The “How to Cheat” series by Focal Press in my opinion is one of those must have on your shelf books. This is my second How to Cheat book. My first, How to Cheat in Flash CS3 is still one of my favorite quickie reference guides.  How to Cheat in Photoshop CS4 by Steve Caplin doesn’t disappoint either. In fact it ranks among one of the most fun training books I have ever read. The tutorials are fun, informative, and the lesson images are fantastic.

One of the things that I really like about these guides is that they seldom go beyond a two-page spread. Yes, I did say that! They seldom go beyond a two-page spread! In most cases the steps that you follow are typically between 7 to 12 steps maximum. This is great, because this means you can usually memorize them and bring your learning with you immediately. Many other books typically describe every detail ad nausea to the point where you are reading both a reference manual and a How to… guide. “The How to Cheat” series never does that. The only drawback to this is that if you are a novice learner you will find this book a little frustrating because of the lack of direction. How to Cheat in Photoshop CS4 definitely targets towards the users who know their way around Photoshop.

So let’s have a look inside shall we?

Unit 1: Natural selection

This unit gives you good quick treatments of using the selection tools found in Photoshop. This book excels at getting you up to skill quickly and these exercises are no different. You will learn some great quick and easy ways to make excellent selections in your photographs.

Unit 2: Transformation and distortion

Image warp was a feature that was improved in Photoshop CS2 and keeps getting better. This unit spends a lot of fun time helping you to get better at creating better photomontages through the use of the transform tools. Photomontage is really the art of combining a bunch of images and making them look like they were taken together. Photoshop gurus have all tricked us in one way or another with their trade of photomontage. I think we may have all seen the Great White shark leaping out of the water to eat the diver climbing into the military helicopter. Guess what? That is a fake, and yes, a photomontage. This unit is a necessity in the art and even provides a lesson on CS4’s new Content Aware Scaling.

Unit 3: Hiding and showing

This is a great unit that helps you to get better at showing and hiding selections of your images with the use of layer masks. Photoshop’s real power is in these layer masks because the only other alternative is deletion. In photo editing, deletion is one of those no no words which tends to be a synonym for destructive editing. 

Unit 4: Image adjustment

This unit is another diamond in this diamond mine. As when you bring four or five separate images into a single work, you are bound to have different colors and often even shading. Here is where your help is to take control of your image again and make them all mesh.

Unit 5: Composing the scene

Have you ever taken a picture with a particular mood or composition in mind but once developed it just doesn’t have the same feel as you imagined? That’s composition and that is what Photoshop is for and this section helps you get your imagination back into your photos.

Unit 6: Getting into perspective

Perspective can often be one of the trickiest things to master in your efforts at getting a shot or image to look just right. In this unit you will learn about a special tool called the Vanishing point filter which will make all your perspective fears go away.

Unit 7: Light and shade

Shadows and light are two things that you need to be skilled at to make really good photomontages. Here you will do some really fun, and short exercises that help you get your light and shadows in the right places. You also get a chance to create a neon sign that looks like the real thing and simulate an image on a screen.

Unit 8: Heads and bodies

Turning heads, combining body parts, and making people lose their hair gets you into the more exciting things that you can do with Photoshop. This section is helpful in the respect that it teaches you how to easily turn people’s heads in a still image and make it look convincing.

Unit 9: Shiny surfaces

This is a really neat unit where you get to spill stuff, create water out of thin air and work with reflection. You even get to make a glass of water turn to a glass of ice water with bubbles and all. That was one of my most favorite exercises in this book. The plastic wrap tool is an amazing tool that helps you easily cheat into what you may have thought was impossible.

Unit 10: Metal, wood, and stone

In this unit you work with a variety of surface types and often change them to being completely different just with a few clicks. By now, you should be well familiar with how Photoshop is not really as difficult as you imaging, especially with the right training.

Unit 11: Judging a book by its cover

This is the “antithesis” of the previous unit because it deals with things that flap and are floppy. Some of the exercises covered teach you how to make a piece of digital paper look crumbled and how to make a flag flap in digital wind.

Unit 12: The third dimension

Photoshop has improved how easy it is to create the appearance of 3d. This section is vital to help get you up to speed.

Unit 13: Hyper realism

Adding a blur to an image can be one easy way to make it look like it is in motion. However this is a tricky effect to master. This unit will help get you on your way. There are also some Hollywoodesque effects that you apply to a business mans face to turn him into a flesh eating zombie.

The final two units cover some advanced techniques and how to tips on how to create outstanding images for print and the web.

All in all this was a fantastic book if you are looking for quick tutorials that you can easily apply to your own work.