Adobe Photoshop Restoration & Retouching

Don't let the age of this book fool you! While this book is ancient by technology standards (it was written when Photoshop CS2 was the latest and greatest), the information presented inside is just as relevant today (with CS6) as it was back then. I found valuable tips, techniques, and insights throughout this book that are in many cases just as useful for general image enhancement and post-processing, as they are for restoration and retouching in particular.As an intermediate Photoshop user, this book helped turn my knowledge of *what* various Photoshop features do, to *how* the various tools can actually be applied in real-world situations. For example, before reading this book, I knew what the clone stamp, healing brush, spot healing brush, and patch tools were (and had used them occasionally in the past), but I didn't really understand why I would choose to use one vs the other (aside from experimentation). This book taught me not only which tools are applicable to which situation, but what typical brush settings are for each tool (and why).Note that this book is definitely not for the beginner. Although the majority of the text include step-by-step instructions for achieving a certain outcome, there are lots of details that are omitted, so you really will need to already be familiar most of Photoshop's features in order to really get value from this book. You will need to be very comfortable using layers, masks, adjustments, channels, selections, etc in order to really understand the processes described.Part one of the book begins with chapters that describe tone and contrast corrections, using a variety of techniques including levels/curves (obviously), blend modes, the channel mixer, and masks. Chapters on exposure and colour corrections follow, each with plenty of detail and many examples. Part two covers the core restoration and image repair sections, where you will learn many advanced techniques that can miraculously be used to recover badly damaged images. While I could follow most of the techniques described in this book, I did find that it's obviously harder to do in practice, than how it appears in the text. In fact, in some cases, I found far too little description of the technique used in a particular situation. Nevertheless, the useful part of this book is to give you insights into the strategies used to handle various situations.The final two chapters cover portrait and glamour retouching. These were decent, although there continued to be examples that glossed over a lot of important details. It would be very difficult to achieve a lot of the same effects if you just tried to follow the steps presented. Almost all the details about advanced masking are left out of the main text (the text refers to a downloadable PDF covering some basic masking, and also refers you to Eismann's other book specifically on masking).Despite its relatively minor flaws, this book has become a top pick for me when it comes to Photoshop knowledge. If you have interest in improving your Photoshop skills, I can highly recommend this as an extremely valuable resource that you will undoubtedly come back to again and again.

I could never say enough about this book. I was looking through reviews to find anything negative to dispute. There was nothing reasonable. The reviews say it all. Katrin does everything she possibly can to teach Photoshop outside of taking her classes and even then I doubt she has left anything out.I thought I knew Photoshop fairly well until I read this book. I realized I definitely was a beginner. I don't believe you have to have allot of working knowledge of Photoshop in order to use this book except for the simplist of basics but I don't want to mislead anyone. But I think If you use Photoshop at all you probably already know all you need.I 've read the book several times while working on photos and without. Each time I read it I learn more. After a while the tools, adjustments,techniques and etc. start to become second nature. I've learn and am still learning how to really expand my use of Photoshop in multidimensional directions. I'm able to discover many ways to solve the same problem, even solutions that aren't in the book because she teaches it that well. You can learn much more then step by step procedures that seem to come from nowhere like in other books. Their are some advanced filters she doesn't get into and less important stuff like making contact sheets, etc that you can find in simpler beginner books like Deke McClelland's One on One, a good book for beginners. And there are even more techniques covered in her other book Masking and Compositing a book just as good. I wonder what kind of more advanced books she will come out with next but I look forward to getting all of them.Katrin has a great personality which is reflected throughout this book. She even emails you back if you have any kind of photo question and she uses the feedback to refine her updated editions. How does she have time to do so much? She travels all over the world taking photographs which are exceptional, teaches classes, lectures, writes books that require allot of research, works with the biggest companies in the industry and still has time to be personable. It definitely shows her passion for photography and shows how much of a true teacher she really is.I have other books on Photoshop but Katrin Eismann's books are by far the easiest to learn and develop from.