1st Impressions ~ Photoshop CS4 for Photographers

”Pixel Genius is a company 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 - we produced plugins for Adobe Photoshop and Photoshop Elements.”  

Martin Evening, Oct., 2008.

Now, that’s truly walkin’ in tall cotton… and it’s clearly shown in Martin’s exciting new book!

How Have I Learned Photoshop?
Real-World Adobe Photoshop Camera Raw CS2 & CS3 (Fraser and Schewe) were very important for my learning steps in Photoshop.  I also bought Photokit Sharpener from Pixel Genius.
With advent of CS4, I questioned the need to get RWAPCR CS4.  With Evening's new CS4 book (it's been in my library ~ 36 hours; I’m scoping out image sequences), I hoped it would contain most of what I could've learned from RWAPCR CS4.  However, Evening only discusses changes through ACR 5.0. 

Evening’s New Book
For me, its 2 hours of movies about new features which emphasize why CS4 is a significant upgrade.  After acclimating to Kelby’s well-written Lightroom 2 book, these movies quickly show me what I need and where to go in the book for continued growth into CS4.  To hedge slightly, examples where Evening might use 7 curve adjustments with associated masks are rare.  I'm betting that an in-depth, penetrating, and more informative 'pixel mafia’s' influence will also continue to dominate, step-by-step, in Adobe Photoshop CS4 for Photographers - Ultimate Workshop, Schewe and Evening.
With Lightroom 2 experience, I purchased CS4 to use Adobe Camera Raw’s 5.X local adjustment brushes, content aware scaling, and advanced masking.  I'd read early but limited reviews of What's New in CS4.  Last night's brief perusal of the Adjustment Panel convinced me Evening is entitled to be among 'pixel mafia'. 
Adjustment layers are now managed via an Adjustments Panel. This new setup is a huge deal!  Doing away with modality of Adjustments dialogs really sings… modality means the seemingly prolonged series of keystrokes to make a CS3 curve change occur.  Now, you can now add adjustment layers with immediate access to adjustment settings.  Imagine you have three different adjustment layers applied to an image. As you tweak adjustments for an adjustment layer you can also go directly to Layers panel and adjust layer blending mode. The scope to work faster and more efficiently will definitely enhance your workflow, leaving more time to be out shooting.

Hot Stuff
For me, some of the meat of this book lies from pages 292-310 in Image Editing Essentials.  Evening covers Curves Adjustment Layers, Choose a Larger Sample Size, and Targeted Adjustment Tool.
When you click on the targeted adjustment tool and move the cursor to the document window, you can parametrically modify the curve.  What does that mean?
If you drag the mouse pointer up-and-down, it will simultaneously move the newly added curve point up and down.  So, you can easily make specific tonal areas lighter or darker.  When you've increased the sample size, this makes an incredible slider application for adding local, nondestructive contrast right on your image. 

Mask Panel
Now, for some of the potatoes!  Pages 330-337 provide a brief introduction.  Although there are eight controls on the mask panel, for fine masking of windblown hair, etc., the newly enhanced Color Range is perhaps most important.  While not as powerful in CS3, a reinvigorated color range now enhances your capabilities.  Evening shows a challenging long exposure of light reflection on a picture of tunnels.  The color range mask creates a very good control.
A sailing ship mast against the azure sky, with its complex guylines and halyards, is way more interesting!  On the video and pages 440-443, Evening takes Color Range masking to a limit.  By compositing two images, he places dramatic clouds behind the mast - leading you to wonder at the seeming simplicity of such a complicated composition.

Attention to Lightroom 2

"Ever since Adobe Photoshop Lightroom made its first appearance as a beta product, I've been using Lightroom in studio and on location.  I now use it all the time to import images from cards as well as when shooting in tethered mode.  I've stopped using Bridge completely at the import stage.  Lightroom cataloging features allow me to search and navigate master original files." 
After making this statement, Evening then describes an import workflow for Lightroom in 4 pages.  Otherwise, he devotes many pages to Bridge, which he admits was klunky for CS3.

There Are Always Cons...
I like to scan a book before I start diving in to read.  To do that, I always want an accurate Table of Contents.
While searching for Targeted Adjustment Tool, let me put this in a simple way, "Martin, you and your guys didn't put a lot of attention to a really up-to-date Grade A table of contents.  I spent a couple of hours waffling around before I finally settled down to just read the book - rather than quickly going to the new areas which would enhance my growth."
At 677 pages – this book’s like a 2nd hand 5# weight (actual – 3.5#).  So, while inculcating exciting insightful tidbits, you’re also strengthening that throwin’ arm.
BTW – better have a rectangular magnification glass; some of the images from Photoshop are difficult to read.

Seriously…
Pathways of Light contains a section called Brain Food.  Brain Food is inspired by a simple fact; without a good book describing how to use it, new software can really be a real p__ i__ t__ a__ to learn.

Adobe Photoshop CS4 for Photographers has become my choice to learn CS4... there is a lot of in-depth information I did not cover.