Photoshop Masking & Compositing

I own the Photoshop Restoration and Retouching 2nd edition by the same author and just about wore it out by using it soo much! Then the author Katrin Eismann cranks out this book!!! I have read this book several times and still refer to it alot if I am in need of help making an composite! I am starting to wear this one out too! This book will help you make masks that will allow you to make your composite very realistic by being able to get fine details such as hair! Not for absolute beginners but if you have patience and are willing to learn by example ( You can download the samples for this book on the book's web site) you will be able to learn the art of making a good composite. The author also tackles the Pen tool. Her advice on this tool alone saved me a lot of frustration. Now I am using it more and more. If you are wanting to make good composites, this book is DEFINATELY worth getting!

Learning to understand and use masks can be one of the most daunting, confusing and overwhelming challenges in Photoshop. Katrin Eismann, one of the leading Photoshop experts in the world has, (in addition to traveling the globe to conduct sell-out Photoshop lectures and workshops), written the most comprehensive five hundred and nineteen page book on the subject of masking and compositing that one could ever imagine. Of course this is not just a book about masking and compositing. Rather, it represents the very personal vision that Katrin demonstrates in everyaspect of her life. This extremely talented photographer, photoretoucher, educator and writer basically takes you by the hand and clearly explains everything you need to know about how this astonishing, complex, ever-changing photographic software program works. Along the way she shares her thoughts about creativity, teaches you about digital photography and cameras and shooting Camera Raw, and covers every other Photoshop topic you will need to know more about. Katrin also makes you laugh. She generously concludes all of the chapters with "closing thoughts" that sound like they were written for you personally, and includes notes and tips on virtually every page that anticipate every question you could possibly have. Where else could you find a Chapter heading like: "Masks Are Your Friends" or find a Photoshop author who offers advice on "Overcoming a Creative Block"? In this latest of her highly regarded books, Katrin has done a brilliant job simplifying an enormous amount of information. She prepares the reader well for approaching the sophisticated Photoshop techniques provided throughout the book. The hundreds of color photographs and graphics provide perfect examples for every lesson and the images can be quickly downloaded for the reader's use from Katrin's extremely informative website. This book is a treasure. I study it night and day, frequently show examples from it to my Graphic Design students at Parsons School of Design, and even bought a second copy so I could cut it up and carry separate chapters aound with me. If you really want to learn Photoshop, you will find this to be the book of your dreams!

I agree with each of the reviews which predate this one. Katrin Eismann has written a wonderful book, the very best on the specialized techniques involved in building photo composites since some much earlier texts which accompanied the debut of layer masks and adjustment layers (in and around about the Adobe Photoshop version 4 era). A couple of observations of my own are: 1. that the worked examples in the book cover a wide range of potential applications from commercial graphics (for advertising, web design, etc., inclusive of some useful short-cuts) all the way to fine art photographic projects, 2. nevertheless, the author is not afraid to issue a challenge (or two) to some of the "conventional wisdoms" which have firmed-up in the world of digital photography, 3. that the book works well on at least three fronts: -- the detailed description of many multi-step techniques (including criteria for pre-judging which is the likely best technique for the task at hand), -- an encouragement for the faint-hearted to just keep going (the possibilities in traveling between original image inputs and satisfaction with the composite output are, after all, truly limitless), and, -- following from this, that the book is one of the few Photoshop treatises which truly "gets" the foundation that the very best outputs result from some type of pre-visualization (where the reader is encouraged to veer away from working restrictively, either in terms of composing just one photographic input image or of gaining just a specific visual effect from Photoshop, by which she or he will miss the opportunity to have the two activities work in a complementary way). If I had any criticism at all it would be that in a book of 500+ pages, and priced at $50+, no space could be made to cover the utility of third-party plug-ins for Photoshop (as they could augment the assembly and finishing of photo composite images). But, given the scope of what is accomplished within the worked examples presented throughout the entire book, this is a very minor detraction.

Every book I've read by Katrin Eismann has been very good. Even so, This one was better than I expected. Katrin has designed the book so it could be used as a textbook for Photoshop teachers. There are files to go with the book and its lessons available for download over the internet. You can use these files to do the lesson projects she has throughout the book. This was true with her book on photo restoration and retouching, as well. As the title suggests, she gives excellent information on making masks in Photoshop. She gives you the theory, so you can better understand how masks work, and then gives you lots of techniques for creating masks. Often, masks are required to extract a person or an object from the background of a photo, so you can composite it into another photo. She gives excellent tutorials on doing this, including how to preserve hair and fine detail. We all know how much more real a composite looks when you are able to capture those stray hairs. It's all about selecting those fine details with out selecting the unwanted stuff. She gives you several selection strategies that you can use in different situations. She also gives you strategies for using the pen tool to create complex paths and combine paths. And there is a selection technique called the "multi-pass" technique (page 300). In the compositing section, she devotes the first part to image execution, showing you how to design your photo shots for compositing. And gives some good advice in "Photographic Essentials." I was blown away by a project she showed in which some books were composited in with buildings, matching perspective to make them fit perfectly. See page 416 for the final result, and read the pages preceding it to see how it was done. I was even more impressed with another project that begins on page 431. In that project, there is an ordinary photo of two people fencing in the woods at a medieval faire. The end of the project results in a dramatic photo with beautiful lighting. She also covers alternatives for achieving results, such as sharpening a photo with High Pass instead of Unsharp Mask. This is a great book for someone who wants to improve their Photoshop skills. You probably should be an intermediate level user, able to understand all of the basics of Photoshop if you want to use this book.

I have been stationed with the U.S. Army in Germany and have been trying to teach myself Photoshop for quite a long time. I have bought numerous training tapes, DVD's, and books. One of the most confusing issues to me was masking and compositing. It seemed each tape, DVD, and book explained each briefly and differently to the point it was confusing. I was searching for a training tool which would clairify masking and compositing issues and would include all the related issues together in one single source. I was so delighted when I received Katrin's book. The minute I thumbed through the pages I knew this was the tool I had been searching for! This book covers it all and there would be no reason to purchase any other item to obtain info regarding these subjects. The only thing which could improve on this book would be if Katrin would make DVD's to supplement the book. She provides one of the best explanations I have read regarding use of the pen tool which can be quite intimidating. In addition, she provides an equally excellent explanation of selecting hair and fine detail which can also be quite complex. I have been experimenting with blue/green screen techniques and could never really find a good source of material for this as it relates to Photoshop and guess what, she covers this too! What I really like about her book is that she covers ALL aspects of a particular subject and not just part. I have been so disappointed with most of the other photoshop tapes, DVD's and books but not this one. The book is recommended for intermediate to advanced level but I think it would also be good for the beginner level because he/she would not have to waste a lot of time and money procuring other resources to learn this subject matter. This book is fantastic and I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to learn photoshop masking and compositing techniques.