Book excerpt: Required Reading for Serious Photoshop Users Photoshop is a powerful tool created for those with demanding image-processing needs. If you are an experienced user or a professional who wants to take advantage of the real power that lies inside Photoshop, this is the book that shows you how to tap the source. The Hidden Power of Photoshop CS takes a rigorously image-focused approach starting with exercises to help you view images in terms of color and tone components. This is not just theory, but a set of practical techniques you can use to separate, modify, and recombine any image. This perspective provides an essential foundation for your work. Your guide and mentor, Richard Lynch, follows through with practical information on using Photoshop's most advanced tools for everyday imaging tasks. Finding these often obscure features is half the trick; understanding what they're actually for and how they work is the other. Here's just a little of what you'll learn: Understand how images work Introduce color to original black-and-white images Isolate and repair color and tone problems Master CMYK by performing manual CMYK separations Use layer modes, Blend If, and masks to make corrections and calculations Apply filters sensibly and practically Create photo-realistic objects from scratch using light, shadow, and color Work with vectors to create infinitely scalable art Use ImageReady's rollover and animation features to set your images in motion Use actions and scripts to simplify your workflow and enhance the interface