Skin: The Complete Guide to Digitally Lighting, Photographing, and Retouching Faces and Bodies

Skin: The Complete Guide to Digitally Lighting, Photographing, and Retouching Faces and Bodies I just finished reading Skin: The Complete Guide to Digitally Lighting, Photographing, and Retouching Faces and Bodies, a wonderful book for Adobe® Photoshop® enthusiasts. Although I would only consider myself an intermediate user of Photoshop, I found Lee Varis' book immensely helpful, and I highly recommend it to all those who photograph people. Chapter 1: Digital Imaging Basics is a brief introduction to digital imaging basics. It quickly covers chips and pixels as well as dynamic ranges. Furthermore, Varis covers JPEG artifacts, cameras, memory cards, computers and monitor calibration. He finishes the chapter with a discussion on Photoshop preferences. Chapter 2: Color Management Workflow, and Calibration is as the title suggests. The first few pages provide a high level overview of workflow management. Then Varis discusses color and light calibration. I must admit, he does have a rather funky looking set up of test targets that include the GretagMacBeth 24 patch plus Styrofoam cutouts and black traps. Varis provides a lengthy and detailed discussion on his calibration method. He also mentions that he prefers 8 bit processing as opposed to 16 bit. Moreover, he comments on the popular expose to the right practice. ::::The idea is good theory but bad practice because the histogram cannot tell you where you are placing your tones with any precision, and it can't tell you whether the histogram is appropriate for the subject. (What picture goes with this histogram?) The camera's histogram is only a general indication of the distribution of values in the camera-generated JPEG. It is usually a composite of all three channels. The RAW data has a much wider distribution of tones that will vary in each channel, so you may not know if you are clipping important data in the Red Channel simply by looking at the histogram display on the camera.:::: Chapter 3: Lighting and Photographing People is an overview of lighting. Varis uses different configurations of lights and reflectors to demonstrate various effects. The photographs contained in the book are helpful to understanding the concepts discussed. Chapter 4: The Color of Skin teaches the reader about proper skin tones. Varis introduces how to use curves effectively as well as how to adjust skin tones by using the CMYK values. He then finishes the chapter with a discussion on cultural and personal preferences. What one group of people might desire, others might oppose. So it is important to understand your audience. Chapter 5: Tone and Contrast: Color and B+W is an extremely interesting chapter because it discusses how to create B+W conversions and how B+W conversions can create better color photos. The first few pages discuss the channel mixer and split channels to obtain stunning B+W conversions. Next, Varis teaches the reader how B+W image can be used in luminosity blending to darken, lighten, and rec

Lee Varis has written a superb treatise - and that's what it is - on "digitally lighting, photographing, and retouching faces and bodies". He joins a short list of Katrin Eismann and Steve Caplain as the best teachers of Photoshop I am aware of. Eismann has written books on retouching and masking that are absolutely essential. Caplain has written the bible on Photoshop montage. Varis has written the last word on on photographing people in the digital age. One aside: all three of these authors are to be thanked for not attempting to be comedians along the lines of Scott Kelby, Deke McClelland and Russell Brown. Where this business of Photoshop authors trying to be "funny" started is unknown, but it is a ghastly thing when the author truly isn't funny. Anyway, Varis covers the waterfront here, when it comes to photographing people. Everything. Color. Lighting. Correction. Retouching. Printing. In all, this book is about making the most of the people you photograph. Profusely illustrated, Varis takes the reader step-by-step through each and every process. There are a lot of Photoshop books out there, but few truly great ones. This is one of the few. Jerry

It probably says more about me than the book that I found a title which applies to something that surrounds every person provocative. However, it's likely that advanced Photoshop users will find something provocative in this book The book is aimed at photographers who know the basics of photography, including exposure, and the use of Photoshop including layers and masks. The author's emphasis is on portraits and people photography and how to get the most from photographs of these subjects. Although the author spends a little time looking at hardware like digital cameras and at basic portrait lighting techniques, his main concern is with post processing. The author's stated aim is to fill the gaps left by other books, like the reproduction of dark skin. And he does this in many ways that I haven't seen before. For example he suggests better skin colors can be achieved by looking at the CMYK readings and applying a rule of thumb. (If you don't know what CMYK is, this book isn't for you.) Varis suggests that for Caucasians magenta and yellow should be of approximately equal value, with cyan a fourth to a third of the value. Images of African Americans should have a higher percentage of cyan and magenta. He then tells you how to make these adjustments. He also shows how to make tone and contrast adjustments for both color and black-and=white images. The author devotes a chapter to retouching, showing the reader how to ease those wrinkles and even do a little tummy tuck in Photoshop. He also devotes space to special effects, but he emphasizes alteration of the image not to tell lies, so much as to give effect to the photographer's vision. There is also a chapter on preparing output for print. Most of the techniques that Varis shows are attempts at improvements on simpler Photoshop techniques. For example in the chapter on preparing for printing, he describes a method of improving on the usual unsharp mask sharpening. He does this by adding two additional layers that allow individual control of the prominence of the light halos and the dark halos that are the essence of unsharp mask. Application of these techniques requires effort above and beyond normal Photoshop processing. How useful they will be depends on the amount of work you are willing to invest in an image, although most of the techniques could certainly be embedded in actions. Equally important is the question of your own ability to envision when to employ a particular technique to improve your work. An alternate consideration might be your willingness to experiment with several techniques to see which will benefit you. The book includes a CD with the images used as examples in the book. I recommend that you read chapter 9 of the book which discusses these images before any other chapter. Then unzip the folders they come in into a new folder and follow along with the book. Often the changes are subtle and more easily seen on a monitor as they are made than on the pr

A guide for digitally photographing people, Skin, is a valuable reference. Although the author, Lee Varis, is a Hollywood photo-illustrator, Skin is much more than a guide in how to remove a pimple and a double chin. Frankly, I think the book sells itself short by implying that it is a source which only applies to photographing people. It covers every aspect of photographing people that an amateur photographer would ever need, but many of the techniques described apply to all aspects of digital photography. The CD which comes with the book is filled with additional photographs and is very helpful as a back-up, visual aid. The multitude of subtleties (Did you know that larger pupils make a person appear "warmer and friendlier"?) which separate a nice digital portrait from a fabulous one are described in depth and in a language easy to understand. For the curious who have always wondered how some photographers can make their subject look so much better than they do in person, or for those who have entered the world of digital photography themselves, Skin is a "must have" resource.

How many times have you taken a photograph that was "almost perfect"? You know what I mean. Either there's something in the background you didn't notice, a shadow or blemish on someone's face, or worse yet, it's the best photograph you've ever had taken of yourself, but your stomach was sticking out. As someone who has worked with Photoshop pretty regularly for a few years, I'm happy to say I can remedy most of those situations. Although I've used 'Photoshop for Dummies' and it has been helpful, 'Skin' offers suggestions most photographers never even though about. It was mostly through creativity and tenacity that Photoshop worked fairly well for me. It wasn't until I read 'Skin' that I realized I was working entirely too hard to achieve the effects I was after. Achieving appropriate skin tones is no longer guess work, eliminating or softening facial lines is a snap, and balancing colors throughout the photo has become a mandatory element. Trial and error is no longer a prerequisite in my photography. Author Lee Varis offers more information than I will ever use as an amateur. However, whether or not I ever incorporate all this information into my photography, it was fascinating to read about how easily it's all done. For me, the portrait "tricks" alone make this book worth while. I plan to keep it on my desk and use it every time I work on a photo.