★★★★ The Photoshop CS4 Companion for Photographers by Derrick Story is from O’Reilly (2008). It’s a small reference book that concentrates on the workflow for photographers using Photoshop CS4. It explains basic adjustments such as cropping, color balance, and tonal adjustments. It also details more advanced techniques such as adjustment layers and batch processing. It contains “recipes” for things like retouching, color swapping, and correcting lens distortion.
Chapter by chapter, the contents are:
- a quick start chapter
- an importing images chapter
- a chapter on rating and keywording images
- an editing in RAW chapter
- an advanced RAW camera chapter
- a refining in Photoshop chapter
- a lengthy chapter of recipes with specific techniques such as brightening eyes and retrieving a blown-out sky
- a bit about printing
Of course, there’s a bit of information about equipment photographers may need, and about the excellent photographs Story included in the book. However, most of the book heads straight into how to take photos and work with them in Photoshop CS4. If you are overwhelmed by the complexity and breadth of Photoshop, this book will help you narrow the focus and show you just what you need to know to work with your digital photos.
Summary: A handy resource
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