Digital Retouching and Compositing: Photographers' Guide (Power!) [Paperback]

David D. Busch (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 31, 2003 | ISBN-10: 1932094199 | ISBN-13: 978-1932094190 | Edition: 1

Written from a photographer's point of view, "Digital Retouching and Compositing: Photographers' Guide" solves every snap-shooter's real-life problems painlessly. It distills complex topics down to a few pages of explanation and easy steps so users can quickly and dramatically change the way photos look. The book is divided into three parts: Mastering the Basics, Practical Retouching, and Compositing Magic. Each section builds on the last so that readers can become comfortable with making precise selections, doing simple retouching, and adjusting tones and colors before jumping into major topics like retouching portraits or creating realistic composites.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

With more than a million books in print, David D. Busch is the world's #1 selling digital camera guide author, and the originator of popular digital photography series like David Busch's Pro Secrets and David Busch's Quick Snap Guides. He has written nearly two-dozen hugely successful guidebooks for a wide variety of digital camera models, as well as many popular books devoted to dSLRs, including Mastering Digital SLR Photography, Second Edition and Digital SLR Pro Secrets. As a roving photojournalist for more than 20 years, he illustrated his books, magazine articles, and newspaper reports with award-winning images. He's operated his own commercial studio, suffocated in formal dress while shooting weddings-for-hire, and shot sports for a daily newspaper and upstate New York college. His photos and articles have been published in Popular Photography & Imaging, Rangefinder, The Professional Photographer, and hundreds of other publications. He's also reviewed dozens of digital cameras for CNet and Computer Shopper. His advice has been featured on National Public Radio's All Tech Considered.

Product Details

• Paperback: 350 pages
• Publisher: Course Technology PTR; 1 edition (January 31, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1932094199
• ISBN-13: 978-1932094190
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 7 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,889,367 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

With nearly 1.5 million books in print, David D. Busch is the world's #1 selling author of camera-specific guidebooks, and the originator of popular series like David Busch's Pro Secrets, David Busch's Compact Field Guides, David Busch's Guides to Digital SLR Photography, and David Busch's Quick Snap Guides.

Most of his hugely successful books for Nikon, Canon, Sony, Pentax, Olympus, and Panasonic digital cameras are the top-selling guidebooks for their respective camera models. His advice has been featured on NPR's "All Tech Considered."

Busch's dozens of other books devoted to digital photography include David Busch's Digital Infrared Pro Secrets and Mastering Digital SLR Photography. As a roving photojournalist for more than 20 years, he has illustrated his books, magazine articles, and newspaper reports with award-winning images. Busch has operated his own commercial studio, suffocated in formal dress while shooting weddings-for-hire, and shot sports for a daily newspaper and upstate New York college. His photographs and articles have been published in magazines as diverse as PhotoGraphic, Popular Photography & Imaging, The Rangefinder, The Professional Photographer, and hundreds of other publications. He's also reviewed digital cameras for CNet Networks and Computer Shopper.

As a writer, photographer, and contributing editor for ten magazines, he has more than 130 books and 2500 articles to his credit. A PR consultant for Eastman Kodak Company's photography divisions for nearly 20 years, Busch has published photography articles under his by-line in Popular Photography & Imaging, PhotoGraphic, The Rangefinder, The Professional Photographer and other photo magazines. His photos have appeared on the covers of magazines, and in both print and television advertising.

The graduate of Kent State University operated his own photo studio and was a principal in CCS/PR, Inc., one of the largest public relations firms based in San Diego, working on press conferences, press kits, media tours, and sponsored photo trade magazine articles. In addition to Kodak, CCS photography clients included Hewlett-Packard. He sold his interest in CCS in 1992 to become a full-time author, photographer, and reporter.

Since then, Busch has become one of the leading photojournalist/authors in the United States. He has had as many as five books appear simultaneously in the Amazon.com Top 25 Digital Photography Books, and when Michael Carr of About.com named the top five digital photography books for beginners, the #1 and #2 choices were his Digital Photography All-in-One Desk Reference for Dummies and Mastering Digital Photography. Several of his digital imaging books have sold in excess of 50,000 copies.

Busch was a featured guest speaking on digital photography on Toronto's Breakfast Television show in 2005, was the keynote speaker at the Dayton Computerfest, and has been a call-in guest for 22 different radio shows nationally and in major markets, including WTOP-AM (Washington), KYW-AM (Philadelphia), USA Network (Daybreak USA), WPHM-AM (Detroit), KMJE-FM (Sacramento), CJAD-AM (Montreal), WBIX-AM (Boston), ABC Radio Network (Jonathan & Mary Show).

His work has been translated into Arabic, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, Portuguese, Bulgarian, German, Italian, French, and other languages. his web site is http://www.dbusch.com.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best Retouching Book on the Market!, September 13, 2003

By 

"junfanli2" (Ohio) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Digital Retouching and Compositing: Photographers' Guide (Power!) (Paperback)

This is simply the best book on digital retouching that I've seen! Some of the other books look slick, but when you get down to it, all they provide are a series of quick tips on how to fix particular problems. This book has those tips, too, but the author goes much deeper into explaining why these techniques are necessary, and exactly how they work. Instead of handing me a fish, Busch has taught me how to fish! When faced with a particular problem not covered in this or the other books, I now know enough to be able to handle it myself. Great approach!

The book looks at all kinds of digital retouching and compositing techniques, written especially from the photographer's viewpoint. Everything works with Photoshop, and all illustrations are in full color so it's easy to see exactly how the steps work as well as the final results.

This is the second book I've purchased from this author, and I find all his books to be both informative and fun (the lesson on how to convert superhero NoCopyright Man's uniform from color to an accurate black and white version is hilarious and worth the price of the book alone!) I learned a lot about photography, Photoshop, retouching, and compositing from this book. I recommend it highly.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent text, July 25, 2004

By 

M. Ruiz "Lost Inner Space" (Nu-Jork, Ju-Es-Ay) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Digital Retouching and Compositing: Photographers' Guide (Power!) (Paperback)

Mr. David Busch has written a clear and concise referenceguide and tutorial. Equipped with a photographic background, the author effectively points out the differences between the darkroom and the computer. This is very helpful in understanding the why's as well as the how's in using Photoshop.

This text was written as a companion to an earlier book, Photoshop 7: The Photographers Guide. The author decided to take three chapters from that book and expand on them. This book is the result. You do not need to read his first book in order to follow this one. That is a tribute to the clarity in this book.

As a matter of fact I didn't even use the CD included. I was able to apply all of the chapter tutorials on my own source material! if you already have an over-all guide to Photoshop and you are looking for texts that address specific capabilities than you should consider buying David Busch's Digital Retouching and Compositing. I guarantee your skills will improve.