Product Description

Achieving accurate skin tones is one of the most challenging tasks in digital photography. Master this challenge with professional photographer Lee Varis as he covers a range of skin: women and men, young and old, various tones, in–studio and outdoors, tattoos, and more. His step–by–step tutorials and before–and–after illustrations demonstrate various techniques for topics such as digital–specific lighting challenges and what can and cannot be done in post–process.

A free CD–ROM accompanies the book and contains sample image files to use while following the tutorials, plus equipment recommendations and technical reference materials that enhance and reinforce the instruction.

Order your copy of this practical guide today and get a complete start–to–finish approach to integrating everything from posing models to shooting and retouching candid scenes.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #30625 in Books
• Published on: 2006-10-31
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 432 pages

From the Back Cover
What is the color of skin?

A practical guide to photographing people in the digital age

It′s one thing to snap someone′s picture. It′s another thing entirely to capture the essence that made you reach for your camera in the first place. Now a top Hollywood pro shares his secrets for the digital capture of human skin in all its variety: young, old, male, female, different skin tones and ethnicities, with makeup or without—even tattooed skin!

Using step–by–step tutorials and stunning full–color examples, industry expert Lee Varis teaches it all: the basics of digital imaging, essential tricks to shooting indoors and out, how to light your subjects in any pose, and much more. Above all, you′ll find out why the color of skin that′s best for final output is almost always a departure from reality.

Topics include:

• Starting with the right hardware and software settings
• Developing your digital color "chops"
• Mastering Rembrandt lighting and other basic techniques
• Overcoming common digital skin problems, such as too much red
• Adjusting skin tones to withstand nearby colors like green grass
• Faking tattoos and photographing the real thing
• Trimming the fat, lighting up the eyes, and filling in wrinkles
• Adding soft focus, retouching, and other advanced Photoshop® techniques
• Discovering what can and what can′t be done in post–process

Follow the tutorials in the book with numerous before–and–after sample image files on the companion CD. You′ll also find technical reference materials to enhance and reinforce your learning.

• Know how to soften wrinkles and change shapes—and when not to!
• Beautifully color–balance every skin tone
• Brilliantly light any number of subjects in any location

About the Author
Lee Varis, a Hollywood photo–illustrator, has been involved in commercial photography for three decades. His images have been featured in National Geographic, Newsweek, and Fortune magazines, and both his writing and photography have been featured in trade journals such as PDN, New Media, and others. His pictures have appeared on movie posters, video box covers, and CD covers, and in numerous brochures and catalogues. He has been a seminar instructor with APA, PPA, Julia Dean Photographic Workshops, and Apple Computer.

Customer Reviews

Simply amazing
This is a book that unveils a lot of the secrets of professional photography retouching with a strong focus on Photoshop. Also includes various studio lighting set-ups and tips. It also shows you how to do that realistic yet strong retouching of skin that you always wanted to know how to do. Recommended for anyone who does post-processing in Photoshop and would like to make the best use of it.

Missing The Point
This is really a book that tries to be a digital photography book, and then a photoshop book, and finally adds a few comments about skin. I wanted to know about skin tones in RGB, CMYK and Lab colour. I wanted to know about skin tones for different races. I wanted to know how photoshop plugins like Imagenomic Portraiture actually work. I wanted to know all the stuff I know that I don't know about skin tones. This book could have been all those things, but isn't. I learned much, much more about it all in the "Canyon Conundrum" book - this book gave me very little considering how many pages of it there are.

Ultimate skin
Let's face it taking a good photograph is now only part of the story, to make a great image now requires a good grasp of retouching techniques. Skin is an incredible book full of sensible advice & professional techniques on making great images from your photographs. If you take portrait/people shots regularly, and retouch them this book is a good investment.