Retouching tests for best photographers

[Iconogenic]

Will do free retouching tests for excellent digital photographers and for retouching houses.

- high fashion, beauty, commercial, and celebrity images only; professional stuff from published photographers only plz, even if it is free work
- accept RAW files from minimum 16MP
- rights to put before&after on my website, directly; only "after" is fine when a celebrity

I want to really rebuild my portfolio, remove my own work and replace it with work from industry clients. With a coming maternity leave, I'm moving more from photography towards retouching. I already emailed a couple of photographers I admire, but they are either all on vacation together with their secretaries, or I'm being too impatient

Hope to find great talents for collaboration. If anyone has advice about strategies how to get to the best clients out there, with just test work first, will be appreciated.


Regards,

http://www.iconogenic.com/retouch.htm (email link on page)

[jagerman]

Nice work! How do you get playboy as client? That would make the long days seem shorter ;-)

-W

[Godmother]

Originally Posted by jagerman

Nice work! How do you get playboy as client? That would make the long days seem shorter ;-)

-W

Actually... Nude = a lot of skin = living hell

[Godmother]

Originally Posted by Iconogenic

Will do free retouching tests for excellent digital photographers and for retouching houses.

Regards,

http://www.iconogenic.com/retouch.htm (email link on page)

Do u know www.whoistesting.com ?

[Iconogenic]

Natalia, thank you, I didn't know that one. Will check.

[toan thai]

Originally Posted by Iconogenic

Will do free retouching tests for excellent digital photographers and for retouching houses.

- high fashion, beauty, commercial, and celebrity images only; professional stuff from published photographers only plz, even if it is free work
- accept RAW files from minimum 16MP
- rights to put before&after on my website, directly; only "after" is fine when a celebrity

I want to really rebuild my portfolio, remove my own work and replace it with work from industry clients. With a coming maternity leave, I'm moving more from photography towards retouching. I already emailed a couple of photographers I admire, but they are either all on vacation together with their secretaries, or I'm being too impatient

Hope to find great talents for collaboration. If anyone has advice about strategies how to get to the best clients out there, with just test work first, will be appreciated.


Regards,

http://www.iconogenic.com/retouch.htm (email link on page)

You do great work...makes me want to work harder

[Iconogenic]

Toan, if you're not joking , thank you so much for your encouraging! I think that you are the best skin-specialist I have ever seen. After I saw your site, I was almost about to give up learning D&G, haha. Now I'm trying to improve my D&B, which will probably never become as extreme as yours, but your large detailed before/after roll-overs are really great learning examples and inspiration for all.

[toan thai]

Katja,

I am not kidding. I like your skin work. Trust me, I still have A LOT to learn. (What you see on my site are from the last 4 months). I have been doing retouching for some time now but more like stock retouching--so much different than high end beauty retouching. So I decided to kick it up a notch and learn more about high end retouching. Thanks to tons of tutorials on this site, I was able to play around and get a feel for it. Basically I am relearning everything again. I don't think I am quite there yet but thanks for liking my work. Maybe this tells me I am heading in the right direction. Oh, if Gavin O'neill let you retouch his work than he must be impressed with your retouching. He didn't let me test with him. Oh well.

[Iconogenic]

I had to smile you talk about stock - this is what I've been doing all these years as well, spending at best 30 min on picture and thinking I'm a master retoucher

This website helped me a lot as well. Many people still don't realize that photoshopping and retouching are two different things, and many threads over here really make you feel that difference. Personally I didn't come across more professional discussions resource yet.

Toan, I don't know when you last contacted Gavin, but I'm sure if you do that again with your current portfolio, you'll click. Because your skin work is on that b/w picture is... in Dutch we call it "niet normaal" ("not normal")

I would be very curious (if not more so) to hear your definition of "quite there"

[toan thai]

Ha ha. I felt the same way 4 months ago. I gathered some of my best (yeah right) stock retouched and tried to do a high end retouching website. Than I started looking around and saw how inferior my work are. That was when I decided to put high end website on hold and concentrate on learning beauty retouching. I think I have improved a lot but there are so much more I don't know. I also need to do compositing work soon. There are so many tricks (good tricks, not plug-ins and skin blurring) that I haven't discovered yet. That's what I meant "not quite there" yet. I will try to contact Gavin again.

"Not normal" I like that

[pixel_monkey]

Iconogenic,

You have a very nice portfolio already. I wonder how your new portfolio is going to turn out.

Sorry for derailing your post, but this is for Toan. Toan, how did you mange to use your stock retouching on your website? The reason I ask is because I do mostly beauty stock retouching. Not that I want to use what I'm currently working in my portfolio due to the time constraint I have for the retouching. All of the images I work on are taken by either the Phase One p25 or p30 with good lighting, so they all have great potential to be turned into something awesome. They used to didn't care if I retouched an image a day, but now they want at least 4 a day. I'm basically destroying these images now, but whatever keeps me working and keeps this guy (art director) happy. I just want to rework on some of them for my own use, but I've granted zero right. I wonder how you did it.

[toan thai]

Hi pixel_monkey. At first, I was gonna use the stock images I have retouched from the past but after looking around, I realized these images weren't looking close to "high-end" in term of retouching nor had anything to do with fashion photography. So I didn't use them (btw, my stock photographer boss wouldn't mind if I posted them online). Those images currently on my site are from fashion photographers I've collaborated with recently

[pixel_monkey]

Originally Posted by toan thai

(btw, my stock photographer boss wouldn't mind if I posted them online).

You're lucky. I had to sign a piece of paper for the job. I'll get fired or even get sued if I put them online. That's why I don't have anything in my signature.

[Iconogenic]

pixel_monkey, thank you.
4 images a day from phase one, is a shame for an image Although depends on image. If it's only coloring, maybe you can. Beauty would be a shame.

Yes, seems like the way to make a good online portfolio is testing with talents you like, especially if you want to put the "before" versions too. You guys retouch stock for Corbis and Getty photographers? I only retouch my own stock, which is micro (basically all stuff on my website). Only for retouching case studies I like to have larger resolutions and better images + many good names as a client base.

[toan thai]

pixel_monkey. 4 images a day is a lot even with editorial/fashion. Beauty retouch...forget about it haha. I have turned down couple of beauty and cover jobs because of impossible deadline. I have a full time job so doing high end retouching can only be done after my work day and weekends. I have no life in the last 4 months It's so worth it though!

Like Iconogenice said, test with photographers that you like. You don't have to go the the big names; try new and up coming fashion photographers. A lot of them don't have the budget but their work are great. Do whole bunch of beauty retouch. BTW, thanks for helping me out with the FTP user accounts. It's very convenient for photographers to upload stuff...

[MrAlexajlex]

Iconogenic - Nice portfolio and if you're requirements were a bit different I have some stuff you can use.

I'm currently working with a few retouchers from deviant.

I normally give them:

10MP RAW file
Lifestyle/fashion shots.

My work is kind of geared towards the market demand and since most rags that come out hardly have the printing res to make even 10MP show it's true potential we just do 10MP for now.

I was never a big into technical numbers (and especially the MP craziness) and focused more on the quality of the product.

Send me a PM if you are interested.

[Iconogenic]

Originally Posted by MrAlexajlex

Send me a PM if you are interested.

I just did

[pixel_monkey]

Originally Posted by Iconogenic

pixel_monkey, thank you.
4 images a day from phase one, is a shame for an image Although depends on image. If it's only coloring, maybe you can. Beauty would be a shame.

Originally Posted by toan thai

pixel_monkey. 4 images a day is a lot even with editorial/fashion. Beauty retouch...forget about it haha.

The sad thing is that I don't think they can tell the difference between beauty retouching and Sears portraits. I actually got some "expert" retouching advice from my manager that I could speed things up by using the clone tool at low opacity...this is coming from a guy sitting in his office all day watching videos on youtube. I still manage to throw in a pass of D+B in there somehow. It's not up to me to decide. I just keep up with the quota, so they'll leave me alone. I feel like a trained monkey could do my job. Hence, my username...haha.

toan, I'm glad it works out. Do you notice that you get 50 ftp accounts now?

Iconogenic, I don't retouch for neither Corbis nor Getty Photographers, just one of their competitors. I don't think Getty is doing too good these days. Last time I heard, they got acquired by a private firm.

[SteveB2005]

Originally Posted by Iconogenic

Will do free retouching tests for excellent digital photographers and for retouching houses.

- high fashion, beauty, commercial, and celebrity images only; professional stuff from published photographers only plz, even if it is free work
- accept RAW files from minimum 16MP
- rights to put before&after on my website, directly; only "after" is fine when a celebrity

I want to really rebuild my portfolio, remove my own work and replace it with work from industry clients. With a coming maternity leave, I'm moving more from photography towards retouching. I already emailed a couple of photographers I admire, but they are either all on vacation together with their secretaries, or I'm being too impatient

Hope to find great talents for collaboration. If anyone has advice about strategies how to get to the best clients out there, with just test work first, will be appreciated.


Regards,

http://www.iconogenic.com/retouch.htm (email link on page)

Very fine work, especially the "makeup ad" skin smoothing/pores look. I have dabbled with skin, but can't seem to get those results like you did. It takes awhile. Are you self taught basically or did you get some good on the job training? But anyway, great work, I'm sure you will find something good very soon

steve

[Iconogenic]

Thanks, Steve! Self/ retouchpro taught I am Pores still drive me mad, especially in difficult lighting, but I'm practicing.

[dennisonb]

To people who are interested, I am young pro photographer looking to build relationships with new retouchers. I am based in the Czech Republic (prague) and I shoot for magazines like Elle and Marie Claire. On a whole, retouching here in Czech isn't that great and it's hard to find people who really 'feel' the image. So if your interested in collaborating- let me know. I do mostly Fashion and Beauty and most of my work is published. I'm still on the young end of the pro-world, but I am doing my thing and I'm looking for like minded individuals!

-dennison
www.dennisonbertram.com