Customer Reviews

Digital Restoration From Start to Finish: How to repair old and damaged photographs

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

At last!, a decent "how-to" book, well written and concise, thank you Ctein.
The How-to's page is very practical if a specific problem arises when in the middle of a restoration project, whether its removing dust and scratches or resurrecting the color in a treasured family photo, Ctein has an answer.
The book will be valuable to the "beginner" or the "seasoned pro" because of its generous scope, from the minor to the major. Some of the major photos that Ctein has resurrected most people would have tossed out as "hopeless".
This book will become my "bible" as I continue the task of salvaging family memories. The plug-ins chapter is very valuable because of Ctein's fair and objective assessment of the current systems he has used and appraised.

As moderator of a photographic web site's discussion forum, I often find myself having to answer questions about scanning and restoring photographs. The nature of a web discussion forum often prevents and in-depth reply to individual questions, and we also find that many of the questions have been asked and answered before, albeit in a slightly different way.

What a relief & pleasure to discover this book - it covers almost all aspects of the scanning and archiving process, with many specific how-tos covering the problems experienced by photo-restorers.

Ctein's vast experience and knowledge are well demonstrated in this readable and practical book, which I'd suggest is a must have for anyone contemplating scanning and restoring a photographic archive.

Pre-requisites are a working knowledge of your image editor and scanner software, and an awareness of the principles of colour management - without these the job is impossible, anyway.

A couple of minor criticisms
- the book is very much photoshop based, and although the book says that other image editors (such as picture window pro) can be used, the photoshop bias may be off-putting for someone trying to use an alternative editor.
- each example photograph crops up in many places throughout the book, making it occasinally difficult to follow, and although there's a chapter specifically devoted to end to nd restorations of the sample photos, some may find that the info related to a specific picture is a little too widely spread.

Overall an excellent book, easy to read and providing real insight and practical methods of photographic restoration and archiving. Essential reading!

I found the book excellent in its scope of coverage and detailed lessons/projects. Whether you are a professional or amatuer photographer or photo restorer this book should be in your digital editing library. The book is well laid out and takes you from relatively simple to complex restoration challenges. The author includes information on various editing software used in restoration as well as reference to books by other authors in the field. The man knows digital restoration and he has the ability to pass his knowledge on to the reader in an informative, detailed manner.

Once I started reading this book I had difficulty putting it down until I had finished it. It was so interesting to read how it would be possible to transform sometimes hopeless looking photos into beautiful photographs. It explains a lot about masking & curves adjustments & I feel that this book will be my restoration bible. Since I've had a computer less than a year & Photoshop for a few months, I didn't understand a lot of what I was reading, so I don't know if this should be a beginners first restoration book. It provides a sophisticated approach to digital photo restoration from scan to print.

For anyone involved with the digital restoration of photos both old and new, this handbook is an essential resourse. The information regading the corrections done at the scanning stage have already improved my results measurably.

Another book "Photoshop Restoration & Retouching" By Katrin Eismann is well worth investing in also.I purchased this book from Amazon with its sister volume 'Photoshop Masking & Compositing" by the same authour and now feel I have a library of real worth for the work I do. Incidently Ctein recommends Katrin Eismanns books also.

I admire the way both these experts have made their knowledge available.
Professionals are not always so free with secrets and experience which can help newcomers to gain skills. Thank you!

I have been doing photo retouching for about 17 years. this book is a cookbook for retouching technique. The descriptions of methods is clear, and repeated for clarity after the examples. I recommend reading the book cover-to-cover and then using it as a reference when using a particular tool or technique. In this book Ctein is very giving of his experience and technical know-how.

This is an excellent guide to restoration of old photos and negatives. Everything you'd want to have explained, laid out in step by step detail. This covers most all of the situations you're likely to be confronted with. Highly recommended.

This book is thoughtfully written with many good photo editing techniques that I haven't seen in other books. Worth the money. The author explains multiple methods for accomplishing similar results. A good book.

Excellent, detailed how to restore old damaged photos. Very helpful, but not a beginner's book.

This is a great book for beginners and professionals. Although, if you are a beginner, you will need some basic knowledge of Adobe Photoshop CS2 or CS3.

Ctein does a great job of walking the reader through the individual photo restorations. He also lets the reader know about different types of software that will help with the restorations and how the software works. I found this to be very helpful.

I wish I had this book when I did my first restorations.