Digital Retouching and Compositing: Photographers' Guide (Power!)

Written from a photographer's point of view, "Digital Retouching and Compositing: Photographers' Guide" solves every snap-shooter's real-life problems painlessly. It distills complex topics down to a few pages of explanation and easy steps so users can quickly and dramatically change the way photos look. The book is divided into three parts: Mastering the Basics, Practical Retouching, and Compositing Magic. Each section builds on the last so that readers can become comfortable with making precise selections, doing simple retouching, and adjusting tones and colors before jumping into major topics like retouching portraits or creating realistic composites.

On December 30, 2006, David D. Busch had an unprecedented 11 different books ranked in the Top 100 of Amazon.com's Digital Photography Best Seller list. These included four books in the Top 12 (#7: Mastering Digital SLR Photography; #8: Nikon D200 Digital Field Guide; #9: Digital SLR Cameras and Photography for Dummies; #12 Nikon D50 Digital Field Guide.) He had five more books ranked in the Top 50, and two ranked between 50-100. When Michael Carr of About.com named the top five digital photography books for beginners, the #1 and #2 choices were his Course Technology book Mastering Digital Photography, and Digital Photography All-in-One Desk Reference for Dummies. Busch has combined writing and photography his entire career. A former newspaper photographer, he was invited to move to Rochester, N.Y. to work on the Eastman Kodak Company account, writing several thousand articles for leading photography magazines such as The Rangefinder, The Professional Photographer, and Petersen's PhotoGraphic. He also operated his own commercial studio and photo lab and was a sports photographer/sports information director for a Rochester college. Four years later, he became a traveling photojournalist, visiting 48 of the 50 states and several foreign countries in a 20-year span, writing articles illustrated with his photographs. For the past 15 years Busch has concentrated on books and magazine articles (for publications like Popular PhotographyandImaging), with a special emphasis on imaging topics. He has reviewed digital cameras for CNet Networks and Computer Shopper, in 1990 wrote one of the first books on scanners and in 1995 authored one of the earliest books on digital photography (Digital Photography, MIS Press, 1995.) Two of the 98 books Busch has written since 1983 earned "Best Book" honors at the Computer Press Awards.

1. Retouching and Compositing from 50,000 Feet 2. Selecting Objects and Backgrounds 3. Cloning, Patching, and Healing 4. Adjusting Tones 5. Adjusting Color 6. Simple Retouching Techniques 7. Retouching Portraits 8. Creating Duotones, Tritones, Grayscale, and Colorizations 9. Photo Restorations 10. Simple Cropping and Combining Techniques 11. Compositing to Improve a Picture 12. Invisible Compositing 13. Fantasy Compositing 14. Compositing and Retouching in Advertising