Photoshop for Astrophotographers by Jerry Lodriguss.

This book is a guide to basic digital correction and advanced enhancement techniques for
astrophotos in Adobe® Photoshop® image-processing software.

Whether you are a beginning amateur astrophotographer, or a seasoned veteran, you will
learn
new and exciting techniques to produce visually stunning images!

Digital processing allows us to bring out all of the detail and color contained in an original
exposure and turn it into a beautiful and breathtaking image.

Cheap, fast home personal computers and programs such as Photoshop have opened a new
world of digital enhancement possibilities for both film and CCD astrophotographers. Now,
with
image processing software, you can turn your computer into a digital darkroom where you
can
easily improve the brightness and contrast, color balance, and sharpness of images, as well
as crop, resize, dodge and burn, remove dust and scratches, adjust the color saturation, and
apply filtration.

The book gives detailed, step-by-step directions describing methods for properly adjusting,
correcting and enhancing images with Photoshop. These techniques will produce the best
results, both technically and aesthetically, for output to the web, monitor, printing press,
desktop printer, or film recorder.

"I must say I am enormously impressed with the quality, accuracy, depth, and volume of this
work - it will be an enormous leap forward in information for astrophotographers."
- Philip Perkins

These basic and advanced image correction and enhancement techniques are applicable to
both CCD as well as film original astrophotos.

Photoshop for Astrophotographers is not a traditional paper book. It is a digital book on CD
that you will be able to view on your computer in any internet web browser such as Microsoft
Internet Explorer, Netscape, or Opera. It will offer unique features such as "mouse-overs" that
allow before and after comparisons of images by simply holding the mouse cursor over the
image. A powerful built-in search engine provides automatic links to the pages containing the
search terms. Practice files are included for use in the step-by-step tutorials, as well as
comprehensive references and links to more information.

In this book you will learn about fundamental concepts such as:

Light, color and vision
Resolution
Dynamic Range
Bit Depth
Histograms
Color Spaces

Learn advanced masking and compositing techniques to combine two different exposures to
increase the detail recorded in an object with a large brightness range, such as M42, the
Orion Nebula.

You will discover how easy it is to:

Use digital image processing to produce beautiful astronomical images.

Learn tips and tricks for scanning difficult astronomical film images.

Correctly set the black and white points in Levels to maximize the image's dynamic range.

Make brightness, contrast and color adjustments in Curves.

Perform specialized color correction.

Correct vignetting and uneven field illumination.

Reduce grain and noise.

Create masks to selectively manipulate different parts of the tonal range in an image.

Composite multiple images to improve the signal to noise ratio.

Select the best file format and storage media to archive your images.

Soft proof your images and produce dazzling prints on a desktop inkjet printer.

Jerry Lodriguss is a prize-winning sports photographer and expert in Photoshop who has
been
an astrophotographer for more than 25 years. His articles on Photoshop, digital processing
and scanning astrophotos have been published in Sky and Telescope and other magazines,
and his astronomical images have appeared in books and magazines throughout the world.

The traditional wet darkroom with its messy chemicals is dead. It has been replaced with
enormously powerful yet inexpensive desktop computers, scanners and printers. With this
book you can become a master of the new digital darkroom. What are you waiting for?

For use with Windows and Mac Operating Systems.

Price - £42.00

The Astronomy Shop

1 Tone Hill. Wellington

Somerset TA21 0AU

United Kingdom

Telephone: +44 (0)1823 665510