PHOTOSHOP COLOR CORRECTION
Book Review by Ed Melanson
Photoshop Color Correction is, as they say, "The Essential Guide to Color Quality Images". Color is the key word here because this book covers only the color aspects of Adobe Photoshop 6 & 7 in Windows or Macintosh. The text is very definitive, very easy to understand and is supported by excellent graphics and photos that shows the before and after process results. I must admit that some of the differences that are depicted in the photos require younger eyes with better color perception then mine. A CD with most of the pictures shown in the book is included. The photos can be viewed in either RGB or CMYK format on your monitor and are copyrighted. You can open a photo and apply the techniques as you read and can see the effects on the photos. Watch a dull picture come to life, see a dark or too bright photo change. You can watch an unacceptable photo turn into a great photo. This is a great learning tool.
Each chapter and its sub chapters have clear descriptive titles. The Preface gives a short description of what is covered in each prime chapter followed by the usual alphabetized index in the back of the book. This lets you zero in on a particular technique.Chapter 1 & 2 Color Fundamentals and Color Management, cover some of the early developments of digital imaging up to today’s advanced imaging techniques that gives you a base to better understand the described processes before working with Photoshop. For example Chapter 1, along with many other things, explains the RGB Model (red, green & blue) that television, scanners, digital cameras, and the human eye use, verses CMYK Model (cyan, magenta, yellow and black) that printers have to use. It also explains the CIELAB Model.
The following chapters are devoted to working with Photoshop 6 & 7. Each Chapter has several Sub Chapters.
Chapter 3 Photoshop Tools: The main sub chapters are Processing Pixels, Remapping Tonal Values, Levels, Curves, Channels, Layers, Selections and Color Imaging Workflows. In the Auto Color sub chapter for instance it mentions that the Auto Color Brightness/Contrast tool, which I use, should not be used for brightness and contrast problem. It explains why and how to use the Levels histogram to obtain better results. It also includes keyboard shortcuts of the most common used tools for both Windows and Macintosh.
Chapter 4 Highlights and Shadows: The main sub chapters are The Color Correction Process, Color Correction Essentials, Highlight and Shadow Aimpoints, Correcting Highlights and Shadows. The sub-chapters describe how to improve highlights and shadows in RGB and CMYK: How to apply RGB and CMYK Curves and Auto Color. If you intend to print out a photo then you should be interested in the CMYK histogram and curves. If you do not intend to print then pay attention to the RGB info. The simple process of minor modifications to the highlights and shadows in a photo can really liven it up.
Chapter 5 Neutral Tones: The main sub chapters are Why Color Balance Matters, Establishing Gray Balance, RGB and CMYK Neutral Corrections and much more, all showing you more ways to improve your photos. It describes how Enhancing Midtone Balance can improve a photo by slightly changing the midpoints on red, green and blue as in RGB.
Chapter 6 Contrast: The main sub chapters are Enhancing Contrast with Curves, Blending Channels, Converting Color to Black and White. One of processes describes how to change each color curve on red, green, and blue, as in RGB, by changing each color individually. This allows you to improve the contrast by darkening the light areas and making the darker areas brighter.
Chapter 7 Sharpening: The main sub chapters are How Sharpening Works, Sharpening in Photoshop, Essential Sharpening Skills, Local Sharpening. In Local Sharpening it describes how to mask areas to allow you to sharpen the prime image part of the photo that needs sharpening without affecting the background or, if you wish, just improve the background.
Chapter 8 Advanced Techniques: The main sub chapters are Channel Blending, Cieleb Corrections, Synthetic Color Profiles, Staked Layers, The Sky’s the Limit, Conclusions and Beginnings. This is really advanced stuff. It takes a very bad picture and goes beyond what was covered in the previous chapters and brings this bad picture to life.In conclusions, Peachpit Press has a reputation of publishing outstanding books and Photoshop Color Correction is no exception. This is a great book. I have been using, or trying to use, Photoshop 7 and have been very impressed with what can be done to a photo. After reading this book I discovered that I had only scratched the surface of what one can do to a photo in Photoshop. To anyone who is lucky enough to have Photoshop 6 or 7 I recommend this book as an essential tool for you whether you’re a beginner, intermediate, advanced or a professional.
PHOTOSHOP COLOR CORRECTION
By Michael Kieran
Peachpit Press
1249 Eighth Street, Berkeley, CA 94710
1-510-624-2178 Fax 1-510-524-2221
www.peachpit.com <http://www.peachpit.com/>
Price $49.99