The Photoshop Channels Book is not a new release. Cory Barker's training video, Adobe Photoshop CS3: Channels, made a couple of references to it, and I thought that now may be a good time to revisit this book.
This book was published early in 2006, but, by nature, is not a book that will go out of date anytime soon. Since it focuses on a standard feature of Photoshop, it is also something that does not change with every version. It is an important feature within Photoshop that it deserves its own book. Since this is not about a specific version of Photoshop, these techniques should work on any recent and probably any future version of Photoshop as well as on any platform that it runs on.
Chapter 1, "Channel Basics," begins at the beginning with the basics of what channels are and how there are three of them. You will see how to separate the channels and then you will create your first channel. At the end of the chapter is a set of channel short cuts as well as some questions and answers. This Q&A appears at the end of each chapter.
Chapter 2, "Using Masking Channel," will explain to you what a mask is; the ability to protect a part of your image and how it can be used in conjunction with your channels create Channel Masks. You will combine Channel Masks, work with hard to mask images, use Quick Masks, and learn about soft edges. You will even learn how to get the same type of blending with Channels that you get with Layers.
Chapter 3, "Layer Masks and Adjustments," will explore Layer Mask essentials and how you can use them to make non-destructive editing changes to your images. You will also composite images, use Adjustment Layer Masks, and learn how to use Spot-Color Channels.
Chapter 4, "From Color to Black & White," examines how to get the best Black and White images from your color images by using Channels. One method is the Lab Lightness method; this where you convert your image to Lab color-space to remove the noise and then revert it back again. You will also work with the Calculations and Channel mixer methods.
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