Chapter
8, Image Adjustment
This
is the meaty chapter that Photoshop users need. It is also a fresh
approach, a nice difference from the more aggressive "Professional
Photoshop 5" by Margulis. No one single book will give
you the tips you need because your needs are always a bit different
than the agenda of the author. Evening has a calm agenda, with no
political quirks.
The
book nicely explains the helpful new features of the basic Crop
tool. You can enlarge your image (crop into outside blank space)
and then fill in missing background color without having to paint,
copy, or otherwise move fresh background color yourself. You can
also rotate the crop, though rotations other than 90, 180, or 270
degrees will eventually disorient the pixel detail (the pixels are
naturally at strict 90-degree angles to one another).
The
more professional, prepress, and otherwise sophisticated the situation
(book, software, or whatever), the more likely the image adjustments
will be done in CIE LAB mode or CMYK, not RGB. The Internet images
will tend to be RGB as will images on a dye sub printer, but all
other printers, whether actual presses or (Encad)
wide-format inkjet or laser will most likely print with CMYK, whether
it be ink or toner or ribbons. The image will indeed change color
in the transfer from RGB to CMYK so the idea is to do your adjustments
after you are safely in CMYK. LAB is the intermediate color space
between the two modes.
Evening
appears perfectly content to do corrections in RGB, possibly because
he knows how they will end up in CMYK and being a pro, he can fix
any color misadventures. Irrespective of whether you are in the
RGB-is-Okay camp or the "it has to be in CMYK" camp, at
least this book shows you how to come to grips with the curves,
especially how to find the parts of the curve which need attention,
and how to anchor (shield) the parts that you do not want to mess
with (his pp. 137-139).
Since
image adjustment is what Photoshop is all about, this chapter alone
makes the book worth buying. Just remember that in working the curves
you can block off part of the curve by putting an anchor (click
on the curve to set an anchor). You can figure out where to put
the anchor by clicking on the different parts of the image (shadow
point, midtone, highlight) and a blip will momentarily appear on
the curve (which at the beginning of course is a diagonal line;
it is not a curve until you wiggle it).
Practice
makes perfect. Just be sure (if a beginner) to work on a duplicate
copy of your file; don't save your corrections without renaming
the file or having a duplicate. Once you save your file you have
altered it and eventually you will lose your original raw file.
If your original raw file is safely on a CD-R disk, you are okay,
since you cannot save back to the disk--it is locked once it is
burned. But, on the down side, a drop of Pepsi, a slimy finger print
of Coronel Sanders chicken, or a scratch, ruins your CD (in other
words, you can no longer read a single file on it, even the ones
not saturated with chicken grease). Better have lots of backups
if you are beginning and early intermediate level.
The
information in Unsharp Masking is helpful but beginner and
even intermediate level users will want much more information and
many additional samples. Again, you need several Photoshop books
to learn everything. Being a photographer I could not resist buying
the present book, but for a wider range of samples, you also need
Margulus' "Professional Photoshop
5."
Chapter
9, Color Adjustments (a continuation
of the theme of Chapter 8)
Read
and learn therefrom, what more can I say. Have a sample image of
your own. Experiment and quickly you will learn what each tool can
achieve. A somewhat related chapter is 15, Coloring Effects.
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