Customer Reviews

Photoshop Restoration & Retouching (2nd Edition)

5 star:		(31)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

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.

Katrin Eismann's new Photoshop book is the updated version of her very successful restoration/retouching Bible. She is a brilliant teacher who uses her vast knowledge and precise communication skills to demonstrate sophisticated techniques at workshops throughout the world.

In this book Katrin provides a carefully crafted manual for repairing and enhancing photographs using Photoshop 7, Adobe's latest update of its challenging image software program.

This second edition offers step-by-step demonstrations describing how to approach the most common problems one encounters when working with faded, damaged photographs. Among the many subjects covered are: color, contrast, tone, exposure correction, mold damage, stains, cracks, red eye, torn edges, working by the numbers, replacing missing information and removing dust and scratches.

Katrin's approach to portrait retouching emphasizes the subtle touch. In her extensive chapter on developing a portrait retouch strategy, she thoughtfully discusses and demonstrates the steps for removing blemishes, reducing wrinkles, and improving eyes, lips and hair.

A comprehensive website supplements the book. Readers can download most of the photographs, making it easy to practice using techniques on the same images found throughout the book.

This great book by the "Photoshop Diva" will teach you more about Photoshop than you can possibly imagine.

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

At last, at last, someone writing a Photoshop book cares about the black & white photographer! Photoshop dosen't automatically mean color images, but most guides don't recognize that. Katrin Eismann takes you through every step of the workflow to correct, ajust, and enhance your black & white images. There is also information on various ways of adding tone or color, if that is your interest.You can't find this anywhere else, and each step is explained with great clarity and good illustrations. I am equally admiring of the chapters on color. This book is my Bible, and I pattern my workflow just as she suggests.

I would also like to mention another unique feature of Eismann's book. Many of us are out there trying to make great art that will change the world, and feeling the accompanying stress. Eismann tells you to have fun with Photoshop! It dosen't have to be high serious. You can work on your favorite snapshots of your kids, or unearth old family photos, and really make something beautiful and wonderful with them - and she will show you how. I found this very liberating, and it made me like the book even more.

I have the First Edition of Katrin Eismann's book plus her videotape on Photo Retouching. I was so excited to see a Second Edition and I was not disappointed. Like her First Edition - the text is easy to read and understand - and all images and examples are in color. On her website you can download most of the images that are used in the book and apply the steps to your own image as you progress through the book. I think this "hands-on" approach makes it very easy to understand and retain the information.

If you have a passion for photo retouching and restoration - THIS IS THE BOOK FOR YOU!

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.

There are numerous books on this subject, and it wasn't until I browsed through many that I finally selected this book.

Few reasons why I selected this book against others:
1. the audience is photographers, especially those who own older photos that requires restoration.

2. the format is great - plenty of diagrams and photos and text in bulleted and easy to follow sequence.

3. plentiful tips - 350 pages jammed packed with ways to make your photos better.

4. tips are easy - there are books out there that provides tips on sharpening, correcting exposure problems, etc. But this book makes them so easy!

I'm an intermediate photoshop user, and this book suits me well.

I'm very impressed with this book. It teaches the fundamentals of evaluating images and then shows you how to repair them effectively. If I could fault the book at all it would be that at times the effect is sometimes so subtle it's hard to see the fix, if not flatly impossible. But in most cases the problem is very obvious. This is a must have book for those looking to scan and fix very old photos so that they can be preserved digitally. This book teaches all of the tried and true analog photo fixing techniques with our new digital tools.

After being thrilled with the first edition of this work less than 3 months ago, I was hesitant to purchase the second edition, but after looking at the reviews I took a chance and found the additions to the second edition to be well worth the cost. There are many additional techniques that save enough time to pay the modest cost many times over.

Katrin Eismann's new Photoshop book is the updated version of her very successful restoration/retouching Bible. She is a brilliant teacher who uses her vast knowledge and precise communication skills to demonstrate sophisticated techniques at workshops throughout the world.

In this book Katrin provides a carefully crafted manual for repairing and enhancing photographs using Photoshop 7, Adobe's challenging image software program.

This second edition offers step-by-step demonstrations describing how to address the most common problems one encounters when working with faded, damaged photographs. Among the subjects covered are: color, contrast, tone, exposure correction, mold damage, stains, cracks, red eye, torn edges, working by the numbers, replacing missing information and removing dust and scratches.

Katrin's approach to portrait retouching emphasizes the subtle touch. In her extensive chapter on developing a portrait retouch strategy, she thoughtfully discusses and demonstrates the steps for removing blemishes, reducing wrinkles, and improving eyes, lips and hair.

The comprehensive website that supplements the book allows readers to download most of the photographs. This makes it easy to follow along and practice techniques on the same images found throughout the chapters.

This excellent book by the "Photoshop Diva" will teach you more about Photoshop than you can possibly imagine.