By following this outline and becoming familiar with the results that are produced at each step, you will develop enough experience to recognize situations in which a different procedure may be required to accomplish a useful result in less common situations. These steps use only a tiny fraction of the built-in Photoshop routines or the algorithms provided by plug-ins such as Fovea Pro or ClearID. The functions listed here are the ones that are most frequently useful, most straightforwardly applied, and most easily learned. Adding more selections to your personal toolbox will further broaden the range of images and applications that can be addressed.
Tech details: Explanations are provided for the various algorithms that are illustrated. All of the techniques shown are well documented in the scientific literature. Comprehensive references (and more detailed explanations and examples) can be found in texts such as John Russ, The Image Processing Handbook, 6th edition, CRC Press, 2010, or in other standard texts. A more detailed set of step-by-step instructions for image processing and analysis using Photoshop and various plug-ins is available in John Russ, The Image Processing Cookbook, 2009, published by Amazon.
The Seven Steps: