Page 14 - Photoshop for Lightroom Users – Scott Kelby 2nd Edition

Chapter 1
Essential Techniques
The Basic Stuff Ya Gotta Know First

It’s a tradition in many of my books to use song, TV show, or movie titles for the names of the book chapters. In this case, it’s a song title because I found a
song that is actually named “Technique.” It’s a rap tune from a band named Def Shepard, which seems like a wink and nod to the big hair ’80s band Def
Leppard (either that or it’s a shout-out to all those hearing-impaired sheep herders out there). Anyway, I have to say, that whole idea of taking part of an
existing band’s name and just changing a letter or two is brilliant! Not only is it much easier than coming up with a new name from scratch, but when
people hear the name, they think, “Hey, I think I’ve heard of them before” and—boom—you’ve got instant name recognition and that translates into more
record sales (well, it would if they actually still sold records). For years now, I wanted to be a rapper (they always look like they’re having so much fun in
those beer commercials), and I even had my rapper name all picked out: I was going to be “Plain White Rapper.” But, now I’m thinking I should do what
Def Shepard did and use a derivative of an existing band name. So, how about if I named my band Bed Zepplin? Or maybe AC/BC? I thought The Rolling
Jones might be nice, or how ‘bout Elton Johnny, and I could do a song called “Goodbye Mellow Brick Toad”? Now, if you’re a teen, you might be so
young that you’ve never heard of these bands, so if my East Coast hip-hop style was aimed at this highly sought-after teen demographic, then I would go
with a name like Mr. Gaga or Justin Timberpond. Or, if I wanted to go the rap route, I could be 51 Cent or Dr. Drayage, M&Ms, or my favorite, Snoop
Scotty Scott (oh yeah, Snoop Scotty in da hiz-zay!). Now, if you’re wondering, “What in the world does this have to do with Photoshop?” then you must
have skipped over #4 in the “Six Things You’ll Wish You Had Known Before Reading This Book” back in the book’s introduction. Peace out. Fo shizzle!

Features: Photoshop is About Five Main Things
When we jump from Lightroom to Photoshop, it’s most likely to use one of the five major things that Lightroom either can’t do at all or if it can do it, it’s
pretty painful. Here are the five features you’ll be jumping over to Photoshop for:

#1: Layers
A lot of Photoshop’s power is in its ability to add things on top of a photo, while keeping them separate, so you can reposition, move, and blend them
separately. This can be anything from adding professional type to your image, to painting on it with a brush, or even stacking parts of other photos to create
collages or composites. You’re going to be a shark at using layers in no time, and it’s probably this incredibly powerful feature that has us coming over to
Photoshop more than any other, with the exception of…

#2: Removing Distracting Stuff
If you didn’t come to Photoshop to use layers, then you’re probably here because there’s something in your image you don’t want. Maybe it’s a sign in the
background, or a soda can on the ground ruining your sunset shot on the beach, or maybe it’s a big branch encroaching on your image. Whatever it is, you
want it gone, and while Lightroom has the Spot Removal tool, that tool is well-named—it’s for removing specks, dust, and spots, but not much more.
However, this is one area where Photoshop shines—it has tools and features to remove just about anything and to make it look like it was never really
there. It’s the king of making things or people go away (it’s kinda like the Nickelback of image editing applications).