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Title: Photoshop Restoration & Retouching, Second Edition by Katrin Eismann, Doug Nelson ISBN: 0-7357-1350-2 Publisher: New Riders Pub. Date: 21 July, 2003 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $49.99 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.6 (15 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Great Resource for Web Developers
Comment: Sooner or later most web developers will be approached by family members with the idea of setting up a web site to share all those old family photos. You may have even volunteered to do this. After all, it sounds like fun, until you are faced with hundreds of photos that have lain in attics, garages, basements and barns for the last 50 years. Getting these photos into some sort of presentable condition is not just a matter of scanning and sizing. This kind of work calls for an expert, and in this book Katrin Eismann does her best to make you one.
Eismann's book is not for Photoshop novices: you will need to know how to use the tools and work with layers. But everything else you need to restore photographs, even torn, stained, faded and moldy ones, is presented clearly and in great detail here. You will get the most out of it if you take the time to download the practice images from her web site and go through the step by step instructions. Even if you have considerable experience with Photoshop you will find new tools and techniques. The retouching sections are very interesting to just about anyone who works with photos. Here you will learn how to remove blemishes, wrinkles and unwanted pounds as well as any plastic surgeon.
Photoshop Restoration & Retouching, 2nd Edition is not just a "how to" book, but a "why" book, and a terrific way to learn how to work with photographic images of all kinds.
Rating: 5
Summary: Definitely NOT Disappointing
Comment: I feel this book runs circles around any Scott Kelby book. For starters you get detail information for a wide range of photographs. Eismann writes what were the trouble spots on the pictures and what approach she took to fix them. She utilizes many different approaches to accomplish the same task. This is essential for anyone who wants to learn photo-retouching inside out and not just click on Image > Adjust > Auto Color.
The writer doesn't give numbers for Unsharp Mask which I don't feel is a major issue. The only people who would be disturbed by this are those that want a quick fix and no theory. Basically, your typical "Hi, I am a self-taught graphic designer. What is CMYK and RGB?".
The web site for the book has jpeg files of the photos used in the book. The photos in the book are printed well. I remember buying Scott Kelby's Photoshop Photo-Retouching Secrets and the pictures in the book were printed poorly and there wasn't a companion website to download the photos.
Katrin Eismann has a great book that is well-rounded for beginners to professionals to wanna-be professionals. As for Scott Kelby, don't get me wrong he does know his stuff. It's just that lately he pumps books out quickier than Adobe pumps upgrades out on the shelves. And usually it's 10% new stuff.
Rating: 5
Summary: Improving Digital Images
Comment: A significant difference between film and digital photography is the Desktop Digital Darkroom, DDD (my own term), the ability to edit digital images in ways well beyond that possible with film and its chemicals. And compared to film photography, DDD is neater, easier to use, reversible and does not require all the special equipment, once one has the computer of course. The images can be from digital cameras, converted film pics or scans. This book discusses modifying them using the Adobe Photoshop 6.0 program.
It actually is applicable to more than Restoration & Retouching. The information on image editing is useful for anyone working with digital images. And while it is based on use of Photoshop many of the tools are available in the lower priced Adobe Elements 2 and the approaches and concepts can be used with other image-editing programs as well.
Up front the author states that this is not a book for beginners. It assumes basic familiarity with Photoshop and the time available to learn, practice and use the techniques presented. It is targeted at professionals who use digital editing extensively. Well, I am no pro but I do take digital photos - generally quick pics at family gatherings. Rarely are my subjects posed - I take what and when I can. DDD lets me improve the photos by cropping, improving exposure, eliminating unwanted objects and such. I found this book informative and useful - even if many of the techniques are more than I want to do - now. Perhaps I'll grow into them too, now that I know what and how to do to improve my photos.
The book is a 10" x 8" glossy paperback. It has 276 pages for ten chapters and an Appendix. I found the type smaller and lighter than in other books, giving me some trouble in reading it. However, it is filled with a myriad of pictures, most in color, that demonstrate the before, during and after look of the images discussed. These before and after pictures often demonstrate quite dramatically the benefits of DDD. The Companion Web Site offers copies of the before images used in the book so the reader can follow along and practice by doing as described in the book.
I learned about using Levels to adjust the Histogram to get better overall tone in a picture. This is more potent than adjusting only the brightness and contrast. The author makes a point to use one or more adjustments layers to contain her changes - making them easily reversible. This is also a new trick for me. [Adobe's Layers tool is very useful in graphics editing.]
Of course, the book spends much time on the Restoration/Retouching subjects - over 2/3 of the book in fact.
These would have helped me in a family project where I scanned in old photos and created a CD for each member. I could definitely have improved the project with the techniques in this book.
The book covers: eliminating scratches and other defects in the pictures; repairing tears and rips; deleting unwanted objects, [Uncle Harry with the pitcher of beer in hand]; re-creating backgrounds; rearranging subjects; changing the colors; and more. The section on improving portraits is quite revealing. Remember the stories of aging movie actresses being filmed through gauze to cover the wrinkles? The same thing can be done with portrait photos. Subjects include "Digital Plastic Surgery" and "The Digital Diet". No wonder the people in advertisements appear so perfect - it's the editing [of good subjects of course]. The author does point out that one should start with the best possible image, recommending taking photos at multiple exposures, etc.
The book lists for $50 and is available on Amazon for $35. It does not discuss: digital cameras or scanners; the various file formats for the digital image files; the ways, besides prints, to show the images [as on the Internet]; nor management and storage of the image files. These subjects are covered in another of the author's books "Real World Digital Photography".
For its intended subject matter the book does an excellent job and will remain in my active library, available to guide me in improving the quality of my digital pictures and photo scans
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Title: The Photoshop Book for Digital Photographers by Scott Kelby ISBN: 0735712360 Publisher: New Riders Pub. Date: 05 March, 2003 List Price(USD): $39.99 |
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Title: The Adobe Photoshop CS Book for Digital Photographers by Scott Kelby ISBN: 0735714118 Publisher: New Riders Pub. Date: 04 December, 2003 List Price(USD): $39.99 |
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Title: Adobe Photoshop CS Down & Dirty Tricks by Scott Kelby ISBN: 0735713537 Publisher: New Riders Pub. Date: 02 October, 2003 List Price(USD): $39.99 |
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Title: Mastering Digital Printing: The Photographer's and Artist's Guide to High-Quality Digital Output by Harald Johnson ISBN: 1929685653 Publisher: Muska & Lipman Pub Pub. Date: 02 December, 2002 List Price(USD): $39.95 |
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Title: Photoshop Color Correction by Michael Kieran ISBN: 0321124014 Publisher: Peachpit Press Pub. Date: 30 August, 2002 List Price(USD): $49.99 |
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