This is my first day here at Retouch Pro, and I am looking to meet other professional independant digital retouchers.

If by professional you mean trying to make some bucks from a home based restoration operation then I would say yes. But I'm only in my second year of business.
DJ

Excellent. I am just still finding it hard to belive that I have foud a website devoted to retouchers.

It's nice to meet you.

I'm hoping to start my own business doing retouching and restoration in the future. I keep thinking that I have to learn more, practice more, before I can start trying to make money doing this.

For anyone who does retouching and restoration as a home-based business (as a means of extra income, in particular) how did you get started?

Aric,
Same here.

From the looks of it, you may just break a record for the first member to go from junior member status to member status in one day. :D I think that's 50 posts and 100 for senior status. The night's still young. :D
It's nice to see you are having a good time. When I found the site I thought it was so unique and the people were so nice to talk with. It's the first site I was comfortable with enough to talk in the forums without having to be afraid of feeling stupid. I have found that no matter how much it seems like everyone knows they still come here to learn. I guess that puts us all on an even footing. :)
As for my business, it's still in what I would call the hobby stage. Although I love the artistic part of it, I find I am no business person. However, I have been able to mostly please all my customers so I guess I'm not doing so bad. :)
DJ

Sonya,
I started out with a website then listed in the local Yellow Pages. That was the real business generator for me. The sight acts as a reference to my Yellow Page listing. It's the perfect business because you can start out relatively cheap in the investment stage and go from there.
DJ

Just because some one calls themselves a professional doesn't mean that they are good at what they do, it just means that they get paid for what they do.

As far as how I got started, that is a long story. High school summer jobs at photo labs, a BFA with an emphasis in photography and a minor in business, and a number of jobs in different photographic studios. I freelanced as a scanner for different studios, which very quickly evolved into free lance retouching. The free lance work got to be so much that I started to do that full time and I have never looked back.

Thanks for the info, you guys. I'm working on adding a restoration/retouching gallery to my new website, and from there, I was planning to advertise in local papers.

I'm hoping to get my site online in the next month. I'm curious to see how I do...

(And by curious, I mean nervous. First day of school "Gosh, I hope the other kids will play with me at recess" nervous.)

Gosh Aric, when I checked the forums this a.m. you hadn't found us yet. Now, this evening, you're moving rapidly toward "old timer" status! :lol:

Welcome to RetouchPRO!

I do have my own small restoration business, but I'm in a pretty rural area and it's not a real big deal so far. I learned restoration while working in photo labs and studios (for about the past 20 years). I'm still primarily a lab rat, though. The restoration is just basically a second job at this point.

Welcome to the Site! My business consists mainly of restoration of photos dating from the late 1800's thru the early 1940's...No background in traditional methods though..all digital. Tom

Hi Aric, and Welcome!
I've been doing restorations "professionally" for a few years.
I do freelance work and also work with a local camera shop, as their outsource for restorations and enhancements.

Although I've been in business for a while, I don't actively promote it, as I'm not in a position handle a full time workload. (However, my husband's company is closing down, and I will probably rethink that)

This is a lonesome sort of business, as it is often a one man/woman operation. What I like most about this site, is that I get a chance to talk with others who are also in this line of work. (I have yet to meet anyone in my area that has any idea what this is all about.)
I would say that I frequent this site more than any other place on the net.
It's addicting!
Vikki

I have done a few photo manipulations for money but I don't think I'm quite up to speed yet on retouching.

Fortunately I've learned more in the short time I've been on this board than I have the last couple of years working on my own.

I find the descriptions that are given with each retouch to be quite helpful to me. :)

I know I am going to love it here. Now I can retouch, listen to music, eat my lunch, talk to other retouchers, and watch Jerry Springer all at the same time.

I am amazed at this site as well. I thought I was pretty good at what I do. In fact a photographer complemented my work on another site and refered me here. I joined up and have been inspired eversince.

Let's hang out here and get better at what we love to do.

Gee :wavey:

Hi all, I am a professional retoucher, i work for a high end retouching company and we work for the beauty, fashion and advertising industries.. im liking this site alot and its nice to know that people share my passion for retouching. Ive moved and now live in NYC ( its been 5 months now ) I was sponsored to move here from london with a 3-year O1 visa by the company i work for.. im very blessed to be doing what i love...

Well I've been a retoucher for about 14 years. Freelancing since 1997. 99.9% of my business comes from commercial work. I've done little to no consumer "restoration" work.

Things have changed though. I do more design work (web) now than retouching. And I can't seem to charge as much anymore. I guess it's because the market is saturated with so-called Photoshop experts. I've had to adapt to survive. And now I've been learning to become a photographer. I have a website, but don't use it much as all my work comes from word-of-mouth.

Lately, it's been real tough and I had to take a part time job in order to get health benefits. I consider myself very fortunate to find a part time job that provides benefits.

But Spring is coming and as always, the warm weather revitalizes me. I'll be doing my usual doorstep marketing and hopefully, things will pick up again.