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If you are new to photo image retouching, this is the perfect book to get up to speed

Book Review – 40 Digital Photo Retouching Techniques with Photoshop Elements by Zack Lee

Photoshop Elements is the scaled-down sibling of the standard bearer of photographic image processing, Adobe Photoshop. Photoshop Elements has the combination of affordable cost with a reasonable learning curve. The main purpose of 40 Digital Photo Retouching Techniques with Photoshop Elements is to show you how, by using a simple tool, that anyone can garner professional results with their photographic images.

40 Digital Photo Retouching Techniques is divided into six chapters and an introduction. While it is geared for those who have some experience with image editing and want to learn the proper techniques, even if you have no image-editing experience, the introduction will help get you started. The techniques have been tested to work with version 5.0 of Photoshop Elements and for the most part will work with earlier versions as well.

The introduction walks you through the fundamentals of what is image-editing software, and what the key elements of Photoshop Elements are. It walks you through file types, the interface and shows you around the product and how it works. It also shows the basic fundamentals such as opening and closing files.

Chapter one, "Correcting Contrast," begins the techniques with learning how to evaluate the contrast of an image and how to adjust it so that it looks like it should. You will learn how to diagnose problems, how to correct blurred images, correct the back lighting and brightening specific spots on your image.

Chapter two, "Manipulating Colors," will show you how to change colors, replace colors and how to turn color photos into black and white. It will also show you how to correct improper white balance, turn summer into fall and how to make detail color changes. You will get closer looks at the hue/saturation dialog box and the color replacement tool options bar as well.

Chapter three, "Enhancing Portraits," focus on the face. Here you will learn about removing red-eye, facial blemishes, adding make up and creating bigger eyes and a sharper chin. You will also discover how to open closed eyes, adjust skin tone colors, use selective focusing creating a studio background and add a picture frame to your image.

Chapter four, "Editing Skills and Special Effects," will show you how to automatically separate scanned images, process Camera Raw files, adjust image size and shape as well as clean up backgrounds. You will also find out how to create reflections, add type effects, alter perspective and combine images.

Chapter five, "Very Special Effects," explores stitching panoramas together to create a large image that you cannot get in one shot. It also works with camera blur to give motion to an image as well as giving photos an antique look.

Chapter six, "Using and Sharing Images," will show you how to create a greeting card, how to maintain photographs with album pages, make a web banner and make a web photo gallery.

While this book is rather slight in size, it is large in punch. There are a lot of techniques contained within that most professionals use on a regular basis. Also, included with the book is a trial version of Photoshop Elements, as well as 92 images that you can use to follow along with the book. If you are new to photo image retouching 40 Digital Photo Retouching Techniques with Photoshop Elements is the perfect book to get up to speed.

About T. Michael Testi

Photographer, writer, software engineer, educator, and maker of fine images.

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