Photoshop Color Correction [ILLUSTRATED] (Paperback)

by Michael Kieran (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
It's always been possible to produce great-looking images in Photoshop. But Photoshop Color Correction makes it easy. This book is the distillation of color expert Michael Kieran's 10 years of experience in delivering workshops on color correction and color management. It includes tips and tricks that will enable you to improve the detail, color balance, and sharpness of any photograph, regardless of its source, by applying color improvements you can see on both the computer screen and in print. The emphasis of this book lies in its visual techniques, with plenty of photographs and screen shots to illustrate how color correction really happens. You can further deepen your understanding by following along with the sample images provided on the accompanying CD-ROM.

From the Back Cover
It's always been possible to produce great-looking images in Photoshop. But Photoshop Color Correction makes it easy. This book is the distillation of color expert Michael Kieran's 10 years of experience in delivering workshops on color correction and color management. It includes tips and tricks that will enable you to improve the detail, color balance, and sharpness of any photograph, regardless of its source, by applying color improvements you can see on both the computer screen and in print. The emphasis of this book lies in its visual techniques, with plenty of photographs and screen shots to illustrate how color correction really happens. You can further deepen your understanding by following along with the sample images provided on the accompanying CD-ROM.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Peachpit Press; Paperback and CD-ROM edition (2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0321124014
• ISBN-13: 978-0321124012
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #591,561 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

32 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent primer on how to get better color from your comput, March 5, 2003

By	Daniel Sroka "dansroka" (Morris Township, NJ USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I have spent many years doing electronic prepress, color correction, and design, and one question I get repeatedly asked is "how do I get better color from my computer?". Now, I can point them in the direction of this excellent book.

Mr. Kieran provides a solid foundation of what color correction is, and why it is necessary. His first section on "Color Fundamentals" reminds me of the old "Pocket Pal" book every designer lived by, except better written. This introduction gives you a solid and understandable overview of color correction, its terms, and its purpose. Building on this foundation (don't skip it!), the book then goes on to a thorough explanation of how to use Photoshop to improve the color, tone, and quality of your digital photos.

The book is framed by what the author calls the "essentials of color correction" -- highlights and shadows, netral tones, contrast, and sharpening. I was very happy to see this organization because it mimics the process I use every time I professionally work on a photo. Mr. Kieran goes into a great amount of detail for each of these "essential" steps. He begins each section with a thorough description of the "why", then step-by-step explains the "how". The book is crammed with color photographs, clearly illustrating both technical issues like how histograms relate to changes in the image, as well as demonstrating each step of the correction process.

Two very practical sections stand out: Mr Kieran gives a great overview of all of the ways you can convert a color photo to black and white, and all of the ways you can sharpen a photo (two things I am constantly asked!). There as so many ways to do these basic tasks, it's great to have a solid description, complete with illustrations, and explanations of when to use one method over the others.

In conclusion, a good solid practical book - one that anyone serious about good photos should give a read.

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Superb Presentation, October 18, 2002

By	Andrew Ilachinski (Northern VA, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

There are many books on photoshop techniques that are of interest specifically to the photographer (Martin Evening's fine book for example, or Katrin Eismann's great book for v6), but I have seen none that cover the breadth of material in Kieran's book, or have as much depth. Color correction can be an exceedingly difficult thing to do correctly, even for experienced photoshop users; with Keiran's step-by-step tutorials and many image samples, the reader is soon equipped to tacked rather difficult problem shots. Many other topics such as sharpening and printing are also covered, of course. Along with with Barry Haynes' Photoshop Artistry (v6 or v7) and the books I mentionend above, Kieran's Photoshop Color Correction has quickly become a welcome addition to my central core of indispensible photoshop guides. If you are a photographer and use photoshop, you NEED this book!

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Lots of cool correction techniques!, December 31, 2002

By	Jason White (London, Ontario Canada) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

What I liked about this color correction book over the other leading one (Dan Somebody's "Professional Photoshop") is that this one is RGB centeric. There's correction examples done in CMYK and Lab, but RGB correction is considered by the author to be the master working space -and rightly so, well at least for me with RGB sources and RGB output. It's important to understand that this is not a beginner book, nor even an intermediate level user book, it'd be best for someone who is already very good at using photoshop, but wants to know more specifically about color correcting photographs.

There are some wonderful techniques in this book for mixing channels, and luminosity and cool contrast tricks. There's a good chapter on sharpening too.

My problem with the book was with the included CD, the images are way too low rez to even bother working on. It's best to use your own images anyway, but there are times when I would liked to have tried his example (and sometimes the example image isn't even present on the CD). But don't let the worthless CD discourage you from the book, which was otherwise very informative.