How to Cheat in Photoshop helps you cheat in two ways: it shows you how to create images that look like photographs and also offers shortcuts and invaluable tips to help you work faster and more efficiently. This new edition of Steve Caplin’s bestseller includes new techniques showing how to make the most of the power of Photoshop CS2. New chapters are also now included on perspective, transformation and distortion, time-saving techniques, and working for print and the web.

Steve Caplin shows you how to work from the problem to the solution, gaining the best possible results from Photoshop CS2. On every double page spread there is a new step-by-step project, making 150 projects in total. On the companion CD you’ll find QuickTime movies of the projects illustrated in the book, along with free sample plug-ins and high resolution images allowing you to experiment with each technique and create your own montages.

* Extensive new material to show you how to take your Photoshop skills even further
* CD includes all the brand new images from the book, 100 high resolution AbleStock images plus QuickTime movies of the projects
* Benefit from a professional illustrator’s timesaving tips and tricks!

"Well-written, insightful and beautifully illustrated."

"...this book is fascinating and Steve is unquestionably the master in his field." - Amateur Photographer

"Brilliant illustrations, step-by-step instructions and packed full of tricks from one of the finest masters of them all." Tom Ang

"An invaluable guide to creating impressive montages from your digital photographs. Composed primarily of step-by-steps, this tome is packed with useful shortcuts and time saving tips." - What Digital Camera

"A must-have for all Photoshoppers" - www.total-image-nation.co.uk

"Covering all the major techniques, author Steve Caplin takes you on an intriguing and insightful journey through the realms of the digital montage." - Advanced Photoshop

"Its 376 pages, plus CD, are crammed with colourful instruction on making your dull, unexciting snaps look altogether different...It should be required reading for anyone using Adobe’s image tweaking tool in a semi-pro environment." - MacUser

"You’ll find plenty of fun in the author’s offbeat lessons and examples which explore the program’s hidden powers. What makes CHEAT so unique are the gems that other volumes simply don’t cover. The juiciest bits that real artis hunger for are here. So dig in, dig deep, and Shop yourself mad." www.dingbatmag.com

"Not brand new, but the latest edition of a classic. Steve Caplin has the rare gift of being able to make complex techniques seem perfectly straightforward and logical. " Computer Arts Projects, December 2006

On the previous edition:

’...written in a succinct and accessible style. Each chapter is self-contained with every spread taking the reader on a step-by-step guide to one particular technique. The real strength of the book lies in Caplin’s use of the ’real world’ examples. The Cheat of the title refers to shortcuts. Unlike some other writers, Caplin is aware of the concept of deadlines, as his workman-like approach to the subject shows.’
British Journal of Photography

’a superb set of step-by-step how-to guides for achieving photorealistic montages from the master himself. By "cheating", Caplin means quick, easy-to-grasp shortcuts to impressive ends. The book shows you how to create many effects, using a gallery of Caplin’s commissioned montages - the finished pictures alone are almost worth buying this book for. A must for all montagers.’
Simon Jary, Editor MacWorld

’Shows you how to exploit features and be more creative in less time, covering just about everything you could want to do in Photoshop. The book’s credentials are clear - many of the examples and case studies are taken from real-world commercial projects. There’s a goldmine of practical and downright useful tips, tricks and step-by-step workthrough in this book.’
Keith Martin, MacUser

’A great book - even if just using Photoshop Elements! This book is a MUST HAVE for anyone with Photoshop Elements or the full version. While it is not possible to do everything shown in the book, at least 80% can be done straightaway using Elements and much of the rest can be done with work arounds or a bit of lateral thought. There are some cracking ideas and projects to get busy with, with Caplin’s work being recognisable from many Magazines and Newspapers.’
Amazon.co.uk customer

’Well-written, insightful and beautifully illustrated throughout.’ Digital Creative Arts

’The book is beautiful in color, very clear in structure and filled with real life examples...I highly recommend this book.’
www.photocrack.com

’A great book to help you add realistic shadows, highlights and perspectives to your creations.’
www.ephotozine.com

"Subtitled ’The Art of Creating Photorealistic Montages,’ Steve Caplin produces a worthwhile book and a CD that contains QuickTime video clips showing many of the projects illustrated. Cleverly designed and copiously illustrated, this is a wonderful book that includes a chapter called ’Heads and Bodies’ which covers the digital ’guillotine effect’ of mixing and matching bodies and heads." -Joe Farace, Shutterbug

’A great book to help you add realistic shadows, highlights and perspectives to your creations.’

Even more Photoshop time saving tips and tricks are included in this new, expanded edition of Steve Caplin’s bestseller. Updates include many new images and techniques which show you how to make the most of the power of Photoshop! With this book you can work from the problem to the solution with expert guidance from a professional illustrator. Each section is divided into color double page spreads on illustrative techniques; giving bite size chunks with all that you need to know in a highly visual, approachable format. Most of the original Photoshop files are provided on the free CD, along with hundreds of dollars’ worth of free, sample plugins and images, so you can try out each technique for yourselves as you read.

By Steve Caplin

Even more Photoshop time saving tips and tricks are included in this new, expanded edition of Steve Caplin’s bestseller. Updates include many new images and techniques which show you how to make the most of the power of Photoshop!

With this book you can work from the problem to the solution with expert guidance from a professional illustrator. Each section is divided into color double page spreads on illustrative techniques; giving bite size chunks with all that you need to know in a highly visual, approachable format.

Most of the original Photoshop files are provided on the free CD, along with hundreds of dollars’ worth of free, sample plugins and images, so you can try out each technique for yourselves as you read.

* 78 pages of new material show you how to take your Photoshop montage skills even further
* CD includes all the images from the book and 100 new, free, high resolution AbleStock images
* Benefit from a professional illustrator’s timesaving tips and tricks!

Awesome book!

This book is amazing! The tricks and tips are so much fun to try out, and some of the stuff in here is just unbelievably amazing! I absolutely love Photoshop, and it is so much fun learning how to do cool new things to amaze your friends! The projects in here are so creative. And the book also comes with a CD so you can try out the projects described in the book. Excellent book!!!

Igniting Purchase

This product was bought as a gift for a bright 16 year old girl. It was purchased to fuel her interest in PhotoShop without her having to first wade through a ton of dry how to. This book allowed her to see what was possible so that she now seeks out the ways that she can do other more mundane applications of the program. It provided what it was purchase for. A match for a creative fire.

Steve, you’re a Genius!!!

I purchased this book over a year ago, and I’m still using it. You give several examples in your chapters on how to do a certain task, in a down to earth writing style which I find very easy to understand. I’ve become so much more efficient in Photoshop thanks to your book.
Cheers!

How to Cheat in Photoshop - A Have to Have Book

This is a very fun book to work thru. It comes with a CD that has photos to work with. You will install the CD and use the different effects over and over. I find myself going back to the book on many different projects. Most of the effects are ones that you can use in editing any type of photo. I loved the book and recomend it highly. Even beginners will find it easy to follow.

Straight and to the Point

Just got into this book and I love it already. It may help for you to have another book along for tool and palette reference. The accompanying cd-rom is a great help, but i just wish that it had more videos. This book is definitely one of the top PAdobe Photoshop CS2 One-on-One (One-On-One)hotoshop books that I own.

Never trust a photograph again!

This is an excellent hands-on tutorial in getting the most out of Photoshop CS2, Ostensibly about creating realistic-looking photomontages (though most of the examples wouldn’t fool someone who’s paying attention), this book is actually for anyone who has struggled to learn about layers and masks and levels. It’s accessible and fun.

powerful resource for photomontages

If you need a book for photomontage , this book is excellent.

it’s worth every cent.

powerful resource for photomontages

If you need a book for photomontage , this book is excellent.



it’s worth every cent.

Top notch tutorial

Like many masters of their craft, Caplin is equally at ease explaining the basics as he is dealing with advanced topics.
Also, like many good teachers, he does the mundane work up front in order to make learning fun and intuitive for the student.

The combination of real-world step by step examples, "Test yourself" exercises at the end of each section, completed exercises included on CD and even an online website where the author sets weekly challenges and responds to submissions make this book hard if not impossible to beat.

The early chapters set about equiping the student with basic photoshop montage skills which will be required in the later examples -
extraction (without leaving tell-tale edges), colour changes, freeform transformations, perspective etc. .
Each chapter presents a new concept and provides a worked example based on files provided on the CD.

A previous reviewer has complained that the book doesn’t give idiot-proof steps for following each of the examples. In my view, this is a strength, not a weakness, as the tools are all explained in the early chapters and to repeat the detailed steps would simply distract from the main point of the exmaples.


Anyone who takes the time to work through the exercises will get more out of this book than any Photoshop "How To" book I’ve ever come across.
I give the book a resounding 5/5 - I simply could not want more from it.

I notice that the latest version for CS3 is now available for pre-order...

Cheating never felt that good. (At least not to me).

Excellent! You’ll found out quite an amount of useful tips, tricks and of course tutorials.

Great print and paper.

All the tutorials are explained well and illustrated well. Some tutorials are Quicktime movies on CD.

The CD also contains bonus content like files to test your skills on, some pictures, Photoshop files of all the tutorials in the book, and the deleted pages of second edition.

The content itself is very useful: almost all of the tutorials are useful, no nonsense. For me the chapter that discusses the vanishing points is a blessing (well, the whole book is actually), so whatever you Photoshop needs are, this book will satisfy most of them.

In short, this book’s a great way to upgrade your Photoshop skills.

Cheating never felt that good. (At least not to me).

Excellent! You’ll found out quite an amount of useful tips, tricks and of course tutorials.
Great print and paper.
All the tutorials are explained well and illustrated well. Some tutorials are Quicktime movies on CD.
The CD also contains bonus content like files to test your skills on, some pictures, Photoshop files of all the tutorials in the book, and the deleted pages of second edition.
The content itself is very useful: almost all of the tutorials are useful, no nonsense. For me the chapter that discusses the vanishing points is a blessing (well, the whole book is actually), so whatever you Photoshop needs are, this book will satisfy most of them.
In short, this book’s a great way to upgrade your Photoshop skills.

Don’t expect any aesthetic revelations

I’m frankly surprised by the number of 5 star reviews for this book. It admittedly contains a lot of great advice how to put together montages in Photoshop, but it also lacks a lot of things. To me it is between 3 and 4 stars, and as most other reviewers give it a 5, I opt for the lower of the values.

The instructions are not always foolproof. This is not necessarily a big problem, as it encourages you to look around in Photoshop and try different things to get to the desired result. However, sometimes you have to look around for a long, long time, and a few of the instructions I am still not sure I have managed to follow correctly.

The included photos on the CD are not top quality. They do not need to be for the purpose of learning, but it is disappointing to have to work with low quality files.

The example pictures are not stylish. The aim is always to produce a specific result - often something that would fit as a newspaper illustration. It is well done, and it does what it says it shall do, but it is not aesthetically pleasing. I am not that familiar with British press, but at least in French and Italian press I have seen much, much more beautiful montages.

Top Guide

This book guides and tutors in many different aspects of photoshop, you can drop in and try any part or return and practice, it give great projects to do and there is an added bonus of a website which supports and continues development through weekly chalenges. Best photoshop book I have bought.

Packed with useful advise

It is obvious that this book is written by a very competent author. He throws in a lot of real world examples of the tricks he describes. It is also apparent that he has been forced to deal with deadlines and learn a lot of useful tricks to speed up the work. This book does not only strive for a perfect image, it also presents a lot of shortcuts that produce good enough results a lot faster. And last but not least, Steve Caplin presents a lot of useful visual advise about what works and what doesn’t. All this makes it so much more that just a book about Photoshop technique.

My only warning is that this isn’t for beginners. If you don’t know layers, masks and selections well, read something else first. Steve goes through the examples with minimum details assuming that the reader knows the basic. But this enables him to pack an amazing number of useful tricks into the 376 pages.

Conclusion: HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

Please, please, PLEASE buy this book

I’m a Graphics student, money is tight, so when I buy a book from Amazon I try and make sure I get a book that is well reviewed and comes recommended. But I have to admit that it’s not always true. I would like to say that How To Cheat In Photoshop is the BEST buy I have ever brought, essential to all who think they know or want to learn Photoshop CS or CS2. Steve Caplin is obviously a very talented designer, through his book he has opened my eyes to endless creative opportunities and I have seen the light. He is clear in his instructions, passionate and has great tutorials for you to follow clearly written out. There are also QuickTime movie files that show you particular tutorials and just how easy it is to create professional work.
Please, please, please buy this book, it’s amazing, a must buy to own what ever your walk in life. Steve Caplin, you have helped me in ways you will never know, you’re the man. Thank you for sharing your expert advice and knowledge.

Fantastic Book

Squeezed between the covers of this book is an enormous amount of essential information about how to do just about everything with Photoshop with a little bit of Illustrator thrown in for good measure. The author starts the book off with one of the best visual demonstrations of how to use Photoshop to make selections, replace colours, and many more. Using commercial illustrations he has created for national magazines and newspapers he shows how he achieved the effects with just enough information to allow you to be able to create a similar photo treatment without making it so complicated that it puts you into a comma reading it. While the latest edition doesn’t cover all of the new CS2 tools, it covers the ones necessary for those that do photo clean-ups or manipulation. He even explains how the 3D model feature in Photoshop works - a topic most authors neatly avoid.
The quality of the book is great. The colours in the examples are vibrant and it is visually appealing enough to warrant just sitting down and flipping through the book to get ideas for a project.

A Must Have Addition for your Photoshop Library

Squeezed between the covers of this book is an enormous amount of essential information about how to do just about everything with Photoshop with a little bit of Illustrator thrown in for good measure. The author starts the book off with one of the best visual demonstrations of how to use Photoshop to make selections, replace colors, and many more. Using commercial illustrations he has created for national magazines and newspapers he shows how he achieved the effects with just enough information to allow you to be able to create a similar photo treatment without making it so complicated that it puts you into a comma reading it. While the latest edition doesn’t cover all of the new CS2 tools, it covers the ones necessary for those that do photo clean-ups or manipulation. He even explains how the 3D model feature in Photoshop works - a topic most authors neatly avoid.
The quality of the book is great. The colors in the examples are vibrant and it is visually appealing enough to warrant just sitting down and flipping through the book to get ideas for a project.

Awesome

This book has many informative tutorials and is very good for anyone, from intermediate to advanced users. Worth the price!

Greatest Book Every Written

Some people prefer War and Peace, but that doesn’t come with a CD, isn’t in English and doesn’t do a thing for the reader’s Photoshop skills. And where are the pictures?

What Tolstoy does have going for him is he doesn’t try to get his readers to use the pen tool, which apparently works well in the hands of professionals but is very annoying to the rest of us. Had he lived longer, I’m sure he would have convinced Adobe to offer Photoshop users the simple yet effective selection brush that is an integral part of the consumer-level Photoshop Elements.

How to Cheat in Photoshop has lovely pictures, isn’t in Russian and imparts useful information like how to make your street look half underwater. This book is so good, I actually believe the 5-star reviews. With War and Peace, I’m never sure.

Awsome!!

This guy can create a man with a hundred heads and you’ll believe he exists!! Flawless, Highly Recommended. Every step was carefully written and explained.

The very best for those interested in realistic photo montage

Steve Caplin should produce a weekly (or even daily) webcast of his photorealistic montage techniques. Not only is he a master of the art, but he writes wonderfully well. Not for him is the amateurish comedian approach of Deke McClellan and Scott Kelby; both of whose books would be far more informative without their clumsy buffoonery.

Instead Caplin writes in a very straight-forward manner. Never dry, never tedious, sometimes with a slight touch of sly British humor, and always informative. Caplin rganizes his book into 151 short sections, each of them a self-contained lesson on some aspect of Photoshop that may be involved in the creation of montages. (This is not, however, a book for total beginners in Photoshop.)

Caplin does more to cover the various methods of selection and masking in fewer pages than anyone else I’ve seen . . . and he does it better. The use of the pen tool, usually the downfall of many, is thoroughly covered in six pages. (Examples are provided on the accompanying CD.)

Manipulating lights, shadows, perspective, matching skin tones, combining body parts, simulating glass and metal are just some of the subjects Caplin treats well.

I am writing about the third edition of this book, updated to cover Photoshop CS2. I have all three and they just keep getting better. Caplin obviously listens to his readers and incorporates their suggestions. Simply put, Caplin is a master of his craft, a far better writer than many of those covering this subject and one can hope he publishes more books in the future.

Jerry

Excellent

This book is absolutely fantastic. Easy to follow, hard to put down.

It’s techniques are applicable regardless of which software you use.

The King of the castle! More to this book than meets the eye

Having spent an entire afternoon sifting through 50 photoshop books (many using poor quality black and white postage stamp sized photos with pages and pages of forgettable text!)in the two massive Waterstones’ bookshops of Birmingham, I found one that was able to deliver dozens and dozens of stunning professional images and effects each with their own easy and quick to use step-by-step tutorials.

There is advice on getting free very high quality photos from listed sites. There are also detailed illustrations of some truly remarkable "plug-ins" sites that will not cost an "arm and a leg." And lastly Steve Caplin has an active website where he and others are willing to help.

This book (How to cheat in Photoshop)give you a never-ending highly desirable "eye candy" appeal which makes it a hugely enjoyable experience.
If you think the above is pure hyperbole, then watch it evaporate when you get the book.

GREAT BOOK!

What a cool resource. I am an intermediate Photoshop user and this book gave me some quick shortcuts that I might never have known.

Superb Photoshop Book

This book is perfect for anyone wanting to create great looking affects on photoshop, without having to know everything. Though by reading it to the end you probably will, the best computer book i have ever bought. A***

One of the best out there!

I’ve purchased many ’how to’books on Photoshop, and Steve Caplin’s ’How to cheat in Photoshop’ is the closest book to hand, when I’m using PhotoshopCS. I’ve followed many othertutorials in the past, but this book shows you how to do effects in just a few mouse clicks, rather than trawling through pages of instructions. The book also comes with a CD Rom with all the tutorial and image files to help you, plus step by step videos and much more. This book is highly recommended.

Finding the correct edition on Amazon

Searching for "Cheat", "Photoshop" or any combination here on Amazon often leads to earlier editions of the book. If you’re looking for the latest (third) edition and can’t find it, try searching for the ISBN number:

0-240-51985-X

Hope this helps!

Steve

Not quite what was expected.

I was very disappointed with this book. Whilst I accept that many people will not have the same experience of Photoshop as I, I had thought that it would reveal aspects and techniques that this heavyweight programme posesses that I had missed.
Regrettably the author relies on other additional software to create these images and is not purely Photoshop created. I believe the title to be somewhat misleading, creating the impression the book focuses on the,’out-of-the-box’ Photoshop which is not the case.
Reliance on software such as Poser, Illustrator and other paid for plug ins create elements of the montages the author freely demonstrates. Should you have or prepared to buy this additional software then this book will work for you. However, if your are looking for a Photoshop tutorial beyond the scope of the Adobe manual I suggest you look elsewhere. In this instance I recommend the, ’WOW’ books that do teach you techniques from Photoshop that require no additional software.

Getting the most out of Photoshop

What sets this book apart is the way Steve Caplin approaches the subject from an artists perspective. Many people will be familiar with his artwork in national newspapers and his column in Mac User magazine.
Through a series of great examples of his photo montage work, he shows you how to get the most out of photoshop. Instead of going through the program menu by menu, Steve Caplin is much more concerned with composing the scene, light and shade, textures, surfaces, heads and bodies. And as a result, he has produced a compelling read which makes you just want to get in front of the computer and use some of his techniques... which is exactly what I am about to do.