Katrin Eismanns book 'Restoration & Retouching'

[HILDA WOOD]

Anyone out there with this superb book might be able to help me with a slight problem right at the end of the book.
Page 441 - After applying a curve and lowering the highlights down to darken the image, you are told to 'with white as the foreground colour - select the gradient tool - choose the white to transparent gradient and then draw a number of gradients well outside the image toward the centre. When I do this nothing happens, but then drawing a white gradient on a white mask I wouldnt really expect it to.
Im obviously missing something very basic.
Can anyone help?
Ali

[mistermonday]

Hi Hilda,
What Katrin failed to point out, but perhaps assumed readers would realize, is that after you add the Curve Adj layer, you need to hit Ctrl+I to invert the layer mask to make it black. What this does is completely hide the darkening you just did with the curve, so that it leaves the image looking as bright as it did before your curve adj layer was added. Now by applying a white to transparent gradient from the edges inward, you are whitening the perimeter of the mask allowing the curve's darkening to be applied. Wherever the gradient is transparent will leave the layer mask black and therefore will hide the effects of the curve. Hope that helps,
Regards, Murray

[HILDA WOOD]

Hi Murray,
Oh dear, now I feel silly. Thats just so obvious. Must be having a bad day. Thank you for your help.
Must find another book like Katrin's but it will be a hard act to follow.
Regards
Hilda

[DCobb]

I have three of her books and I have found things that just don't seem to work. However, was not a member of RetouchPRO when I did this book.

dc

[mistermonday]

Hilda, if you have not yet purchased her book called Photoshop Masking and Compositing, you should. Really worth it and then some!
Regards, Murray

[Gary Richardson]

You've gotta ask, why didn't she just use a graduated mask. Black/White

I haven't looked at the book so there may be some obvious reason I'm missing, but from what I've just read in this thread, it seems she's doing things the hard way.

[mistermonday]

Gary, she is creating a vignette but not a uniform circular one. She is slectively unmasking parts of the image. With the gradient not fading to transparency the areas of black that need to be protected will get covered in white and vice verse.
regards, Murray

[sergio2263]

I bought katrin Eismanns book third edition I found i just cannot follow her tutorial i've had to put the book away for now perhaps i need to concentrate more but i just cannot grasp the way she wrote her tutorial everything seems unfinished.



sergio

http://www.pbase.com/mstmart

[Gary Richardson]

Originally Posted by mistermonday

Gary, she is creating a vignette but not a uniform circular one. She is slectively unmasking parts of the image. With the gradient not fading to transparency the areas of black that need to be protected will get covered in white and vice verse.
regards, Murray

Thanks Murray , that's what you get from reading things out of context. Really must dig up Katrin's book, I know I've got it somewhere in the house.

[BenHardy]

Personally, I 'd have to agree with sergio2263. I find the book: 'Photoshop Masking and Compositing' to be rather flawed. I find her step by step instructions either miss out vital operations or simply do not work as stated. Some of her operations for masking seem pretty pointless. She takes you through a bunch of operations to increase contrast between the object and the background and then you find that you have to carefully paint around objects anyway. Not impressed.

[sergio2263]

Originally Posted by BenHardy

Personally, I 'd have to agree with sergio2263. I find the book: 'Photoshop Masking and Compositing' to be rather flawed. I find her step by step instructions either miss out vital operations or simply do not work as stated. Some of her operations for masking seem pretty pointless. She takes you through a bunch of operations to increase contrast between the object and the background and then you find that you have to carefully paint around objects anyway. Not impressed.

Hi BenHardy,

I am glad someone agrees with me regarding Katrin Eismann's book, her book the third edition Restoration and Retouching which i've paid £35.99 on page 26 there is a very badly torn and damaged photo of a house which she shows the before and after but there are no tutorial at all to show how she's achieve the results of restoring this badly damaged photo all she went on about on two pages about computer,tables,chairs,CPU, Bus Speed, Ram etc etc, it's unbelievable also i came across 3 tutorials which i found on the net written by other people which she has in the book again no finish everything just stop in mid sentences. I feel cheated and cannot believe how people says about her books being the best to learn about photoshop.


regards


sergio

[BenHardy]

Well my post referred to her book: 'Masking and Compositing' which, although not incomplete, seems a little shoddy.
Many of her instructions assume prior knowledge of Photoshop procedures and seem to expect that, if she misses out a step then readers will just know what she means them to do, even if she doesn't bother to mention it..
I for one expect full and detailed instructions and as a tutor I'm aware that one must, when outlining procedures, assume that the reader is a complete numbskull and should not be expected to guess.
As such, I find it odd that her books are so highly recommended.
It's not all bad of course but just a shame that some of the procedures were not checked properly.

[sergio2263]

Originally Posted by BenHardy

Well my post referred to her book: 'Masking and Compositing' which, although not incomplete, seems a little shoddy.
Many of her instructions assume prior knowledge of Photoshop procedures and seem to expect that, if she misses out a step then readers will just know what she means them to do, even if she doesn't bother to mention it..
I for one expect full and detailed instructions and as a tutor I'm aware that one must, when outlining procedures, assume that the reader is a complete numbskull and should not be expected to guess.
As such, I find it odd that her books are so highly recommended.
It's not all bad of course but just a shame that some of the procedures were not checked properly.

Hi Ben

And my post referred to the Restoration and Retouching Third Edition suppose to be the must have book. I am a complete newbie to photoshop first ever layed my hands on photoshop 5 months ago Katrin does explain all the tools how they work etc but when it come to the tutorials about restoring it is nil point very confusing she never finish explaining on how to completely restore a photo. I was so looking forward to the book thinking it would make a pro out of me no chance i am still learning bits and pieces from this forum or the net. I am very grateful and thanks very much to all Pros in this forum and the net to give so much help and advice for free.

regards



sergio

http://www.pbase.com/mstmart

[Manorts]

I dislike going against the grain but I love the book. I do agree some things are a little difficult to grasp and some examples did not seem to work too well for me. But she is a lot smarter than me so I guess I did not understand her instructions.
In her introduction to the book on page three, she makes it pretty clear the book in not for a novice to Photoshop.
The one thing I have learnt is that I have to be really patient and not expect instant results. I am working my way through the book little by little. I do not turn the page until I have fully understood the page I just read. It works well for me. I bought the book six months ago and am already up to page 48

[klassylady25]

If you have difficulty with KE books, Ctein's book isn't laid out as well. Both excellent, just a matter of how far you are in your learning curve.

[mtunstall]

I agree with Manorts, Katrin's R&R book is very good, It has the presumption that the reader has an understanding of PS and progresses from there. As you progress you realise that Katrin does not repeat all the processes in detail but concentrates on what is special in the examples. There are also examples of other's work which look to be illustrations of what can be achieved with the techniques being shown.
I refer to the book all the time and see it as a valuable aid.

[dianajenna]

I have never read one of her books, but I do have her DVD on restoration. So, obviously, there isn't the problem of her not finishing any steps, because she has to finish during a "live" tutorial. It's pricey; I think it was $160.00. I really have learned a lot from it. The only complaint I would have, I guess, is that the example photos are not in really bad shape. In other words, I would like to see her fix a reallllllly awful picture, like the ones I get sometimes.

Diana

[klassylady25]

You should see some of the dooseys we get through Operation Photo Rescue... They are realllllly awful as you say.

[katew]

I like the book in general (I have Restoration and Retouching), but I agree that she does take the long way round sometimes. For example (I've only just started the book and am about a quarter of the way through), she shows how to bring out detail from dark areas of a photo by selecting the luminosity, but I found I can do the job just as well and a lot more quickly with a simple S curve in the curves menu. But maybe for some photos, her way would work better than an S curve?

[BelindaA]

I am looking at purchasing either Ctein or Katrins books, can anyone point me in the direction of one or the other?
I have basic to medium PS skills and advanced computer skills.. so I should be able to muddle through quite a bit, but would still like some handholding
At the moment I am working on my own family photographs (some of those dreadful yellow 70's shots etc) but I want to learn the right processes as I would love to take this further in the future! From whats been said so far I am leaning to Katrin....
any advice much appreciated... thanks!

[dianajenna]

By the way, does anyone know how to pronounce her name? Is it "Kat' rin" or "Ka trin'"? In other words, is the emphasis on the 1st or 2nd syllable?

Just wondering.

Thanks!
Diana

[cricket1961]

It is pronounced "Katreen"

Chris

[dianajenna]

Thank you Chris. It seems so obvious now. I'm pretty sure I've heard someone with that name before at some time.

Diana

[Manorts]

Originally Posted by BelindaA

I am looking at purchasing either Ctein or Katrins books, can anyone point me in the direction of one or the other?
I have basic to medium Photoshop skills and advanced computer skills.. so I should be able to muddle through quite a bit, but would still like some handholding
At the moment I am working on my own family photographs (some of those dreadful yellow 70's shots etc) but I want to learn the right processes as I would love to take this further in the future! From whats been said so far I am leaning to Katrin....
any advice much appreciated... thanks!

That is the exact situation I was in last year. I looked for the answer for 6 months and everywhere I looked, reference was always (well 90% of the time) made to Katrin Eismanns book 'Restoration & Retouching.
It formed the opinion it was the industry's restoration & retouching Bible.
As far as learning the "right processes", I do not think there are any. Have a look through some of the posts in the Help forum. You might get half a dozen members retouch a pretty ordinary photo, some really brilliant, but they all use different methods.

[BelindaA]

Originally Posted by Manorts

That is the exact situation I was in last year. I looked for the answer for 6 months and everywhere I looked, reference was always (well 90% of the time) made to Katrin Eismanns book 'Restoration & Retouching.
It formed the opinion it was the industry's restoration & retouching Bible.
As far as learning the "right processes", I do not think there are any. Have a look through some of the posts in the Help forum. You might get half a dozen members retouch a pretty ordinary photo, some really brilliant, but they all use different methods.

Thanks Manorts! they are both pretty costly to get here in Australia, so I can only get the one at this time, and its REALLY helpful to have your opinion

[Manorts]

Keep an eye out at citysoftware. They are by far the cheapest that I found. Only $50 but they are out of stock at the moment.

[JayNads]

I've read a number of Photoshop books, and although Katrin's are way up at the top. She teaches a solid foundation. While she sometimes seems to be teaching (as Katew says) the long way around, what I believe she's doing is teaching technique. There are a dozen ways to achieve a similar end result in Photoshop, and she tries to teach most of them. True, sometimes there's a faster way to fix an image than the method she shows, but that's not the point. She's just showing one of many ways.

As for not offering instruction on all of the images, there are times where she just can't. Some images take so many steps to complete that writing the steps up just isn't practical. I think the point is that by utilizing some of the techniques, she is suggesting what is possible.

I have read about two dozen PS books (and probably left a hundred others in the bookstore because I saw they were useless), and Katrin's are the ones I most reference. Sure, I've gotten a lot out of Dan Margulis, but without first reading Katrin, his books would be gibberish.

There are many books out there that do a reader a disservice. The author goes for humor or seems to actually try to keep people in the dark with partial information. Then there are those authors who have something to say but haven't released an updated version of their book since PS6 (Chris, are you listening?).

If anyone finds a book out there that they believe is really better, I really am interested to know - I've been looking for years and - thanks to her work - coming up short.

[katew]

Originally Posted by JayNads

While she sometimes seems to be teaching (as Katew says) the long way around, what I believe she's doing is teaching technique. There are a dozen ways to achieve a similar end result in Photoshop, and she tries to teach most of them. True, sometimes there's a faster way to fix an image than the method she shows, but that's not the point. She's just showing one of many ways.

That's what I meant when I said that her way might work better on some photos. The way I did it was quicker, using the S curve, but her method might work better on a different photo. I think if you know a variety of ways to do any given process, you can choose the one that works best for the particular image you are working on.