Commercial Photoshop Retouching In the Studio By Glenn Honiball

This book is divided into nine chapters, each covering a general category of client requests. If you have a client who wants you to fix the color of an image, create something that doesn't currently exist in an image, or prepare an image for use in a special medium, you should be able to find a chapter that helps you do the job. After a brief orientation to the studio of a professional retoucher in the first chapter, the next five chapters cover general types of image manipulation. The last three chapters give special advice on how to prepare images for "unusual" mediums such as billboards, newspapers, and product packaging.

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. 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.

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.


Chapter 1, The Professional Retoucher's Studio
Tries to give you a sense of what a day in the retoucher's professional life might entail. In this chapter, I've sketched out the basic physical environment in which I work, the workflow of a typical retouching job, and some thoughts about becoming a professional retoucher. If you want to go straight to retouching images, start with Chapter 2.

Chapter 2, Shadows and Light
Discusses the basic category of projects that require manipulation of light. I'll give you some techniques for understanding "imaginary" light sources, creating realistic shadows, and avoiding common shadow mistakes.

Chapter 3, Corrections: Improvements on Reality
Covers how to make corrections that really improve the power of an image. We'll go over some basic correction techniques, discuss adding texture and shape to flat images, and cover some overall color corrections.

Chapter 4, Something from Nothing
Helps you understand how to approach those jobs in which you or your client wants to put something in the image that isn't currently there. This might mean adding steam to a cup of coffee, adding motion to a sports car, or adding shine to a previously dull object.

Chapter 5, Special Color Requests
Discusses how to use special colors and manipulate colors to get the output you or your client are seeking. Here, we'll go over creating touch plates, converting files in and out of CMYK color profiles, and changing the overall color of an image entirely.

Chapter 6, Merging Images
Goes over how to create realistic, if sometimes fantastic, compositions. We'll discuss the basic techniques of properly selecting the components of your composition, how to prepare your "canvas," and how to put the pieces together so that the "seams" don't show.

Chapter 7, Low Resolution on a Grand Scale
Covers the typical commercial retouching request of taking an image intended for a magazine or brochure and making it usable at poster or even billboard size. I'll go over how to interpret a spec sheet for this kind of job, how to assess potential problem areas, and how to improve the file so that it survives magnification.

Chapter 8, Preparing Images for Newsprint
Discusses the particular problems and techniques for avoiding those problems when your image's final destination is the local newspaper. We'll start by getting an overall understanding of the particular needs of images heading for newsprint, then follow with specific instructions for preparing color and black and white images.

Chapter 9, Preparing Images for Use on Packaging Materials
Considers the particular retouching challenges and Photoshop tools that can help you prepare an image intended for industrial packaging. Here, we'll go over spec sheets for flexographic presses, how to prepare the file for best results, and the particular solutions for avoiding pitfalls in this medium.


Table of Contents
Chapter 1. The Professional Retoucher's Studio
Section 1.1. The Photo Retoucher's Work Environment
Section 1.2. The Workflow of a Typical Retouching Job
Section 1.3. Becoming a Professional Retoucher
Chapter 2. Shadows and Light
Section 2.1. Imagining the Light That Should Have Been
Section 2.2. Creating a Simple Shadow
Section 2.3. Creating Shadows for Complex Objects
Section 2.4. Retaining an Existing Shadow in a New Background
Section 2.5. Grounding Objects with Shadows
Section 2.6. Common Shadow Mistakes
Section 2.7. Keeping a Shadow Library
Chapter 3. Corrections: Improvements on Reality
Section 3.1. Correction Basics
Section 3.2. Adding Texture to an Image
Section 3.3. Using the Clone Tool
Section 3.4. Neutralizing Images
Section 3.5. Brightening Images
Section 3.6. Changing Image Colors
Chapter 4. Something from Nothing
Section 4.1. Creating Smoke or Steam
Section 4.2. Creating a Smile
Section 4.3. Creating Motion from Stillness
Section 4.4. Extending Backgrounds
Section 4.5. Shining Things Up
Chapter 5. Special Color Requests
Section 5.1. Creating Touch Plates
Section 5.2. Merging Spot Colors into CMYK
Section 5.3. Converting CMYK to Special Colors
Section 5.4. Changing a Four-Color Image to Three Colors
Section 5.5. Adding Trap
Section 5.6. Changing the Overall Color
Chapter 6. Merging Images
Section 6.1. Preparing the Pieces: Options for Selecting the Components
Section 6.2. Preparing the Canvas: Your Position File
Section 6.3. Putting the Pieces Together
Chapter 7. Low Resolution on a Grand Scale: Making Low Res Look High
Section 7.1. Understanding the Spec Sheet
Section 7.2. Assessing the Situation
Section 7.3. Improving the Existing File to Survive Magnification
Section 7.4. Dealing with Specific Image Problems
Chapter 8. Preparing Images for Newsprint
Section 8.1. Start by Understanding the Process
Section 8.2. Preparing a CMYK Image for Use in Newsprint
Section 8.3. Preparing a Color Image for a Black and White Newspaper
Chapter 9. Preparing Images for Use on Packaging Materials
Section 9.1. The Image You Have Versus the Image You Need
Section 9.2. The Spec Sheet
Section 9.3. Preparing a CMYK File
Section 9.4. Another Option: Creating a Special Color
Section 9.5. Trapping on Special Packaging

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