Hi all
I'm Gry Garness – based in London UK as a Retoucher and Photoshop trainer since 2002. I worked as a fashion, music and advertising photographer from 1994 until a few years ago, when the retouching side took over. I've also been a hair stylist and makeup artist for 14 years, and I've dabbled in journalism for a few years. These skills have given me the background for writing a book on fashion/beauty/portrait retouching. I have listened to your concerns about Lee Varis Skin book. I won't comment on it, but I will say that the e-book I have just released should give you a very good alternative, and couldn't be more different. It was originally commissioned by a major publisher. The deal didn't work out, but I went ahead and developed it anyway, as a labour of love I suppose.

It's called DIGITAL RETOUCHING FOR FASHION, BEAUTY AND PORTRAIT PHOTOGRAPHY and it does exactly what it says on the tin. It's all about retouching, and is full of high-end published images... as fashion stories in magazines, covers, advertising, cosmetics campaigns, CD covers. This is the stuff I do for a living. At the moment I mostly do retouching for beauty, celebrity and music. I also train many of my peers, and this has taught me how to communicate the material. My training clients are generally professional photographers, operators, retouchers and art directors.

The book is primarily aimed towards photographic professionals. It’s targeted at those who either focus entirely on the retouching aspect, or photographers who do their own post-production. I think of it as a tool for photographers, assistants, digital operators, retouchers, and anyone who is charged with producing high-quality people-shots that need to stand up to close scrutiny and large output sizes. Based on my experience as a Photoshop trainer, the tutorials should be suitable for all levels. Beginners will have to grow slowly with the book, and I should say that retouching takes a lot of manual and visual practice – as I'm sure you all know.

I won't be contributing loads on this forum – simply because I'm too busy serving my clients, and also because I've said what I have to say in my books. Forgot to mention that I've also written a book on Color Management and on Color Optimization. All the books can be seen on:
http://www.grygarness.com/downloads.htm and my work can of course be seen on www.grygarness.com

I don't know if I've broken any forum rules by posting this here. But I think that this book can be a valuable resource and a great tool for those of you on the forum who retouch people, and especially those who want to learn to retouch in a more editorial, natural-looking way. I've already had an overwhelming amount of sales, and fabulous responses from various people in the business in the 10 days it's been out, but I also want to hear your views. The only negative response I've had (several times) is that it's not out in print. Well I thought you'd like save some money, save some trees, and zoom in on the images. How about that?

allthebest

Gry

Been looking for something like this. Thanks, I'll check it out.

Looks good at first glance. Is there a table of contents available?

I was going to buy the book but when I clicked on the "Buy" button McAfee Site Advisor gave me this:
http://www.siteadvisor.com/phishing.html?domain=http://payloadz.com/go/sip&reason=blacklistref=safe&client_ver=FF_26.5_6258&locale=en-US&premium=false&client_type=FF&aff_id=0

So I think I'll pass.

hey...this looks great...i think i will purchase it

I was going to buy the book but when I clicked on the "Buy" button McAfee Site Advisor gave me this:
http://www.siteadvisor.com/phishing.html?domain=http://payloadz.com/go/sip&reason=blacklistref=safe&client_ver=FF_26.5_6258&locale=en-US&premium=false&client_type=FF&aff_id=0

So I think I'll pass.

DAYUM ARE U SERIOUS??? YEAH I BETTER PASS TOO..what a shame

Hmmm, I don't know. I searched it in Google and it looks legit.

When I was ordering it redirected me to payloadz.com which automatically immediately redirected me to paypal. I verified it was indeed https://www.paypal.com/*** before buying... so... maybe I should change my paypal password anyways just to be safe?

Read up some more on payloadz, seems that this happened before but they're a legit payment company. Although it seems that their customer service is horrible so you might want to find another one :)

Read it at http://www.jonathancoulton.com/2007/08/22/e-junkie-vs-payloadz/ in the comments

ALSO: http://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/0/297/RipOff0297615.htm

by the way, the book looks pretty good at first glance. I'll be reading it more in-depth later and I'll write my thoughts

Hi all

No phishing. I can guarantee that. Full contents listing can be seen when you click on the frontpage image on the website, as well as a small slide show of the images. There's also a short description of the book.

Actually I've been testing and using my payment and downloads system for quite a while now and it works pretty much 100%. The only thing that can be quite annoying with PayPal is when people haven't renewed their expired credit card information, and are not aware of it themselves. This means that the payment is by ECheque which takes over a week to clear, before they get the product. This usually happens when people don't use their PayPal account much... but that's another matter. Still – I have been impressed by how well it works, and if there's any glitch I am of course available for support.

allthebest

Gry

I can also state this is legit. I updated my CC before paying with Paypal, so thanks for the warning.

First impression is positive. It looks very well made. I still need the time to really read it, so I can't give a final verdict yet. (I really miss my full color ePaper reader now :D)

It seems there are pros who aren't afraid loosing their jobs when they give some help. :tongue:

Hi
I bought it. I think that a lot of work went into this book. A lot of HARD work. The images and quality are great. The before and afters are helpful. This book covers so much and all that it does cover I am interested in. I haven't been here in a while and glad I popped in and saw this posting. I can say I highly recommend it and would buy it again.
Charlotte
Yeah I too wish it was a book I could hold because I would be bringing it with me but glad to save the trees.

This looks like a good book.. After going to the web site and checking out the table of contents, I had one question though. Perhaps I looked at it too fast.. but does the author talk about dodge and burning techniques? I would like to hear from those who purchased the book.. Thanks..

Dodging and burning is covered in a couple of different ways, in the Shading tutorial, in one of the two methods for Reduction of Pores, and there's a tutorial about using brushes. But there are alternatives to dodging and burning, such as the Color Adjustment for Smoother Skin. Won't got further into it here, but thought I'd let you know. --- Gry G

May I suggest that it would be useful to have an example chapter or portion of a chapter to download. The preview pages (done in a slide show) are mostly for show and don't really allow one to assess the quality of the content.

I purchased the book. I expected a different kind of discussion regarding dodging and burning.. I am in and out of the retouching industry here in New York as I am a musician (many musicians work in retouching houses in NYC).. I'm always looking to keep my skills up and apply new techniques. In one studio I worked at, I had the pleasure to work alongside a senior high end retoucher who's work finds its way onto many of the top fashion magazines. When it comes to skin, I can honestly say that most of our time was spent dodging and burning and I find that true in many retouching studios across New York.

I was just surprised that type of retouching was barely touched in your book..

That said, your book is freaking awesome. I am constantly amazed at seeing how a guru like yourself approaches their work flow. Even concepts and techniques that I am fully aware of, I love to read from your perspective on your approach.. as often I find that I can learn from others little things that I may over look or just some things I have not considered..

Great job on a wonderful book.. Good luck..

Glad you liked it!
It's true, although I offer at least 3 ways of so-called dodging and burning I don't talk about D&B at great length. Why? Because the principles are essentially simple. Make something lighter... make something darker. Preferably with a safety net and a threshold that stops you from going too far. What I do stress a lot is working with full editability, and developing the visual skills that ensure that you don't go overboard, and don't inadvertently change the shape of the face. I actually dislike the term Dodging and Burning, because I have printed both color and BW in the traditional darkroom for over 10 years, and I must say that the way we use it in retouching is not comparative to the original D&B. If we broaden our minds, a lightening or darkening adjustment layer applied locally through a mask is the same as D&B, whether it's applied with a gradient, a large brush, or a tiny brush. However, I choose to call that Local Color Adjustment – not D&B. For me, the really exciting thing is when you manage to find a way of selecting the problem areas, thereby establishing a threshold for the adjustment, so you can work with bigger brushes. For me, 90% of Photoshop work is color work – even sharpening is essentially a color adjustment. The remaining 10% is just moving pixels around.

I do a lot of work for the music industry, and apart from covers, most of the work has to be done pretty fast. I often get 20-30 press shots of an artist, to do in a day or two. Musicians – as you know – come in all shapes and sizes, and many faces bear evidence of a rock'n roll lifestyle. So I get no time to faff around (as we say here). They have to look perfect, natural, and effortless. All within 30-60 minutes. Often they are male, and there's no way you can make them look plastic fantastic. I would have loved to show you those before/afters but I can't. Their names and faces are too well known.

I thought long and hard about putting out an extract of the book when I released it. I could never find one chapter that summed the whole book up. So I am putting it on Google books instead, where you can see 25%. It might take up to 3 weeks. I have 2 books there already – both on color. They are the top 2 on this list: http://books.google.co.uk/books?q=gry+garness&btnG=Search+Books
---Gry

this looks very interesting, priced right (unlike some $200 plus cd) and I am just about ready to buy it, just hoping the pages are formatted well for printing, I like to have the text in my hand and want to print few pages at the time, especially when I am working on one monitor set up.
Wish you success with this, not many good products on the market.
Peter

It's hi-res printable, and each user can print a copy for themselves. Any distribution of the book is not permissible – neither electronically nor in print. Of course it's Copyrighted and there are complete restrictions on extracting, copying or changing the text. To keep it environmentally friendly I suggest to everyone that you only print what you intend to work on. Save some of that Norwegian Wood for me. (Spoken like the true Norwegian that I am). --- Gry

I hate to ask this question and debated asking it but here it goes.
When running the Digital powder action I get this error message
the command select is not currently available
what am I doing wrong---sorry for having to ask
Char

I can't tell you what you're doing (not psychic quite yet) but I can guess that you're getting a warning saying No Pixels Were Selected ... because you haven't painted the skin in (as the prompts you to do on the Stop). If nothing was painted in, it simply has nothing to select, and Photoshop warns you of this. But I say again – I can only guess at what you're doing, because you don't mention where in the Action it's happening. As I say in the ReadMe I recommend doing the actual tutorial before you do the Action. This action has been tested a thousand times at least, and it works. But do read the tutorial, roll up your sleeves and paint in. I suggest you try it on a flat image first time, just to keep things simple. As I say in the ReadMe for Actions, I cannot provide individual support. Everything is written in the book. It explains it better than I can do by email because you have the screenshots there. Let us know when you've sorted it out. Good luch --- Gry

the only error I get is
the command select is not currently available
its stops on
select tool preset airbrush 100 at 30/30
with the error message
I will try and do the tutorial in the book

Ah, you got to the point where the Action is (almost) done. The preset is not important. Just press Stop or Continue and the Action will stop. The Preset is an optional extra which you can make if you wish. I still think you should read and do the tutorial to get the feel for the values of the filters and the whole procedure.

I am doing the tutorial now. This book is great I absolutely love it.

I purchase it thru paypal and downloaded the 3 ebooks 2 days ago and never got an email about the password. I emailed the author and till now have not recieved a reply, has my 30pounds gone to waste?

I am sorry this has happened. It has happened once before, and may have been caused by spam filters – possibly both yours and mine. I make an effort to look over my spam-filtered emails every day but some might slip through. I will send you the passwords as a private message.

Thanks for letting me know and please confirm that you have got them.

thanks Gry, I've recieved the passwords.

Hello Gry,
I just downloaded the book and took a quick scan from 1 to 190. Looks like an absolutely excellent work! You have covered all of the key areas of this type of retouching in one well wriiten, well illustrated, document. It's really great to have it all in one manual. Best wishes for successful sales.
Regards, Murray

is there a place where images from the book can be downloaded? I have really enjoyed the aspect of being able to work on the same images as presented in number of other Photoshop books, like to see the same effects on my computer.

Due to the nature of the images I'm afraid not. Most of the images are of professional models who would take great exception to being used for training purposes. Retouching is a very sensitive subject, and it's tricky to get permissions from models at at all. There are a few stock images there, but only very few. it should be easy enough for you to find images these days, with royalty-free stock libraries offering images for next to nothing. I suggest you look for images that are not retouched too much though, as I've noticed a tendency in stock to over-smooth the skin. --- Gry

I only just now read this thread, and I'm going to look into purchasing the book, but if you don't mind saying ... do you discuss curves techniques? I've found that some of the best color correcting is done that way, and I'd like to learn more about it. However, thus far, not too many books on the subject. The particulars seem to be a kept secret, else not too many people know much about curves.

@ AFrazier,

If you want a really good book on color correction with curves I highly recommend Dan Margulis's Professional Photoshop 5th Edition. The book doesn't get into retouching per-se as it's written from a pre-press perspective. However, you couldn't ask for a better book for learning how do handle color and contrast in Photoshop which will be essential to your retouching efforts.

Also, looks like Gry has 2 books specifically about color on his website. I have not read them, but I can't imagine a book on color optimization that doesn't deal with curves. 3 e-books for £30 sounds like a good deal considering the positive responses in this thread. I'm just waiting for payday myself...

Curves is for me the most central and the most pure color correction tool. It features in at least 20 of the tutorials, and there are a couple of pages exclusively about Curves. In the Color Optimization book there's much more. When it comes to Curves it's not so much about technique. It's more about understanding how it ticks, and about knowing the primary colors in RGB and CMYK, as well as their effect on brightness. It's also about understanding how to make adjustments that are 100% productive, i.e. if you have a red cast but you want to keep the image bright, you might NOT want to lower the red channel, but instead lift the green and blue. Curves always affect the brightness, so any color moves will have impact on luminance. Mastering Curves is a matter of logic and knowledge. When I've lifted a color cast in Curves, the image always looks sharper, as well as cleaner. I do have one particular method that uses color samplers that I've developed and used for years. It's hard to teach but when people 'get it' they usually love it. However I chose not to feature it in the Retouching book, because I somehow felt it wouldn't fit there. --- Gry

I've actually been working with curves quite a bit. I just want to understand them a little more, particularly in the individual channels. I've found that curves work significantly better than messing with levels, contrast, etc.
With layers and masks, I've even been able to change hair and skin colors with very natural effects. It's slow and tedious sometimes, but accurate down to the pixel in ways that overlays and gradient maps never could be.
Pay day is coming soon. I'll pick up the books. You can never learn too much. Thanks for answering.

Hi All - For those of you who wanted to get a more in-depth taster of the book – just to let you know that Google books has picked up the Retouching book so that you can now see a (random) limited preview of it. It has a feature where you can search for a term, and it will throw up a list of all contexts where the term is found.The other books are also listed there. To see all, go to: http://books.google.co.uk/books?q=gry+garness&btnG=Search+Books allbest Gry

I've known Gry's site and her work for some time - so I had no hesitation in picking up a copy of her books. Having spent some time with them I can say that they're excellently written and presented, demonstrate a high level of know-how and offer great value for money. You're getting expertise and know how from a top retoucher here. Buy them before she puts the price up ;)

One great advantage to the way Gry has delivered the books is that the images in the pdf are high resolution - so you can usefully zoom in well beyond 100% for a close up look - something that's impossible in a printed equivalent of course.

I've no connection to Gry. I'm simply writing as a satisfied customer.

Mike A.

Will these books apply to my use with PS6?

Maureen

Well, it's been a few years since Photoshop 6, and 4 versions since then. Let me try to remember... Colour management was implemented more or less in version 6. Layers were in essence working as they are now, and the blending modes used in the book were already there, but Groups were called Sets and Clipping Masks were called Groups. Tools were much the same but I seem to remember the Healing Brush came in version 7. Lots of other stuff has been implemented in recent versions, and although the principles of retouching will apply equally well to an older version, there will be lots of stuff that just didn't exist in version 7. Unless I'm getting you wrong and you actually mean Photoshop Elements 6. In which case I'd have to say that there's a reason there's a low-price version and a high-price pro version. My books are aimed at pros and they don't refer to Elements at all. So the answer is, you'd get about 60-80% relevance, depending on prior skills, and ability to be flexible. Hope that helps... allbest – Gry

I bought the color and retouch pdfs, really great info in there Gary thanks so much for taking the time to write them.

I have all 3 books and I am very impressed with all them. Currently reading the retouch book and its amazing. I recommended to everyone.
paul

I bought it. Looks good but I have to finish reading it first to make a complete judgment.

Gry, I just bought the book and all I can say is "WOW!" After a cursory glance through, I found the photo on page 117. I love this style and was curious as to the exact effects you used in the book on this image since the images itself doesnt seem to appear in the technique overviews (I hope I didnt overlook it).

Also, any chance of getting a lighting diagram from Andrea?

Thanks!!!!

purcahsed today, will give feedback soon.

umm...read about half of the book. still debating...will come back when im completely done...

Ok after reading the entire book i have to say one word! EXCELLENT!! very clear, concise and lots of great tips and advice. I learn't different ways of approaching things and picked up ways of working which are more efficent and produce better results. Overall everything is simple to understand in a language that is excellent for beginners and intermediates. The only down side is you are not supplied with the images used in the examples to practice on and replicate the tutorial steps. That aside a very good book.

Gry, thank you for this amazing e-book! I absolutely LOVE it, you sure have a lot of talent and knowledge!

ok, finaly after few weeks I had a chance to go through the whole book, initially after reading first 90 pages or so I was on the fence, just like another poster here, but for me it got much better afterwards, I am very happy I got it and the methods used in the book have already helped me. I would recommend this book for beginner and intermediate, if someone is looking for high end, advanced retouching with only non destructive methods, than this one may not be the book for them. If you are a fan of Godmother and her short video, than this is a book for you, many similar techniques properly explained, perhaps with a bit of less emphasis on d&b. Overall very pleased, good value, inexpensive, would probably give it 7.5 out of 10.



With that in mind I find here some weakness, perhaps something to think about for the next edition.



Not having downloadible images is IMO a major weakness, yes I have read Gry's explanation before, but I am sorry, I don't buy it. The images in the book are wonderfull and a joy to look at, but not very helpfull, I would rather deal with less of an image which would give me an option to see that your tutorials do exactly what they say, based on the same image that I can work on. In few instances I didn't have appropriate image handy and spend half an hour looking for an image on my hardrive, in the end simply downloaded one of the images from Eisman's book, I remembered that she had something I need. Many bestsellers have this option, probably for a good reason.



I also find that in some instances the book is a bit all over the place, with some topics touched upon, but obviously they deserve way more attention to explain in debth which is beyond the scope of the book, so why bother, this imo applies to layers explanation, masking (good books on this subject by Eismann).



Despite some weaknesses I find this to be very good buy.



Thank you.

Peter

Thanks for the very positive feedback from several of you here on the forum. My next project will be on montage, which of course involves a lot of layers and masking. Studionewmarket (above) thinks I only touch briefly on Layers and Masking in the beauty book, but I have to say it uses Layers for pretty much every tutorial, explaining how and why they are used in each instance. The introduction to Layers is admittedly quite short (3 pages plus a page on Adjustment layers) but it should be pretty concise, and the use of Layers throughout the book is extensive. The word layer is mentioned 191 times throughout. There are 10 pages dedicated to selections and masking plus 8 tutorials that really go into the nitty-gritty of masking, as well as the general use of masking throughout the tutorials.

I have not supplied images for the following reasons:
The book is a guide to retouching for images destined for press and commercial use. The flat sizes of such images never go lower than 25 mb and will most often be between 40-80 mb. If I supplied one file for each tutorial at 25 mb this would amount to 2 gig. Compressed as decent jpegs it would still probably be 250-400 mb. That's an awful lot of bandwith when it gets busy. Katrin Eismann's images are max 5-6 mb in their open flat state. Fine for consumer training, but not for professional training.

Peter, you say you'd rather have lower quality images and access to the images, and that there are plenty of books that offer that. Exactly – there are many of those, but are there many books for the professionals? I opted to use publishable images (most of them already published) mostly of professional models, putting my money where my mouth is. There is no way I would get permissions to distribute images of these models as practice images, only to see them popping up all over the web with various interpretations! I'd get sued! I start each tutorial with a challenge or image 'problem'. If you haven't got the problem yet, why don't you just skip the tutorials you don't need... until you need them. Just like a cook-book, you can pick and choose the 'recipes' you want to make. Can't get fish that particular day... well then you don't have to make a fish dish. However if you retouch for a while, you should come across all the challenges here.

Sorry I can't supply the fish!

allthebest –– GG

Will there be a printed one insteaded of just ebook later? i would more prefer a printed book actually? please let me know because i am really interested in this book.

buy it and print it out. went to kinkos and printed it out for $11 B&W and filled in with about 20 pages printed in color from my printer. The PDF is nice as you can really zoom in on photos and see things better than if they were in a book.

The book is formatted so you can print what you need, as LEsider suggests. Because CS3 is in the middle of a cycle I doubt if there will be a print version before a possible new edition for CS4. Still – this is only a possibility. Not a sure thing, so don't hold me to it. What do you all think about a DVD version with Quicktime tutorials? Any thoughts? –– GG

Gry,
Just bought the Retouching book. I'll let people know what I think after reading. And yes! I personally prefer Quicktime to books anway.

Looks interesting to me, :) I'm checking it out...

Don't know if im just stupid or blind. But i tried the trick with blur and then distort > diffuse glow and when i remove the diffuse glow from the smart object i see no difference what so ever. So as far as i can tell it is the same as just bluring the image.

Did I do something wrong or?

I think a Ebook is fine with me but i just love the feeling of a priunted book, that's may be just a metter of my personal favourites. :)

Anyway i think i will buy that ebook if there will not be any printed version release.