Master Retoucher

[BodegaGo]

is there a retouching industry in toronto? i was actually thinking of a change of scenery from nyc

[Ant]

back to cmyk and rgb. 95% of the files I deliver in cmyk. I proof in cymk (fuji finalproof)however so working in cmyk is not an issue. 98%, 90% of the time the work is done in rgb and only converted to proof it out. There are no huge shifts from rgb to cmyk as we use colormatch and two of our own, calibrated to match our proofing device, cmyk spaces.

I rarely work on garbage files and if I have to, it's hell. My job is make great be awesome, not make crap acceptable.

[cricket1961]

As a dry dot etcher I learned CMYK inside and out. This helped greatly with the transition to prepress work and Photoshop.
The first 9 years of Photoshop I spent doing CMYK work, with half of that devoted to creating masks using the L*AB space with some color corrections thrown in also.
Once I started working in New York City it was ALL RGB work, without exception. Once I started working for myself it was all RGB work with some L*AB thrown in. For any Freelance work that I had to actually go into the city for it was CMYK work.
Prepress work probably should stay inn the CMYK space. While certain images can be worked in RGB, if the color management is not at a sufficient level to add comfortability with the files then it should not be mostly RGB.While working in NYC I had NO PROBLEMS converting to CMYK for US or Euro work. Aside from obvious blues and reds. If there are those times when something SPECIFIC needed to be done, like K only shadows then they were added in after the conversion. Any problems that I might have had were from badly managed Kodak Approval output devises.
I RARELY get good files from Photographers. And it makes sense. They are mostly focused on how the image looks and not on how it will reproduce or be worked. I now charge extra for working on a file that I did not convert. I mostly now do all of the conversions and everyone is happier.
I send out RGB files to clients and printers along with a print out from my Canon ipf5000 printer and have had no complaints at all. Ever.

Chris

[dvaught]

A little more about CMYK vs RGB

CMYK is an additive method of color theory. The more of each color you push, the darker the color. 0% of all 4 colors = white. 100% of all 4 colors is as dark as you can get.

RGB is a subtractive method of color theory. The more of each color you push, the lighter the color. 0% of all 3 colors = black. 100% of all 3 colors = white.

The 2 theories are polar opposite of one another. One deals with mixing ink, the other deals with mixing light. Digital cameras and most scans are native RGB files because they are produced by capturing light. Working on files in RGB offers a tremendous amount of flexibility over CMYK. It will save time, effort and file size. Working color in RGB is never going to be as precise as working color in CMYK until we begin to print in RGB, which can’t happen unless we begin to print with light because no mater how you try, RGB does not work as an additive method. You can not mix Red, Green and Blue inks to give you a usable color spectrum. Mix those 3 as light and you have an infinite number of colors. So as soon as we start printing with light instead of Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black our files have to be converted to 4-color. If you don’t do it, the rip will do it for you. If you convert to a profile, you are trusting the computer to mix the colors you want. In most cases it does a nice job and looks on screen and even on a Fuji/Kodak very similar to your RGB file. I just don't think that profiles are quite there yet. It is getting close, just not there yet. I look forward to the day when converting to a profile works everytime though, it will make my life a lot easier.

NOTE: What you are about to read is where having knowledge of the printing process comes in handy. Here is an example of a skin tone color taken from RGB and converted to SWOP v2. The conversion split the RGB channels into 15c, 40m, 54y, 0k. The IDENTICAL color can be made by altering the color to a 5c, 35m, 50y, 9k. Try it, mix 2 colors and put one on top of another, go through the channel to confirm. Why would you go through that trouble you ask? Because you are spreading the color information across all channels more evenly to lessen color shifts made you color moves made on press. Knowing that pages run on press forms and are subject to color shifts caused by pages running up on the press form it is in our best interest to mix the colors in a manner that allows the most flexibility. Pull a little cyan ON PRESS from the RGB conversion mix of 15c, 40m, 54y, 0k and the color gets real red in a hurry. Push cyan and it goes green. Equally unfortunate results occur from pushing and pulling the colors. BUT.... Wait, your file looked good on the Fuji, why would you need to push or pull any color on press? Because a Fuji shows you what the press is capable of printing, not what it is going to print when you fire up the press. So the press gets running and your image looks too cool. The pressmen tweak on color for a bit trying to match your Fuji but every move they make effects what is running below on the press sheet. In an ideal world you run the same pages up with one another so the color moves made do not negatively effect one another. The unfortunate reality is that is rarely the case. So when you press check you are basically making compromises. Would you rather this image be right on with the Fuji and the one below look greenish? Or do you split the middle and get both close? That is up the the person doing the OK. So if you think past the Fuji proof and set your files up for press you are giving the pressmen more flexibility to match color on press. OR just turn over your RGB files to pre-press and let them dick with your color. Personally, I don't trust pre-press operators to make those moves so I chose to do it myself.

I believe I am a pretty competent retoucher, not the best in my studio and likely not the best of those reading this, but I hold down a day job. I can say that in 15 years I have been fortunate enough to have done thousands of press OK’s and had to make the compromises on press which has given me a lot of experience with the print process and understand how it directly relates to what we do. I certainly don't know everything, but knowing that I can't part the sea or walk on water keeps me open to trying new things.

My job is to make images print to their maximum potential. My studio is fortunate enough to get to work with some fantastic photographers and clients, but we also have to deal with garbage images from time to time. Regardless of the quality of the image, the basic color theory applies to all.

[cricket1961]

Forgot to add that while employed in NYC even though we retouched in RGB we always sent out a cmyk file converted with custom CMYK profiles. THis really minimized any complaints from printers and even had some printers sending their client sover for the profiles to use.
Regardless of color theory, color can be done in rgb, There are always going to be times when you can tweak more in cmyk, but it does not eliminate retouching in rgb. Profiles have come huge distances from the early days if you have the right programs to create your own.

Chris

[dvaught]

Very true Chris. I certainly don't mind working in RGB, I just like to make the conversion and final color moves in 4-color. I could really care less what mode I work in, I just want it to print right.

The great thing is that technology is changing so rapidly with regards to color management AND print technology that what we are doing today may be archaic in a the months and years to come.

[pixelzombie]

Originally Posted by cricket1961

As a dry dot etcher I learned CMYK inside and out. This helped greatly with the transition to prepress work and Photoshop.

Chris

it's great to see someone with a prepress background achieve the notoriety that you've achieved...

[skydog]

Hasselblad 39

Two points to share:

Point 1: I recently participated in a pro / celebrity golf tournament. The pros could not be more gracious. All the pros were extremely helpful to all who participated by offering tips and suggestions on improving a swing, a drive, a putt etc. None felt threatened. I never heard any pros condescend the play of another. I see the play of those on this forum to be like a pro/celebrity golf tournament: a wide range of abilities. Some here are quite gracious others quite condescending who hide behind fake names and icons. I guess that is the difference between pros with class and those without. Thank God for those who do!

Point 2: I watched America's next model on TV tonight. I was amazed by the makeup artists and the photographers. All the photographers were shooting with Hasselblad 39's. The lights used for the shoots were also a sight to see. I saw no mention of the retoucher. Do retouchers that are indeed good and considered a "master" get respect or just another clog in the work flow?

I would think the majority of us on this forum, like myself, are weekend golfers who range in ability from par golf to the beginner.

[cricket1961]

The majority of master retouchers are unfortuently another cog in the wheel. Which is odd because if a good retoucher goes to another house, usually the clientel will follow.

Now does that make sense to anyoneout there if retouchers are just another cog?

[SteveB2005]

I found out that the real secrets to high end pro retouching skills comes from contacts in the pre-press houses. Those guys and gals have backgrounds in color, drum scanning, CD/DVD packaging, Heidelberg presses, photography, many trained in Europe, old table strippers who were masters of ruby lith and exacto knives, Scitex and total Photoshop gurus. To learn some real hands-on pro Photoshop stuff, I was hiring these guys to tutor me at $50 an hour in the 1990's and I did in fact finally get hired as a junior retoucher and photographer for over 2 years. the stuff I had to pull off in limited amounts of time was unbelievable!

It is in fact a closed secretive club and many workers in this trade only get hired from referrals of others in the trade already. They usually don't "hire off the street." Some houses test you for up to 4 hours, and the better ones pay you to test and I know jouneymen Mac Photoshop operators and retouchers who can't pass the tests, some designed to make you fail. I know this first hand, because I have taken some of these tests, and man were they hard! Insane masking, CMYK color correction using curves, uh selecting and knocking out a hi-rez Harley-Davidson file, each spoke had to be perfect to put on a white background, a famous model's hair selection for a magazine cover that took 6 hours to do and went through 2 other retouchers until it went to the only top man who was a very talented artist and got it done. He tested me on the same file, I tried it and man oh man, It took me 12 hours and he gave me a B+ which ain't good enough to make the cover, but he said keep at it until you get it down.

Anyway, this high end retouching trade is tough to get into without immense talent and connection in the pre-press world. If you have to do it, you will find away, even if you have to hire 12 masters who will work with you hands on and bust your chops big-time if you don't cut it

steve

[SteveB2005]

I wanted to add a few things about getting into the high end retouching world. The only way I could even be interviewed and tested by a big production pre-press house was by a referral and direct phone call to the shift manager. A contact I had in pre=press had seen some of my work, felt I might be ready, tried to set me up with some mock up tests in Quark, Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign. Two of his contacts he referred who had been in the trade for years both flunked the test, even though they had worked in several shops for decades.

First, he scared the living daylights outta me on what he thought would be on the tests. So I prepared for a month or so in my free time. Finally it was test day, so the manager interviewed me and led me into the dark huge production studio with a hundred Macs all over the place, sat me down and then sent over one of his top ladies to also scare the daylights outta me, breafing me on what they wanted me to do and gave me 90 minutes to do it. Basically they gave me this insane "defective" file to make it press ready, mask, color correct, retouch, precise selections, tweak it in Illustrator and Photoshop, then send it into Quark and make sure it would RIP ok. I thought I did alright, finished up and the manager said to call him the next day for my results. I shook in my boots, called him the next late afternoon, and the man went over the test with me on the phone. he told me I did above average, better than some that he had come in that week, but not 100% required to get hired. He also said he couldn't take the time to train an 85-90% "there" guy, so that was that. I heard he finally hired someone already between shops who passed the tests.

I felt I was "trainable", but this shop was a doozey to get into, even with guys already in the trade and some of them couldn't even cut it.

steve

[ftp-Jeff]

I have been retouching since 1973...... A lot of you guys are calling yourselves " master retouchers" Then you go on about using Quark and other page makeup programs..... Then one guy goes for a "test" for a job.

SOMETIMES I DESPAIR!! I'll be glad to get out of this trade, and get back to my airbrushing. You lot are welcome to this, what is now a shitty trade. Not an art form anymore.

[cricket1961]

FTP-Jeff

You sound a bit bitter there and a little discouraged.
While I have been retouching "only" about 10 years less than you, it does not mean that it makes us obsolete. I know nearly nothing about quark or indesign or illustrator. I have had my ups and downs in this trade.
But you know what? It wasn't even a trade I wanted to get into. I started college out with years of private drawing and painting instruction under my belt. I paid for my first two (and nearly only two) years of college as a commercial art major by selling stuff I had done while in high school. Only to be told after two years in college that I had no talent and should think of another career. So I became a acting (yes I was the FIRST Tarantino in the acting business, not my cousin or that other Chris Tarantino) and a dance major. I had been a professional Saxophone player from the age of 15 and anything to do with the arts were my first love. But I was well rounded, also being a great athlete having had martial art instruction from the age of 5, 12 years of soccer, 12 years of wrestling , including trying out for and making the 1980 Olympic wrestling team only to break my neck in the final cuts. I then got out of the arts and made a living on 3rd shift as a plastics extrusion operator. Somehow I met someone who needed a place to live, but didn't want to move in with me because I had stairs and she had a older dog. So I moved in with her and she taught me in 10 minutes how to do a hand-toned cromalin. From there I learned how to wet etch, then dry etch, then scan, then self taught photoshop. HTe ONLY thing I know well, besides my music and art, is Photoshop. And lucky for me people noticed.
My first big job out of the prepress world was for a company called Brann, who called me out of the blue. They were at the time even bigger then Grey Advertising. They wanted someone to handle all of their Connecticut based advertising retouching and color management. I knew nothing about retouching for advertising because I am creative only when I am putzing around, but I knew color management having worked with Apple to develop colorsync. A year later IBM, their largest client decided that they were going to clean house with their advertisers. They tossed out the best shop and the worst shop. Brann was their best and I got laid off along with 95% of some immensely talented individuals, most of whom went on to work for Tracey-Locke. Me? Unemployed with a house a wife who doesn't work at a outside job and three little boys. Tow months of shitting bricks on what to do. Couldn't go back to prepress. got to used to the better money and hours.
All of a sudden I get home one day and some nutcase left a message on my machine. "I am calling from a hi end retouching shop in NYC and we would like to hire you.By the way your phone number is wrong on your resume so we had to hunt you down"
I had never sent out resumes so who knows where he got that one. So I bundled up(it was the middle of February) and hopped on the train and walked from 42nd down to w21st and entered into what I thought was the dirtiest and ugliest retouching house there could ever be (by the way, the commute for that was 2.5 hours each way). I sat down and did his test in about 2 hours and ten talked to him for about a half hour. I had never done hi end beauty work before so I can imagine what it looked like to him. I never heard from him for two months again. Then he called and wanted me to start the next week.
As it turns out my test was"So Bad" that they had to do it all over because the shop never does sharpening and I had done some sharpening.
But I had the job, and a year later I was teaching this leading retouching shop how to do beauty retouching and other hi end photoshop manipulations using parts of photoshop hey had never touched. That was ColorEdge when it was still good and I lasted 5.5 years. I think that most of you know my history form here.
My point is I never reached out to anyone for a job, but got in. And I have never considered or called myself a master retoucher. Heck I would rather be doing my music over anything else. Not that I don't love what I do!
But perseverance and a willingness to learn will get you more than a recommendation into a shop. Even if you get that recommendation you still need to show you can do it. And knowing all the technical aspects of Photoshop isn't enough for some shops to hire you. But doing you work in a way that shows that there will be minimal training needed helps. And the only way that is going to happen is if you show some good aesthetics in your work so that even if the work is poorly done at least they can see where you were going with it. Someone who is excellent at retouching is a harder buy than some one who has a good eye because it is harder to "retrain" them to that shops way of doing things.

Damn, I didn't mean to ramble. Is the retouching scene difficult to get into? Yes it can be. Is it easier to get into if you know someone? Isn't that true of every business? Is it a shitty trade, as FTP-Jeff states? No not at all. But it is most certainly still an art form, and just because we use computers now instead of airbrushes doesn't make it any less so. It is just another tool in your arsenal.

More about me than most wanted to know I am sure, and there is a lot left out about this business. But that is better left to another time.

Stick with it people. It is only going to get as good as you let it.

Chris

[SteveB2005]

Originally Posted by ftp-Jeff

I have been retouching since 1973...... A lot of you guys are calling yourselves " master retouchers" Then you go on about using Quark and other page makeup programs..... Then one guy goes for a "test" for a job.

SOMETIMES I DESPAIR!! I'll be glad to get out of this trade, and get back to my airbrushing. You lot are welcome to this, what is now a shitty trade. Not an art form anymore.

Yes believe it or not, in the Los Angeles pre-press and art houses, they do in fact test you. And many of them expect you to do additional tasks even if your title is junior retoucher. I know several high end guys that took a bit of time to break in and places would invest in their training.

In smaller houses, the retouchers may have to Photoshop the files, run an image setter, know Quark/InDesign, etc. Now this isn't always the case in bigger shops where they have an "assembly line" workflow with specific jobs. Sometimes shop expect an awful lot of skill for low pay, but there are always exceptions

Don't let our experiences discourage you though, many variables about this trade

steve

[pixelzombie]

Originally Posted by ftp-Jeff

I have been retouching since 1973...... A lot of you guys are calling yourselves " master retouchers" Then you go on about using Quark and other page makeup programs..... Then one guy goes for a "test" for a job.

SOMETIMES I DESPAIR!! I'll be glad to get out of this trade, and get back to my airbrushing. You lot are welcome to this, what is now a shitty trade. Not an art form anymore.

it won't be long before the ad agencies move some of the pre-press work in-house, it's already starting to happen in Chicago....that should give an advantage to some of the people with an art background such as yourself, but even the agencies sometimes post a "must know everything ad"...