Customer Reviews

Photoshop® Retouching Handbook

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The reviews I read on this page before buying it left me wondering: was it too basic to justify the purchase or was it exactly what I needed - a book to take me from printing my own slides in the darkroom (something I started with Cibachrome years ago) to printing my own slides with computer and printer instead (I've been 'computer literate' for some years)? Having taken the plunge, I believe it's fair to say that this book will be really helpful to someone moving from traditional into digital photography and enjoying the possibilities for `retouching' in ways that can't be achieved in the darkroom. Having suffered the frustration of looking at Photoshop books in bookshops and tutorials on the Web dealing with fancy text effects etc, I was beginning to despair of finding something to help me just with photographs. (I'm not knocking special effects - they're class - but not what I was after!) This is exactly what I was after! To take only one example: the number of worked exercises (decent resolution files provided) involving the Rubber Stamp tool, looking at the various parameters of size and softness in relation to retouching many different types of images so as to retain or increase image texture and quality, is an example of the author's thorough and informative approach. The book is elegantly written and there is one (often more) full colour photograph or Photoshop dialog box related to the exercise on nearly every page of the book! Excellent!

I am a photographer and I've recently switched to digital, so this book was of enormous help. It is very educational! More than that, it is aimed at professional level. There are tones of literature written on PhotoShop, but most of it is aimed at semi-amateur level. Although they explain PhotoShop's tools, they don't explain the method of digital retouching the way this book does.

My specialization is fine-art conceptual photography. I am a painter from the start, so the impossibility to alter or paint photographs the way I wanted has been always frustrating me. Thanks to the digital technology and, to an even greater degree, thanks to this book, I've finally resolved this creative problem. This book has greatly improved my retouching skills.

Photoshop Retouching Handbook is a highly specialized book. It deals with retouching images and that's about it. No fancy effects, no regurgitation of Photoshop's menus and commands. It's intended for a intermediate-level user and there's little discussion of elementary issues. You'll find no invocation of filters for quick whiz-bang effects here, because this book is about one thing and one thing only: the fine art of retouching. But it covers that subject in great depth, and it covers it beautifully.

Want to know more about this book? Read the full, detailed review of this book (and about 100 other Photoshop books in case you're interested) at PhotoBooks, the ultimate source for information on books about Adobe Photoshop and web graphics.

This book rises above the crowded sea of over-hyped filter and web Photoshop books. After the excitement of digital imaging passes, and you begin to get serious about learning the real important things that seperate the pros from the hacks, you'll probably want to read this book. It is focused on getting clean looking work out of Photoshop that is press ready. It was very refreshing to read the author's blend of traditional photography, digital expertise, and advertising experience. Highly recommended if you have taken a class or two in Photoshop, you are comfortable with the program, and you want to get a great looking portfolio.

I found the Photoshop Retouching Handbook to be exciting, innovative and a pleasure to follow. I have done allthe exercises and have learned a great deal. I am not a commercial artist and have been teaching myself Photoshop. I now feel that I am much more in control when using the Photoshop program. The book is highly advanced and I feel I have advanced with it. Although I am not an expert I enjoyed the Photoshop Retouching Handbook. I am looking forward to Carol Braverman's next book.

Thanks Carol

I have just completed this Handbook. It is remarkably instructive and uncommonly beautiful. While it contains a treasury of technical maneuvers of immediate practical use, its prose -- unlike most Photoshop books -- conveys a genuine artistic sensibility. The book also reveals (with such a light hand) a set of values for the craft. Ms. Braverman urges Discipline. Humility. Reverence for the subject. Subtlety. And, above all, a lofty standard of artistic excellence. So one doesn't merely learn, for example, that larger, softer brushes can damage a texture; one is inspired to take great care that a texture not be damaged, no matter how inconspicuous the image area. One takes this care out of a sense of pride.

The labor Ms. Braverman has put into communicating with her readers jumps off the page... her cautions; her encouragements; her suggestions to take a break or to go slowly or to have confidence. She sets an expectation that the work will be taken seriously and then creates a pace in the book that is remarkably well configured to the pace at which a reader learns. The reader who doesn't sense Ms. Braverman over his or her shoulder either hasn't read the book or shouldn't be reading the book! No other author in the field of electronic art is so accessible and sensitive, at least not in my experience.

For those who wish to work in a more controlled, deliberate, and thoughtful way in Photoshop, this book will be a continuing source of inspiration and instruction.

This book shows some very basic technique. It barely touches color correction and the retouching examples are so basic that there is nothing more here ultimately than in the User's manual. It is OK for what it does, but it doesn't do much...and why pay 40-50 dollars for what you already have?

The auther should rename the book title as "Retouching for beginner" to prevent confused to the readers. It is just a book for beginning level, not a retouching handbook.I did not find any advanced skill in this book.