New Members Introductions, Biographical Ramblings Etc

[Rebelx]

Hello -

I did a search for a PS retouching book and I found this place !

I am from the Toronto area in Canada and work as an IT Infrastructure consultant.

I'm a beginner digital photographer and have been using Photoshop for about a year. So far digital photography has taken over as my #1 hobby.

I'm also really into running and fitness, team sports, and playing my bass guitar. I listen to all kinds of music, but my favourite band is Rush.

Glad to be here!

[RamonaMarie]

Sorry, I somehow posted my intro in the wrong forum. Please don't send the forum protocol police.

Hi all,
I'm ecstatic to have found this site. I'm trying to get into Photo Restoration and don't have a clue at what I'm doing. I just finished a quicktime tutorial from vtc.com, but was a bit disappointed in it. I did get the hang of the patch and heal tools from it though. I've got Katrin Eismann's 2nd edition of Photoshop Restoration and Retouching from the library, but haven't really gotten into it yet. I know she's got a 3rd edition coming out in November, so wanted to hold off till then to buy it. I'm using Photoshop 7. I'll let you know how I stumbled into this restoration thing.

I started out being interested in making collages from our digital photos. I made a couple of family events and people seemed impressed. I'll be "liberated" from corporate life in a few months and have been toying with starting some sort of business. Was going off on all different directions and getting pretty frustrated and stuck creatively when I woke up one morning and the choice had been staring me in the face for months, I just didn't see it. You see, my mother passed away in June and my brother mentioned that we should get all the old pictures restored and put on disk for safe keeping. So I called a studio and asked how much it would cost to scan, restore and put on disk about 100 or so pictures. I don't know what I was thinking, but I figured he'd come back with a quote of a hundred or so dollars. WRONG! $62 PER pic! WOW! Politely ended that conversation. Don't anyone be offended. Someone must have slipped something into my coffee that morning. Well, since I've got Photoshop 7, and had been playing with making collages, I told my brother "I'll just do it myself." To make things worse, I've always got to make a hard task harder, so I get the idea that I want ALL the pics from ALL the surviving relatives (actually not so many now) and I want to make a coffee table quality bound book. Of course, first I've got to learn photo restoration. And Lord knows if binding a book of photos is even a feasible idea. I can get around in Photoshop, but usually use it for web images. I did find a resource at Digital Scrapbook Place that does book binding. So the end goal is possible to my surprise. Well, I'm looking at all these photos that are
literally destroyed and thinking by the time I get these done I might have acquired a new skill. Now I know it will take time, but I am determined, and, like I mentioned, I'm going to have a lot of time on my hands shortly.

I have some questions though. How long does it take (generally speaking) to become skilled at photo restoration if you're really motivated? Are there any other books other than Eismann's that are dedicated to photo restoration? Does anyone know of any schools (community colleges, etc.) in the Chicago area that offer courses? I've only actually found one school that offers a 3 day seminar, and that's Rochester Institute of Technology (NY). I know that's got to be a good one because I know that RIT is the preeminent school of photography. Kodak is headqauartered in Rochester, correct? It's not that it wouldn't be impossible, but I don't have that kind of cash right now. It seems as big as Chicago is that there would be something. I'd even be interested in an apprenticeship type relationship. I'd love to find a "Master" restorer. Would a general Photoshop course be beneficial in respect to restoration? I've considered investing in Photoshop Elements since it seems a little less complicated. Does it have any features for repairing old photos, or should I just stay with Photoshop and suffer the vertical learning curve? Sorry for such a long post. Will be more consise in the future.

I think this is the right place to be. I'm glad I found it. I was getting a little frustrated hanging out in the scrapbooking forums. Thanks in advance.

RamonaMarie

[tracypori]

Hi, I am sort of new to this forum though I have lurked on for some time. About me. My name is Tracy and I live in Southern Oregon though may be moving to Boise in the next couple of months. I am a California native, Bay Area. Graphically, I am proficient in Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro, Elements, and Corel Draw. Up until a couple of months ago, when the magazine was cancelled, I was a writer for Digital Photography Techniques, from Future Publishing. I have some commercial tutorials online through unleash.com and I have a PSP Web site which is currently under reconstruction. I have not updated it with tutorials and goodies since version 9 beta. I have been beta testing Paint Shop Pro since version 7.10 for Jasc and now Corel and I am a C-Tech (volunteer) in the Corel Newsgroups. Personally I have a home based graphic and Web design business. I am not proficient in typing, in fact I am dyslexic, so please excuse my typo's time to time, I know most of you do read typo.

I am married and I have 3 kids left at home and 4 grown and gone, result of a blended family don't cha know. The 3 at home go to 3 different schools so as you can imagine I am the ultimate soccer mom (though my kids play instruments and not soccer).

Nice to see you here Danny, I heard tell you lurked around here as a boss type, and nice to meet new people.

[DannyRaphael]

Originally Posted by tracypori

Nice to see you here Danny, I heard tell you lurked around here as a boss type, and nice to meet new people.

Hi Tracy:

What a wonderful surprise to see your posts. I see you jumped in already with some PSP 10 advice. Your knowledge and experience will be welcome here.

Me a boss type?

Not really. I'm pretty much a hobbiest/enthusiast like most members. Doug's the main guy (owner/webmaster), who lets me play in his yard!

You're in great company. Lots of nice and talented folks participate here; it's a privilege to have you join us.

Again, welcome aboard.

~Danny~

[thana]

greetings

it's not my first post here (and not second...), but i wanted to officially say hi, so... hi!

as i already said in one of my few posts here - i'm from poland (something about 10 kilometres from czech republic) and hope you'll forgive me all language mistakes (repeating myself, yeah, i know )...
i'm 18, rather freshly actually, and spending most of my time in front of my lovely computer, mainly fooling around with photoshop. i'm high school' student with english-german profile (have finals this year...). other interests? well, i like many, many things - from books, via photography, music and dance, to riding.

that'll be all, thanks for the fun i had here already!

[DigiCore]

Hi,
I found this web site last night and had to join. I must of read the forums last night for like three hours! There is a lot of good information on this site, wish I found it earlier.

I'm a 1989 graduate of the Art Institute of Pittsburgh. I'm a big fan of Photoshop and love to do digital illustrations, glamour retouching and photography.

I'm about 45 minutes north of West Palm Beach and would like to know if there is anybody in the area that would like to get together and talk shop. If so, drop me a line.

-Larry

[Hawkeye]

Hi all,

Only found this site today, read a thread or two, and got interested enough to join-up!

My names Daniel, I'm a retired Englishman living in France since 1997. I have been interested in photography since I left collage in 1950, (yes, afraid I'm very old!).

I have been doing digital photo restoration for just over a year, I started with Paint Shop Pro, I'm now using Photo Shop CS2.

Looking forward to reading all the threads.

[Nanls]

Well, I guess if we are doing bios,,,
I started with computers (real ones not atari) in 1980. My family is very visual, my mom has her masters in fine art and was an oil painter. My career started as a display ad designer for a newpaper and always got scammed into cutting the rubylith for color seps, because I had the youngest eyes (sucker) and then went out on my own design studio in Oregon. I had it for some 12 years; did the typical logo design, Branding, business forms... and then moved into photo restoration ... I have always loved photo manipulation from the first version of photoshop.

I move to CA in Nov. 2000 during a divorce. Working as a Communication's Specialist/Art Director -CTM (Chief Trouble Maker) for a group that provided services for the philanthropic sector, I did the typical corporate stuff: Annual Reports, RFPs, newsletters, logo design, press releases and got into more web designing. Off course through out my graphic history the photos for these projects had images that needed retouching. I found I really enjoyed this work and started getting referrals. I now work as a freelance artist and have two sites: http://www.fixthepixs.com and http://www.datepixs.com. We are in negotiations to private label DatePixs for a major player Dating Site; Keep your fingers crossed for me (wouldn't hurt to say a little prayer either). I also do freelance retouching for photographers mainly portrait and product retouching for print and web(lots of maskings and knock outs...) and quite a bit of restoration and coloring BW photos.. I have a series of Children's Fantasy Backgrounds" which I am doing "hit and miss" marketing in my copious spare time, and also doing PHoto-art....

This site is sooooooooooo cool, and there is sooooo much talent here.... and it seems I learn something with each visit. I found it a while back, but just the last couple of months have taken an active interest. You guys rock!

And last of all: I love my Mac! (although I have a pc also, which comes in handy for plug-ins, programs, etc and stuff that they don't make for mac!)

Always looking for extra work, if anyone has extra to outsource I'd appreciated a chance to send samples of my work for your consideration.
~Nancy~

[artfolio]

Hi all!
I just signed up as a member a few days ago.
I came across this site while searching for retouching techniques.
Am interested to try the challenges, and I have to admit there are some mighty fine talents in here!

Hmm.. not much of an introduction but um...that's all I have to say for now.
See ya!

[Terry L]

Hello...I thought I'd say hello to everybody because I'm new here. I found RetouchPRO through a link over at Adobe and thought I'd take a look and decided it was interesting enough to join...which, I did. Hope to learn a lot from the retouch pro's here. Thanks in advance.

[CJ Swartz]

Terry,

Welcome to RetouchPro! Snoop around for a while at the tips/tutorials, and some of the challenges -- in the forums or the Challenge section, then jump in and post a critique or some of your own work, or both!

Not everyone here is a pro, by the way, but you'll find lots of info on techniques, and lots of people who are willing to talk about image editing and offer suggestions. Most of us don't even bite!

[Terry L]

Thanks CJ. Could you give me the heads-up on those who do bite?

[Janet Petty]

In this virtual world all of us are pretty much incorporeal. In other words no bites.

Welcome!

Janet

[Legacy~Art]

I bite!
Welcome to the forum,. I am sure you will get to know the regulars, the oldies on the site, and the newbies!

[Gary Richardson]

Hi Terry, Welcome to RP.

There's a whole range of experience and abilities to learn from here , so jump right in.

And don't worry about the biters, we keep them on a short leash

Gary