For both Mac and Windows PC users, Photoshop CS2 is the market leader and industry standard for commercial bitmap image manipulation. Also known as the "digital dark room," Photoshop is the unparalleled tool of choice among graphics professionals and hobby photographers alike.

Written by 20-year photo retouching veteran Glenn Honiball, Commercial Photoshop Retouching: In the Studio is the only book to deliver advice for the photographer and artist working with Photoshop CS 2 in a real world commercial environment. Honiball offers incomparable technical and artistic guidance for professionals, graphic artists, photographers, and just about anyone involved in creating and manipulating digital images.

Production artists face unrealistically tight deadlines and heavy workloads that leave little time for trial and error. Photo retouchers need practical, immediate Photoshop solutions to help them produce quality images with minimal effort and in a short amount of time. All the tools, techniques, and skills you need to achieve consistent, professional results with Photoshop CS2 can be found in Commercial Photoshop Retouching: In the Studio.

Anyone with intermediate-to-advanced Photoshop skills--whether you want to explore photo retouching personally or as an imaging professional or student--can use Commercial Photoshop Retouching: In the Studio to produce sharp, expert, extraordinary photos that don't look retouched.

Under Honibell's seasoned direction, you'll be able to tackle your greatest photo-retouching challenges with ease, precision and efficiency. He guides you through Photoshop CS2's new and innovative features; explains advanced capabilities; shows you how to adapt and custom-fit the software to meet your needs; offers time-saving tips for accelerating your workflow; and delivers advice and inspiration for exercising your own creative genius.

Commercial Photoshop Retouching: In the Studio is the ideal resource for any digital artist who wants to develop and perfect professional-level retouching using Photoshop CS 2. With this book, you will bring photo correction and manipulation to a whole new level.

Amazon.com® Reader Reviews (Ranked by Helpfulness)

Average Amazon.com® Rating:  Based on 23 Ratings

Short and Sweet - 2006-09-15
Reviewer Rating:
As someone who is lucky enough to work with Adobe as a beta tester, and who has read through many a Photoshop book, I can recommend this title to anyone who is an amateur photographer or serious hobbyist (or even a graphic designer who is into photography and retouching). While it won't teach you everything, there are many valuable techniques to be found here.

Bear in mind what this book isn't. It is not a Photoshop reference, and by that I mean it's not the right book -for example- if you're unsure how layers work or how to use channels. It's not a way to understand and learn the tools for the first time, but rather a way to use those tools in the specific context of retouching images. IOW, it will teach you a better way to skin the cat. (note: I like cats, it's just an expression).

The examples used are mostly relevant to real world usage and they are easy to understand and follow. Probably this is not the best book for learning special effects or the kinds of compositing you might see in product advertisements where graphical elements are blended with photographic ones. There are gigantic books dedicated to stuff like that, and so if that's what you're after, better to use one of those.

But if you want to learn useful ways of touching up skin tones and faces, adding a mood to a photograph by manipulating tonality across the canvas, etc. This is a good place to start.

An invaluable resource - 2006-06-29
Reviewer Rating:
Title: Commercial Photoshop Retouching in the Studio - A Guide to Professional Photo Retouching and Compositing
Author: Glenn Honiball
Publisher: O'Reilly
ISBN: 0-59-00849-X
Reviewer: Bruce Frank
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Whether you're a seasoned Photoshop pro or a casual user attempting to revitalize the family photo album (or somewhere in between), this book will be an invaluable resource. Beware, however, that there are no quick fixes to some of the more serious retouch challenges.

For example, Honiball states that the best option for sharpening image details in a particularly fuzzy image is to "painstakingly draw in paths around the troublesome area." Those of us who have been using Photoshop for a while have unfortunately discovered this phenomenon - it can frequently take hours to achieve a satisfactory result when attempting to enhance a problem image.

Taking, in effect, the opposite approach to Scott Kelby, whose shoot-from-the-hip writing and Photoshop-user style gets right to the point in rapid fashion, Honiball exhaustively details the steps it takes to achieve a specific effect or correction. Although at times didactic, he nevertheless creates a thorough and informative textbook, rather than the educational comic that Kelby or Russell Brown might offer (not that there's anything wrong with that!, to put Jerry Seinfeld's immortal words in a different context).

"Commercial Photoshop Retouching in the Studio" is illustrated throughout with well-chosen color screenshots, most of which are presented in cinematic fashion - a true step-by-step approach which is extremely effective. It's like watching a video you can pause or continue at the flip of a page.

If you need to know how to prepare artwork for a printer, retouch photos like a pro, or create photo-illustrations for the commercial marketplace, you can't do better than Glenn Honiball's book. However, when using this book to guide you through your own projects on a computer, I would advise keeping one hand on your mouse, and one on a Mocha Cappuccino Grande.

Precise and well presented - 2006-11-27
Reviewer Rating:
Honiball has chosen a collection of useful advanced techniques to present that every serious Photoshop user should take the time to learn and add to their arsenal. Though definitely designed for the advanced user, anyone comfortable in Photoshop can appreciate and understand guides.

I did find the instructional guides to be written in a somewhat unfamiliar fashion when compared to most how-to books. Rather than exhaustive instructions outlining (both textually and with screen shots) every step required to get to your goal, the major highlights are presented in paragraph form, assuming you have some ability to know what is going on. There are ample and well-chosen screen shots to show the progress along the way, just skipping the unnecessary page fillers you find in titles targeting beginners.

Though I found most of the techniques and samples presented very practical, the real power is the underlying ability the reader picks up along the way. I particularly enjoyed the coverage on shadowing, including both the theory and application for different perspectives. A few of the pre-press techniques would be used by a fairly limited audience, but again this title brings to light some advanced and practical tools for business professionals.

If I were to summarize what you pick up from this title, it would be how to take original photos, then enhance and combine them into a stunning production. I highly recommend adding this book to your library if you fall in the intended audience. Though not a reference book you would pull out for how to use specific tools, this is a title I plan to re-read once a year or so as a great reminder on some great techniques.

Great Photoshop for Photographic Illustration - 2007-03-28
Reviewer Rating:
This book came too late. I was wrestling with a large billboard design and finally had it shipped to the printer when this book came in the mail. The book really helps one understand the power of dealing with many subjects. For me, the section about making low res images look high res made me think twice about my techniques and better informed for the next round.

This is a book that actually lives up to it's title. Creating motion from stillness, extending backgrounds, trap, were informative, but these are only subsections. The book runs the gamet, from dealing with the issue of professional photoretouchers to improvements on reality, creating new items, shadows, even a full section on colour and then on newsprint.

Definitly a book for the advanced user of photoshop and one that requires a full read through rather than the reference tool type. The information is deep and compact in a great layout. I would reserve this for the library or bathroom before opening up Photoshop. If you do any sort of retouching or deal with photos for advertising and print, this is a book to have.

Good for professionals and educators and people that love to mess about with photos.

5/5

Excellent techniques for color and retouching - 2006-07-05
Reviewer Rating:
Great techinique and the tips that he book has for color balance. the photo retouch very clear.

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