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we looked at an efficient workflow techniques for detailed color space examination by Andrew Schriever and Casey Caudle.

Steve Everist brings us a review of George Reis's new Photoshop book.

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Photoshop CS3 for Forensic Professionals: A Complete Digital Imaging Course for Investigators
by Steve Everist
King County Sheriff's Office

Photoshop CS3 for Forensics Professionals: A Complete Digital Imaging Course for Investigators

by George Reis
Wiley Publishing, Inc, Indianapolis, IN / Sybex
252 pages
ISBN 978-0-470-11454-4
$59.95

Photoshop CS3 for Forensics Professionals is a book that finally fills a need for all users of digital imaging for law enforcement purposes. The topics covered are useful for both forensic and crime scene documentation purposes. The author, George Reis, has been providing training in photography and digital imaging to law enforcement for over a decade. Through this book, much of the knowledge and skills taught in these classes is now available in this book.

The book has been separated into three parts with a total of 24 chapters as follows:

Part I: The Essentials

                Chapter 1: Best Practices

                Chapter 2: Reports and Testimony

                Chapter 3: Basic Image Settings

                Chapter 4: Navigating with Bridge

                Chapter 5: Camera Raw

                Chapter 6: Viewing Metadata

Part II: The Digital Darkroom

                Chapter 7: Basic Image Adjustments

                Chapter 8: Printing Images

                Chapter 9: Automating Photoshop through Actions

                Chapter 10: Contact Sheets

                Chapter 11: PDF Presentations

                Chapter 12: Preparing Court Exhibits

                Chapter 13: Photomerge

Part III: Image Analysis and Enhancement

                Chapter 14: Compositing Images

                Chapter 15: Precise Image Sizing

                Chapter 16: Measuring Objects

                Chapter 17: Lens Distortion Correction

                Chapter 18: Noise Reduction

                Chapter 19: Deblurring and Sharpening

                Chapter 20: Contrast Enhancement

                Chapter 21: Color Isolation

                Chapter 22: Pattern Removal

                Chapter 23: Forensic Video Analysis

                Chapter 24: Additional Features

Along with the book, a companion CD has been included with the sample images used in the book which have been separated into folders referred to by chapter. The disc also contains demo software and scripts that the reader can use. These additional scripts have been referenced within the chapters where the techniques would apply.

Although the book references Photoshop Version CS3 in the title, this is somewhat of a misnomer. Most of the content in the book can be used with much earlier versions of Photoshop. In those instances where a certain technique started in a specific version, or has changed in version CS3, or is exclusive to CS2 it has been noted. The title shouldn’t scare away those users of earlier versions who may think that the book is not for them.

The design of the book is to start with Part I: The Essentials. From there, the different chapters do not need to be read in any specific order and are easy to reference for the particular task at hand. The Essentials includes information regarding case law, report writing, court testimony, setting up the Photoshop workspace, using Adobe Bridge, Raw files, and the use of metadata. Starting with Part I, the focus throughout the book is on best practices, forensically valid techniques and always working on copies of the original image. However, there is no mention of the various Scientific Working Groups (SWG’s) and the guidelines relative to digital imaging that they have put forth. As many agencies are either referencing these guidelines or adapting them into their own SOP’s, they may deserve some mention.

In Part II: The Digital Darkroom, George has included many of the common tasks that are performed with digital images along with ways of accomplishing these tasks. He has also included shortcuts for reducing the time it takes for image management tasks that are often repeated.

Part III: Image Analysis and Enhancement gets into more detail on the analysis and enhancement uses of Photoshop for forensic examination. These chapters are relatively self explanatory as to what you will expect to find inside.  Although several of the chapters in Part III use fingerprint images for explanation of the technique, they could be applied to many different types of images.

Photoshop CS3 for Forensics Professionals: A Complete Digital Imaging Course for Investigators is not designed specifically for any one forensic field, but the techniques it contains can be applied almost universally to them all. This book isn’t aimed at the first time Photoshop user; however the techniques are not too complicated that they would only apply to Photoshop experts. At a cover price of $59.95, and currently available for under $40 through Amazon.com, this book is priced well below many of the standard forensic texts available. If you use digital imaging for law enforcement purposes, whether it’s for forensic analysis or crime scene documentation, this book is a must-have for your reference library.

Steve Everist, LPE
King County Sheriff’s Office
Seattle, WA

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