www.photowonder.co.uk

They are planning a major advertising campaign in the UK this Spring and are currently looking for Dealers. I must say that their ads and examples are amazing and I cannot see how they can achieve these results at the prices they offer.

The one that first amazed me the most was the boy at the bottom of this page
http://www.photowonder.co.uk/service/index.html
However on closer inspection this is not restoration (As we at RetouchPRO know it). The clothes must have been taken from another picture or drawn by a talented artist. Or, more likely, copied from a databank of features and clothes. The restoration looks good but I don’t think it is a true likeness to the original.
Has anyone any experience of them in the US or Japan?
Do you know how they get their results?
Have you dealt with them?
Do you know what software they use?

They offer a fixed price restoration, regardless of difficulty and a 100% satisfaction guarantee.

Ken.

.....this is not restoration (As we at RetouchPRO know it). I'm going to risk doing a total hijack and turning this into a philosophical debate.

I would agree that the photo of the boy has gone a little too far, but consider the image of the girl on the samples page (http://www.photowonder.co.uk/service/samples.html

Would restoration (as we know it) have arrived at a perfectly pristine ;) image, or stopped short because that would involve inferring something?
What does the client want? A pretty picture which is a seemingly accurate representation of the original - or a smudgy, blotchy clone job.

Back to the boy. You're quite correct that nobody here would have done that. But if this "restoration" is on the front page, then these people believe that this is an excellent showpiece to entice the customer. I do not think that they are wrong.....

Things are a changing.
Today things are changing faster than ever.
I do not see restoration being limited to clone, stamp and push for long.
Do a quick search and you'll find some good programs for 3D facial modelling. Have a look at FaceGen or FaceFilter Studio, for example. They're new, but they work pretty well. FaceFilter even has a smooth user interface.
If we follow the trend, instead of restoring an old print we will soon be recreating the original - and, as such, the boy is (or soon will be ;) ) right on the mark.

Rô

I don't know why, but I am a bit suspicouse. I have a gut feeling, and it's telling me something isn't right about the business side of it.
Reasons for this thinking so far:
1/ Their http://www.photowonder.com.hk/index.html site has been up since September 2005, yet that site is still unfinished.
2/ If they can offer a 100% guarantee, they are better than anyone on this planet.
3/ If they can offer a flat rate no matter how big the job is, they are again better than anybody on this planet.
4/ WHY are their labour costs so low? How old are their workers, and what do they get paid?
If it looks and sounds too good to be true, it usually is :wink:

Call me a grumpy Yorkshire man, but I like to know my money isn't going to some fat cat, while the workers get nawt :eek: (slave/child labour)

If you want an example of the art of creating faces... this is the place to go.

Renderosity.com will convince you that it can be done, though we know that it can and IS being done.

Ha, like our grumpy Yorkshire man, I would have to question also and I'm from Oklahoma where the wind come sweeping ov'r the plain!! :nod:

Some interesting reading:

Photowonder is owned by Photopages (http://www.photopages.co.nz/). Evidently they're huge in Asia (http://www.nzbusiness.co.nz/afa.asp?idWebPage=13579&idAdrenalin_Articles=133&SID=841700082).

They claim they use proprietary software (interesting bit in that second article about how they kept it from being pirated in China).

I'm not trying to make a political statement here but...

A few weeks ago here in the US, CNN had a piece on artists in China that were paid to produce full size copies of famous paintings done by the masters: Leonardo, Picasso, Rembrant, etc etc.

The finished paintings ( they showed examples...) at a distance of 10 feet were IMPOSSIBLE to tell that they were not the originals. The local painters were paid on a per painting basis and their quota was something like: 3 Mona Lisas per day or 2 Guernikas per week...etc

I wonder if Photopages uses the same methods?

That picture of the boy has been in all the trade mags this week and will soon be in all the UK consumer magazines.
If the public gets the impression that this is possible (and it obviously is) then I think we will have to do something fairly drastic to start to match this standard.
Soon the public are not going to accept anything short of perfection.

Ro. I had a quick look at FaceFilter. It’s a step in the right direction but from what I read it won’t work the miracles that PhotoWonder are producing. Most of those effects could be done with liquify (a little harder perhaps)
And yes. I know which the client would prefer. Even it’s not 100% accurate.

Chris, You are correct that the UK site is not finished or the Hong Kong one. Or their Chinese support
http://www.photowonder.com.hk/chinese/support/order.html
or their Korean one
http://www.photowonder.co.kr/
or their Japanese one
http://www.photowonder.co.jp/company/index.html
I can’t find their US site but I think they have one.

See their Ad for this year’s Focus-On-Imaging exhibition.
http://www.focus-on-imaging.co.uk/exhibtion_page.html

How do they offer 100% satisfaction? Easy, Free Re-dos until the customer is satisfied

How do they offer a fixed price? This is not the first company to offer this. I have another company ad on my desk offering fixed (cheap) prices.

I do take your point about labour But are you saying kids could do these?
Doug points out that they are probably Asian based.

Candice.
Will Renderocity do this? I know nothing about 3D. What is the best 3D program.

Just imagine if we could create a completey new face from scratch at any angle with any expression. I thought this was not possible yet (or at least difficult and time consuming). But if this is the way they are reconstructing then I think I need a new program.
If they are using proprietary software then are they the only ones that could ‘invent’ this?


Ken

Have to say, that photo of the boy is quite impressive. However, if results that good can be achieved, then why aren't the rest of the example as impressive? For instance, on the samples page, the photo of the blonde girl is quite bad. It's very obviously a cut, flip, and paste, job. Look at her eyes, nose and teeth.

So with that thought in mind, I don't know if I believe the photo is a true likeness of the original. Who's to say? Something just doesn't jibe.

For what it's worth, most of their sample work is the same as the sample book shown at Walgreen's. Have you all seen the thread about that?

I found a few sites referencing this company and its founder, Ian Handricks. The software was mentioned on a few I came across, but never any details regarding it.

This one is a site that would require signing up for their service to read the rest of the article which I didn't do: findarticles.com (http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb226/is_200407/ai_n5647229)
Photopages will soon be North America's biggest photo restorer. Its 60 graphic design graduates work in shifts to restore up to 1000 photographs in a 24-hour period--and they do this with sophisticated computer software in a big office on Auckland's North Shore. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] In 1992 Ian Handricks, Photopages' chief executive, began restoring old and damaged photos, and writing the software to do it. He then set-up a photo restoration service for New Zealanders. Handricks moved into the Australian market in 2000, and in 2002 made the big break into the ...

NZ PHOTO SERVICE ATTRACTS US INVESTORS AND SALES
kiwiphile.org (http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:VB-dmyj3PrEJ:www.kiwiphile.org/dec2003.html+Ian+Handricks+Photopages&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=5&client=firefox-a)
New Zealand based Photopages Global Ltd (POL), an overnight photo restoration service which uses unique digital technology, has not only attracted US investors, its US sales are skyrocketing.
PGL has established a US distribution network thanks to a relationship with a consortium of US investors led by Ed Bernstein of Creekside LLC in San Francisco.
PGL offers a service where original photos are scanned at source and sent via the internet to New Zealand for restoration. The service is fast-what takes many photo restorers four to five hours can be done by PGL's technology in just 10-20 minutes.

Ed Bernstein says PGL provides exactly what he is looking for in New Zealand-smart technology with consumer applications. "Photopages combines very strong technology with very innovative processes. The American market is ripe for this product but no one in the US had the tools to do the job as quickly and efficiently as PGL. That combined with our marketing and distribution skills, makes this a very exciting venture," Ed Bernstein says. PGL's Ian Handricks says since launching in the US sales have increased dramatically-up to hundreds of orders a day.

regarding the image of the boy at the bottom of the page -- it almost looks as if they put a distorted layer over a perfectly good picture and removed it as the retouch -- it just looks too perfect, imo.

http://www.photowonder.co.uk/service/index.html

(just my two cents worth)

Wow. Isn’t Retouch Pro such a wonderful place?

Vikki. I agree that some of the others are not that impressive and you can tell which have been restored and which have been completely rebuilt. But none could be considered ‘bad’ I guess they must have specialists in each area.

Gena. Thanks for that great info. I would have liked to have read that article but they wanted credit card details so I gave up.
They have certainly grown big very quickly.

Aceman. Hi and thank you. You must know the whole process. From what you say there is no 3D program involved, just a library of ‘parts’

I would love to learn how these ‘parts’ were held and categorised.
Perhaps you could you talk us through the how the picture of ‘the Boy’ would have been done?
I copied the ‘before’ picture and spent over an hour on it. I got nothing close to their results.
So they use PS7. I have that. :happy:
Please tell us more.


Ken.

There were no specialist areas. Especially now. When I was there I allocated work based on skill levels and strengths but as I said before, once everyone was upskilled, it became more automated in the allocation process. ie everyone gets a mix of images.
As far as image libraries go, we had a small one, but it was mainly used for getting correct colour tones etc ( say were had to restore an army uniform etc ). Most image " parts " were sourced from a google image search when you needed them.
The boy. Thats not possible. Infact its an infamous image of some debate. My opinion ( which is shared by people i keep in contact with ) is that it was a black and white image that was coloured and then detouched in a frying pan. Either that or there was a very similar photo taken of his brother / himself.

That's the second suggestion of "detouching" on a commercial restoration website in the past week.

I wonder how common that is? I wonder if it's provable, one way or the other? If so, a website listing sites that detouch would be a big help to the photo restoration industry.

To be honest i dont know why they insisted on using that picture. When your doing 400 images a day you definately arent short of any examples.

Cameraken, perhaps we have different definitions of "bad". Again referencing the image of the blonde...although the damage has been removed successfully, the features are now distorted and no longer a true image of the individual. Without knowing the girl, the casual viewer might not notice those changes, but I'm certain her family would notice. The technique used to repair this image is a quick fix, badly executed, and amateur. Changing the features of an individual is always bad.

Vikki.

I do take your point. I just downloaded the before and after of the girl and had a go at it. The crack down the centre has ‘stretched’ the mouth and I had to move the two halves and re-align. Her left side of the mouth is a little low in their restoration.
I also believe you are correct that they have flipped the eye and nose and this will have lost the original character.

However. The rest is very well done. Not one single visible clone mark. The shadow on the neck has been lightened. The eyebrows have been replaced and there is not one single blemish in the restoration. (one tiny crack missed in her hair on her right shoulder)

I think this is quite a remarkable restoration if this was done in 30 minutes.

Thanks for mentioning the Walgreen thread. I had not seen that
http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/showthread.php?t=7480
They did a really poor job on Restoration Challenge #44


Aceman. It is reassuring to hear that the picture of ‘the boy’ is not possible. However they are using this picture in the trade mag ads. How much damage is this doing? Not just to themselves but to retouching in general. If the public see this and assume it is possible then this is what they will come to expect and they will be disappointed with anything less. Whoever retouches it.

We have another ex photowonder employee.
http://www.retouchpro.com/challenges/showphoto.php/photo/5824
and, especially well done.
http://www.retouchpro.com/challenges/showphoto.php/photo/5823


Ken.

So, it seems my gut feeling was telling me the truth :ditsy:
Thoughts of slave labour in other countries may not be far off either, seen as they have dumped good employees to cut costs. As for the boy, well I didn't like to say detouched, but thats exactly what I was thinking.
Realistic expectations is something I enforce right from the get go. My customers get a realistic view of what to expect at the end of a job. Making yourself look too good, will only cause problems and complaints. I tend to under-estimate what the finished image will look like, then they get more than they expected :happy:

Personally I doubt they will have much luck in the UK, and I would offer my opinion to anybody who asked about them.

Buy cheap, buy twice. Thats what I like to say when someone claims they can get a job done cheaper elsewhere.

Ken, hopefully I'm not harping on this too much, and not directing my posting specifically to you.....
Good cloning is not an indication of a good restoration. Cloning, and other techniques are parts of restoration work that make up the whole. If one of those parts is not done well, the whole does not work. To be dramatic....if you gave them a torn photograph of yourself, and they did an amazing job of pasting and cloning your right eye to repair your left, wouldn't it bother you that you now appeared slightly crosseyed? Would you want that image representing you in your heritage albums?

I may be overly critical, but we're discussing a company specializing in this work, not hobbyist. It pains me to have the general public think that this is as good as it gets.

OK, off the soapbox...

Vikki.

Thank You. I agree with you 100% and it is the whole reason why ‘smaller’ restorers could always do a better job than a mass produced product.

I was not disagreeing with you. I was just trying to make the point that they did an excellent job in 30 minutes. We would not have stopped there and would have made much more of an effort to keep the character of the subject, and that can take much longer.

The problem, I think, is in showing restorations such as ‘blue boy’ which will raise customer’s expectations to an unrealistic level.

I also totally agree with Chris. I would never tell a customer their restoration will be perfect when I know it will not be. However there are people out there who would tell them different and that is why they ‘buy twice’
Unfortunately some do not ‘buy twice’ they accept a product and then call us expensive.

But I do think Ninety9 did a good job on the challenges. And I would love to hear a technique where I could get to that point in a restoration in 30mins.
I am currently working on challenge 86 and I do not consider myself slow. But I have already spent far longer than 30 minutes on it.

Ken.

I have been following this thread with great interest - especially as I am a "questioner" by nature.

One thought that occurred to me...
I remember when I was taking a course for implementation and auditing of the ISO 9000 quality system. The instructor asked what we should aim for. Many replied "Perfection!!" - which is the wrong :confused: answer.
Perfection is very costly, sometimes practically unobtainable.
What would should aim for is to attend perfectly the customer's expectations.
In our case, we could do a 95% perect restoration job in 30 minutes and a 99% job in 2 hours.
Here, in an ambient of professional retouchers (nitpickers ;) ), the 4% difference may be clear.
But what about the client? It is highly improbable that they will notice any difference at all. So didn't we just waste (or overcharge) one and a half hours?

Here at RetouchPRO we see woeful tales of starving retouchers, while these guys are dominating New Zealand, Australia (tomorrow the world).

Are they wrong?

Rô

Aceman, you bring up a good point...

I wonder how selective they are regarding the work they accept?
I wonder how much they refuse to tackle since they know they will 'lose their shirt" due to severity of the original?

I can, just as they do, have one price for every single job I do. This means that I'll look carefully at each image that is brought to me and judge it along the lines of: is it worth my time to work on this image so I can make, say, $50?

And if the volume of images to restore is high enough, than I can afford to be selective.... VERY selective....

I see 30 mins beign mentioned a lot, this is probably my fault. Artists had to do on average 15 photos a day. Because it was one price fits all, a lot of the work was of a difficult nature. 30 mins was about what people would aim for for the majority of their images. Some of course would take a lot less time, and some would take a while longer.
....
I dont want to take anythign away from the artists who work there though, as even though it was a quick cheap job, I havent seen too many, if any,
" professional " places do any better work then photopages could, in fact a lot of the quality in the industry really is laughable.

Yeah im not sure what happens now. But we used to turn away a lot of images.

Anyways im raving a bit.

Ninety9 will know a lot more about how things work at photowonder these days.

That's got to be the answer why they charge the same regardless of the image and at the same time expect every image to be done in "30 minutes"


...
we used to turn away a lot of images.
...

:dizzy: Anyways ive said my piece time to move on.

I would like to correct their learn more page, where it talks about other retouchers/restorers. They rubbish stand alone/small business restorers, with trash. So this is how I feel the Current Model section should read:

Price Structure
Requires a custom quote that will vary based on the level of work. That way you only pay for the work you require.

Lead Time
Dependable and short lead time of between 3-5 working days.

Process
Complex, precise and tailored to the customers needs

Quality
High quality workmanship gained through years of experience and 1 to 1 communication with customer needs

Capacity
Bulk orders are welcome, and we have retouchers ready to meet the demands of large orders.

Capability
Will work on any image, no matter how difficult. With a realistic expectation of what the finished product will look like.

I agree with some of the people here regarding the de-touched boy on the front page... definatley too good to be true.

As a photographer, I love the grunge effect and it looks like a simple desat and wall texture overlay to me... very dodgy.

The thought of entrusting 'precious memories' to what I see as an impersonal, production-line type setup is a contradiction that sends me cold.