Retouching Old Photographs is described as "a comprehensive guide to preservation and enhancement without unnecessary embellishment or fakery." It describes the damage that you often find on old photos, including flat lighting, scarred, torn, overexposed, underexposed, smudged, stained, faded, scratched, dust spots, and all other mishaps that befall aged photographs. This CD-ROM then tells how to enhance old and damaged photographs by scanning and then enhancing the computer images. The primary tool used in this tutorial is Adobe Photoshop. The CD-ROM describes the use of Photoshop for repairing not only old photographs, but also old printed art and even deteriorating printed documents.

Retouching Old Photographs is a book on CD-ROM. It was written in a word processor of some sort; pictures, screen shots, and illustrations were added electronically, and then the result was "printed" electronically as a series of Adobe Acrobat .PDF files. I used a Windows XP system to view Retouching Old Photographs CD-ROM although I know that Macintosh, Linux, UNIX and other systems usually can read PDF files as well.

This CD-ROM is very simple to use; simply insert it into your CD-ROM drive and go. There is no software to install if you already have the Adobe Acrobat Reader software installed. This is very popular software used by many CD-ROM and online products, so you may already have it. If not, the Windows and Macintosh versions of Adobe Acrobat are included on the CD-ROM disk. Other versions may be downloaded at no charge from Adobe’s Web site at: www.adobe.com.

Retouching Old Photographs is divided into three major sections:

• "Organization" deals with protecting and organizing scanned photographs
• "Techniques" provides information on detailed scanning and the use of Adobe Photoshop. The actions illustrated include cropping, adjusting brightness and contrast, correcting oversaturation, eliminating light and dark streaks, as well as fine tuning the density range.
• "Projects" includes specific projects for repairing and correcting a variety of defects in old photographs, artwork and documents.

The Projects section has one part that will be of interest to readers of this newsletter: "Designing Genealogy Layouts" describes genealogy projects that use family charts with old photographs. It describes how to use color, scenes, documents, and a variety of page layouts. A number of illustrations are included on the CD-ROM disk.

Finally, the "Further Resources" addendum provides a list of books, directories, periodicals, societies, and Internet addresses where the reader can find more information.

The entire CD-ROM is easy-to-read and has numerous pictures, drawings, and screenshots that illustrate points made in the text. The on-screen layout is visually pleasing, which adds to the readability. Mike Kiteley, the presenter of this CD, is a professional photographer of many years as well as a highly qualified user of Adobe Photoshop. The quality of his work shows in this excellent CD-ROM publication.

I found this to be an educational and useful "book on CD-ROM." I especially enjoyed looking at the hundreds of old photographs that the author used to illustrate the points made. Mike Kiteley not only tells how to do the "techie" things, but he also describes how to build entire stories along with the old photographs, documents, and charts. As a result, you can make family history live again.

I will point out that, as the title implies, this is a CD-ROM disk that describes the use of Adobe Photoshop. No other graphics program is ever mentioned. If you use Adobe Photoshop or are thinking of obtaining it, this CD-ROM will be an excellent tutorial in the finer points of the program.

Retouching Old Photographs: Photoshop Methods and Solutions is an excellent educational tool for anyone interested in the subject. Genealogists will especially appreciate its section on Designing Genealogy Layouts.

Retouching Old Photographs: Photoshop Methods and Solutions sells for $29.95 (U.S. funds) and is available directly from the publisher, SunShine Press Publications. The company offers a secure Web site where you may safely order products with the use of a credit card.

For more information about Retouching Old Photographs: Photoshop Methods and Solutions, go to: www.sunshinepress.com/rop-base.htm.

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