Commercial Photoshop Retouching: In the Studio

Preface

I retouch photographs for a living. Commercial Photoshop Retouching: In the Studio is a collection of techniques and advice for using Photoshop to retouch pictures in a professional environment. Of course, the techniques discussed can be applied to any image for any purpose, but the specific examples here are the types of things I might be asked to do for a client on any given day. It's my hope that you can use what you learn here in your work at a pre-press shop, an ad agency, or an in-house design department. Or you can use them on your own images to really make them stand out from the crowd.

My Assumptions About You

I'm assuming that you want to create professional-looking retouched images in the most efficient and realistic way. When I say efficient, I mean that while Photoshop CS2 is a powerful application chock full of fancy tools, sometimes I find that the easiest and quickest way of getting the job done is with simple tools, a creative sensibility, and a technique honed in the trenches of meeting client deadlines. When I say realistic, I mean that although your images may contain fantastic or unreal subject matter, they shouldn't look obviously retouched.

I'm also assuming that you have a general familiarity with Photoshop. You don't need to be completely up to speed with CS2, but you need to have a general idea of how to open files, find the needed tools, initiate basic commands, and use the tools in Photoshop with some comfort and confidence. You don't need to have the latest, or even second-most recent version of Photoshop. While I have discussed a couple of features of CS2 where they are applicable, in general I am "old school." And most of the techniques I use can be done with older versions of Photoshop.

I should also mention that I use a Mac. Just so you know, I actually started off on a Mainframe computer running a proprietary computer language, then to a DOS-based PC, Windows, then Unix, and finally Mac. I assume if you use a PC, you are savvy enough to figure out that you can generally substitute the Control key for the Apple (Command) key. The key thing I'm trying to teach this book is the technique, not the specific shortcuts for tools.