Master Retoucher

[pixel_monkey]

Originally Posted by 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

That's a long...and inspiring story, Chris. I knew that the day I received my BFA was the day that I started learning. Looking forward to your class in Vegas.

[pixel_monkey]

Originally Posted by SteveB2005

Sometimes shop expect an awful lot of skill for low pay, but there are always exceptions

steve

Unfortunately, many retouchers in L.A including myself are on that boat. I gave up living on the westside and moved inland for some alleviation on the rent.

[ftp-Jeff]

Just got back from a 8 week vacation.... So I missed all this! Yeah, I am pretty disillusioned with retouching right now! But if that is what you want to get into... go for it. Never thought of teaching people before! S'pose I could do that?

NAH!...


Anyone want to buy a company here in the UK?


Jeff

[superkoax]

CHRIS: Thanks for your story here! It's nice to get a picture from peoples past experience!


Gerry

[pixelzombie]

Originally Posted by ftp-Jeff

Just got back from a 8 week vacation.... So I missed all this! Yeah, I am pretty disillusioned with retouching right now! But if that is what you want to get into... go for it. Never thought of teaching people before! S'pose I could do that?

NAH!...


Anyone want to buy a company here in the UK?


Jeff

i have a hard time getting back to work after a 2 week vacation, and you've increased that by a factor of 4....welcome back, where did you go btw?

[ftp-Jeff]

I went to Florida for 4 weeks... Then to Canada for 2 weeks. then back to Florida.

Seems like years ago now!

[Visna]

Originally Posted by 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.

Please don't get the wrong theories about RGB and CMYK. From Wikipedia:

RGB = An additive color model involves light emitted directly from a source or illuminant of some sort. The additive reproduction process usually uses red, green and blue light to produce the other colors.

CMY = A subtractive color model explains the mixing of paints, dyes, inks, and natural colorants to create a range of colors, where each such color is caused by the mixture absorbing some wavelengths of light and reflecting others.

K = blacK or ( Key film or plate ) In the past the ink was very poor quality and when you add CMY we got dark grey not a perfect black. With new improve color pigments and we can achieve now a good black. But we still use K for many reasons. But we can find High End printer using 6 colors or RGB colors (wide gamut).

[ftp-Jeff]

and?......