photographer users. To coincide with this I have provided a free Adobe Photoshop CS6.1 bulletin PDF. This also contains detailed information about the latest Camera Raw 7.1 features that were introduced in the summer of 2012.

Tools and panels
The tools and panels section contains detailed descriptions of all the Photoshop CS6 tools and panels that should be of importance to photographers. For example, if you want to find out more about a particular tool or panel, you can click on the tool or panel in question (or click on the name of the tool or panel) and this takes you directly to the page that describes it in detail. These pages have been updated to include material from the new book plus extra information not published previously. The intention here is to make it easier for readers to find out basic information about the Photoshop CS6 interface, without you needing the book.

Layer Styles
There is also a section on Layer Styles. This covers all the different layer style effects that you can apply to image or vector layers in Photoshop, such as drop shadows or bevel and emboss effects.

Accessing the images that appear in the book
If you go to the Images section you will be able to access just under 200 of the images that appear in the book. The images that are provided here via the website are for you to experiment and play with, but please note that these are still copyrighted material and may not be used for any other purpose without express permission from myself. The Images section also contains most of the images used in the website tutorial movies. This means that you can watch a movie first and then try out the technique described afterwards, using the same demo images.

Movies
The Movies section provides you with access to movie tutorials about the new features in the CS6 program, as well as older movies from the previous CS5 edition of the book. In all, there are 20 movies totaling just over 170 minutes of playback time. You will find that most of the movies cover features that are common to both the standard and extended versions of Photoshop CS6.

PDFs
The PDF section contains additional chapters, a total of 190 pages of extra content that's not in the book. You can print these PDFs at high quality, but please note they may not be modified or copied or distributed. However, educators may freely distribute these and other PDFs on the website to their students.

Special offers

Pixel Genius is a company that I have direct involvement with and is thus mentioned several times in the book. Pixel Genius was the brain child of Jeff Schewe, Bruce Fraser, Mike Skurski, Andrew Rodney, Seth Resnick and myself and we produce plugins for Adobe Photoshop and Photoshop Elements. If you visit the Pixel Genius website: www.pixelgenius.com, you will find 7 day demo installers in Mac and PC formats of the PhotoKit, and PhotoKit Sharpener plugins.

Remote profiling for RGB printers
You have just been reading one of the best digital imaging books in the marketplace. Now you’ll probably want to be sure your colour is as good as it can be, without too much back and forth when printing. Lots of print testing to achieve expected colour really does use up the ink and paper, but, more importantly it uses up the creative spirit. We’d like to offer you a deal on a printer profile. Just download the profiling kit from: www.colourmanagement.net/profiling_inkjets.html.
The kit contains a detailed manual and colour charts. We ask you to print the charts twice, so we can compare the sets to check printer continuity. You post them to us. We will measure both sets of charts using a professional auto scanning spectrophotometer. This result is then used within high-end profiling software to produce a ‘printer characterisation’ or ICC profile which you will use when printing. Comprehensive instructions for use are included. You can read a few comments from some of our clients at:
www.colourmanagement.net/about.html.

Remote RGB profiles cost £95 plus VAT. For readers of ‘Adobe Photoshop CS6 for Photographers’, we are offering a special price of £50 plus VAT. If our price has changed when you visit the site, then we will give you 30 percent off.
Coupon code: MEPSCS6-10

We also resell the colour management gear that you need: profiling equipment, LCD displays, print viewers, RIPs, printers and consumables etc.
http://www.colourmanagement.net/profilegear.html.

Consultancy services
Neil Barstow, colour management and imaging specialist, of www.colourmanagement.net, offers readers of this fine book a discount of 12.5% on a whole or half day booking for consultancy (subject to availability and normal conditions).
Coupon code: MEPSCS6-10

Please note that the above coupons will expire upon next revision of Adobe Photoshop for Photographers. E&OE.

Contact

I am always pleased to hear from readers who contact me via email at: martin@martinevening.com. Send me your thoughts good or bad and I will endeavour to respond directly to everyone who writes to me. If there are things you would like to see covered in more detail in future editions, be sure to let myself or my publisher know (see the Contact section of the main website).

I may be able to help answer specific technical queries you have, but it really is more preferable that you use one of the web forums first, such as the Photoshop forums on the Adobe website and raise your question there first. About ten years ago I helped setup a mailing list for professional digital imagers, called Prodig. This mailing list is open to all and is free to join (although donations are always gratefully received). For more information visit: www.prodig.org. And lastly, let me thank you for purchasing my book. It is thanks to the encouragement of readers like you, who have contributed to the success of this long-running series of Photoshop books. I hope you find the accompanying website and movies useful in extending your knowledge and enjoyment of using Photoshop CS6.

Martin Evening, April 2012