Adobe Photoshop CS6 Classroom in a Book® is part of the official training series
for Adobe graphics and publishing software, developed with the support of
Adobe product experts. The lessons are designed to let you learn at your own
pace. If you’re new to Adobe Photoshop, you’ll learn the fundamental concepts
and features you’ll need to master the program. And if you’ve been using
Adobe Photoshop for a while, you’ll find that Classroom in a Book teaches
many advanced features, including tips and techniques for using the latest
version of the application and preparing images for the web.
Although each lesson provides step-by-step instructions for creating a specific
project, there’s room for exploration and experimentation. You can follow
the book from start to finish, or do only the lessons that match your interests
and needs. Each lesson concludes with a review section summarizing what
you’ve covered.

The third part of the popular and comprehensive series Photoshop CS6 One-on-One follows industry pro Deke McClelland as he plunges into the inner workings of Adobe Photoshop. He shows how to adjust your color, interface, and performance settings to get the best out of your images and the most out of Photoshop, and explores the power of Smart Objects, Shadows/Highlights, and Curves for making subtle, nondestructive adjustments. The course dives into Camera Raw to experiment with the editing toolset there, and returns to Photoshop to discuss toning, blur, and blend modes. Deke also teaches tried-and-true methods for sharpening details and reducing noise, as well as creating quick and accurate selections with Quick Mask, Color Range, and Refine Edge commands.

In this course, industry pro Deke McClelland teaches you how to build on your basic knowledge and achieve next-level effects in the premiere image-editing program from Adobe, Photoshop CS6. Discover how to seamlessly move and patch areas of a photo with the Content-Aware toolset; stretch the brightness of a scene with automatic and custom Levels adjustments; create intricate designs with text and shapes; and morph an image with layer effects and transformations. Deke also shares his techniques for sharpening details, whether addressing noise and highlight/shadow clipping or camera shake, and converting a full-color image to black-and-white. The final chapters show you how to best print and save images for the web, making sure all your hard work pays off in the final output.
Topics include:
Performing automatic retouch, scaling, and more with the Content-Aware tools
Editing the histogram
Customizing a Levels adjustment
Making channel-by-channel Levels adjustments
Sharpening with the Smart Sharpen, Emboss, and High Pass filters
Working with vector-based type
Kerning and tracking characters
Creating text on a path
Drawing and customizing shapes
Creating depth, contour, and texture with layer effects
Liquifying an image
Simulating an infrared photo
Adjusting print position, size, and color
Creating the perfect JPEG image
Downsampling for the web

Photoshop CS6 One-on-One: Fundamentals is a concise and focused introduction to the key features in Photoshop, presented by long-time lynda.com author and Adobe veteran Deke McClelland. This course covers the image editing process from the very beginning and progresses through the concepts and techniques that every photographer or graphic designer should know. Deke explains digital imaging fundamentals, such as resolution vs. size and the effects of downsampling. He explains how to use layers to edit an image nondestructively and organize those edits in an easy-to-read way, and introduces techniques such as cropping, adjusting brightness and contrast, correcting and changing color, and retouching and healing images. These lessons distill the vast assortment of tools and options to a refined set of skills that will get you working inside Photoshop with confidence.
Topics include:
Opening an image from Photoshop, Bridge, or Camera Raw
Navigating, zooming, panning, and rotating the canvas
Adding, deleting, and merging layers
Saving your progress and understanding file formats
Cropping and straightening
Adjusting brightness and contrast
Identifying and correcting a color cast
Making and editing selections
Enhancing portraits by retouching skin, teeth, and eyes

In Photoshop CS6 Essential Training, Julieanne Kost demonstrates how to produce high-quality images in a short amount of time, using a combination of Adobe Photoshop CS6, Bridge, and Camera Raw.

The course details the Photoshop features and creative options, and shows efficient ways to perform common editing tasks, including noise reduction, shadow and highlight detail recovery, retouching, and combining multiple images. Along the way, the course explores techniques for nondestructive editing and compositing using layers, blending modes, layer masks, and much more.
Topics include:
Organizing images in Bridge
Adding metadata such as copyrights and keywords
Editing in Camera Raw versus in Photoshop
Retouching in Camera Raw
Batch processing files
Customizing the Photoshop workspaces
Choosing a file format and resolution
Cropping, scaling, and rotating images
Working with layers, including merging and flattening layers
Creating selections and layer masks
Toning and changing the color of images
Adjusting shadows and highlights
Retouching and cloning
Creating panoramas from multiple images
Adding filters and sharpening
Working with blend modes
Adding type
Working with video in Photoshop CS6

This course provides in-depth training on Camera Raw 7, the Photoshop CS6 component that enables photographers to open and manipulate raw format images. Raw images are minimally processed in the camera; they're effectively the exact data recorded by the camera's sensor. Author Chris Orwig shows you how to control a raw image's appearance—exposure, shadow and highlight detail, color balance, and sharpness—with far more precision than is possible with JPEG images. The course also introduces the new workflow procedures and technical concepts and issues associated with raw content, so that photographers can best leverage this powerful format.
Topics include:
Comparing the raw, JPG, and TIFF formats
Converting or saving to the DNG format
Enhancing color and tone
Cropping and composing
Sharpening and noise reduction
Using the Camera Raw histogram
Batch editing
Correcting for under- and overexposure
Retouching blemishes
Making lens corrections
Calibrating your camera
Speeding up your workflow with actions

Adobe Photoshop is central to almost all photography workflows and Lightroom has rapidly been adopted as well. Each new version of the software is a milestone in the development of these vital imaging tools, and the 2012 releases are no exception.

Photographers often feel overwhelmed when starting with Photoshop; the sheer number of tools and options make it difficult for the novice. There is no shortage of instructional books, yet very few direct the user to the most significant aspects of the program in a way that reflects a real workflow for the photographer.

Adobe Certified Instructor Steve Laskevitch has leveraged his experience as a teacher and practitioner to create a guide that provides a clear and effective workflow for editing photographs in Photoshop CS6 and its companions Bridge, Camera Raw, and Lightroom 4. Focusing on the critical elements of the workflow rather than covering every arcane feature, this book is designed to get you working quickly in these applications.

In addition to the essential features of these programs, Laskevitch covers new features specific to the 2012 releases, including:

Lightroom geocoding-Quickly tag a photo with location data; Photoshop's Blur Gallery (Tilt-Shift, Iris, and Field Blur tools)-Add selective focus and bokeh effects; New development controls in Lightroom and Camera Raw; Recomposing or retouching photos with the Content-aware Move Tool; Publishing to Blurb directly from Lightroom; Video (no longer limited to Photoshop Extended; Adaptive Wide Angle-Make straight lines straight again; Face-Aware Mask Generation-An improvement to Color Range; Intelligent Auto-Correction; Adobe Camera Raw 7-Local controls for White Balance and Noise Reduction; New Black/White and Highlight/Shadow controls.

Photoshop CS6 And Lightroom 4 Handbook [PDF]