New Members Introductions, Biographical Ramblings Etc

[soleah]

This is a long overdue introduction.

HI. I’m soleah.

I’m 37 years old. I was born and raised in the Philippines. I also lived in the Northern Marianas for 4 years where I met my husband. We’re currently living in Guam with my 2-½ year old son.

I have a bachelors degree in Computer Science. I’ve been in the IT profession for over 10 years. In 2001, I’ve settled on what I thought was a less stressful job of being a stay-at-home mom.

To pass my time, I took up a short course in web design. Bought tons of books and read it from cover to cover. I used adobe photoshop then for a little photo/image manipulation to be used for the web.

When my son was a year old, I undertook the task of compiling a book for our family tree. I’ve collected a lot of old pictures from my large family. That’s when I realize that I have to do something about those old pictures. I bought Katrin Eismann’s “Photoshop Restoration and Retouching”. That’s where I learned about this site.

The information here in RP, I believe, is as deep as the Marianas Trench. And it keeps getting deeper everyday, I don’t think I’ll ever reached the bottom of it. Maybe 2 or 3 years down the road, I’ll still consider myself a newbie!

I kept coming back to this site most of all because the people here are very friendly, courteous and very willing to help and to share what they know. I hope I could be just as good and just as helpful.

What else…hmmm. English is not my natural language. Much as I want to help, sometimes, I couldn’t find the proper words to express myself. That’s another thing I have to work on.

It’s nice to meet all of you!

[JTPhoto]

Hello everyone!

My name is Tracy and my husband and I own and operate a small photography studio in Massachusetts. We specialize in nature and fine art portraits. We also offer fine art giclee printing services to other photographers and artists who seeking hihg-quality, accurate prints of their work.

We both have technical backgrounds (me - engineering, programming and design, him - computer technology) and our love of photography grew from a long-time hobby to a growing business. We both decided that the rat race was becoming just too much and we want more out of life than sitting in an office or spending countless hours on the road commuting.

I am the lucky one since I am now able to do the photography and printing full-time. My husband, however, still maintains his high-salaried computer job and will do so only as long as he has to.

My eye for placement, color and light is balanced by my desire to get things "technically correct". We use Nikon digital cameras (the D2X is AWESOME!) and Epson Wide Format Inkjet printers. Even in the digital world, we constantly strive to get the image correct in the camera and do as little manipulation as possible in PS. That sometimes isn't always the case! :-)

My husband never considered himself the "creative type" yet, thorugh the years, I have seen him take beautifully creative photographs! We are an amazing team and I am thrilled that we have started this business and look forward to all the photographs we will create together!

Tracy

[Sheba]

Hiya gang!

I joiined awhile back and was a bonafied lurker. I then lost this website in a sea of bookmarks. I slapped myself in the head when I came across this place again. *HELLO* I forgot what a great resource this place is! You guys are awesome and I love the kicked back environment here.

I plan on resuming lurk mode! Hopefully I have learned enough in the past few months to contribute where I can. PS is a neverending learning curve and the stuff in here only makes it easier.

Thanks for making such a great place to hang out!

[smiley guy]

I figured I should make my first post here for lack of any better place right now.

Some biographical information: I am 36 and a freelance musician in Southern Ontario. When I am not out playing with orchestras I am at home with my kids; 7 and 3 years old. I've got two dogs--labrador retrievers.

As the title says, I'm starting out and hoping to make a go of a new business for me. As I said, I am currently a freelance musician in southern Ontario, Canada and recently discovered the joys of photography, photo editing, restoration and retouching. I have done several projects--large and small--for family with much positive feedback. It is something I thoroughly enjoy and would like to turn into some income to fill the gaps in my musical freelance schedule.

I would love any and all advice that you have to offer about this venture.

I am currently using a Canon Canoscan 9950F hooked up to my iMac G5. Running photoshop elements 2.0 as well as GIMPshop. iPhoto for my photo collection. I use a Canon Rebel 2000 film SLR for my own photography stuff.

I have so many questions it's unbelievable but not sure if I should start a separate thread or stick to this one. I have been doing some browsing and searching so not sure if I should throw another "starting out" thread on the fire as it were. Ahhhh! Help!

[MaryLynn]

Hello Tracy, Sheba and Smiley Guy. Welcome to RP.

Don't be shy about asking questions or adding comments. Smiley, feel free to start new threads; the moderators will move them to the forum in which they'll get the most attention.

We learn as much from questions as we do from answers. Also, this forum would be much smaller if we only posted perfect, completed work. We learn by following along in the creative process.

I look forward to seeing more from all of you!

MaryLynn

[Gary Richardson]

Hi Tracy, Sheba and Smiley Guy, welcome to RP.

Well, you've broken the ice now, interesting to read about you all.

As MaryLynn says, this is a learning forum. We learn as much from you, as you do from us, so please post on any topics that interest you.

Remember, there's no such thing as a dumb question, the only thing that's dumb is not asking.

Have fun, look forward to seeing your posts.

[rocky]

Hello. My name is Rocky, and I'm a recent Photoshop enthusiast, and enjoy editing digital fotos. In addition to all the basics with this PS, I've become interested in making my photographs look like paintings, which I believe puts me in the domain of Photo Art. I live in Portland, Oregon where I work in IT at a local university. I look forward to participating in these forums.

[Gary Richardson]

Hi Rocky,

Welcome to RP. I'm not into Photo Art myself, but Danny and the others are a really friendly and helpful bunch, and I'm sure they'll make you welcome.

[CathieT]

Hi all,

My name's Cathie (like I figure you may have worked that out already) and I am addicted to exclamation marks!!

This looks like a wonderful place to hang out - the first thread I opened was the June Comp ... I downloaded the bug - looked at some of the entries while I was waiting ... and changed my mind ... hey there's only a few hours to go!!

I have a Canon S1_IS camera, and love taking photos, but as well as the "darkroom" stuff for the camera, I love the boundless fun you can have with PS et al.

The other members of my family (after the camera) are: one diesel mechanic husband, one 14 year old female stepdaughter and one five year old male child!! I work part time, and so as you can imagine, do my best work after dark .... (read, when everyone else has gone to bed and left me in peace!!)

I look forward to learning stuff here and hope I will soon be able to contribute something back ..

Cheers,
Cathie

[tomvason]

My name is Tom Atkinson. I live in EAst Point (Atlanta), GA. A year and half ago, I decided to return to school to train for something new! Currently I am a student at American InterContential University, majoring in Graphic Design. However, I have developed a passion about restoring old Photos, which is what led me to discover this website (awesome place!). I'm 50 years old, single and also work for AIU part time. I am looking forward to being more involved in this forum in the future.

[wbcarey]

Hello
My name is Bill. I have been involved with PS before it was PS. It was front end scanner software for a barneyscan film scanner. Thats going back many years.
I have been involved in prepress/imaging since 1981. I am cuurently an operations manager for a professional color lab in SF. Finding RetouchPro is a gold mine of info. I have always admired what highend digital retouchers can do and really enjoy reading the posts. I am just a newbie at restoration and retouching. Thanks for the informative site. I look foward to participating to the forum

[Bujo]

Another new face to add to the body of talent. I'm a 30ish photographer from the midwest in the U.S. and I'm always looking for new tools for my skill set. I work as a photographer and I freelance as a photog on the side and I'm also doing restorations. I'm pretty fair in PS, but there is always more to learn. I am joining this forum for knowledge on equipment and techniques.

I'm a Virgo, I like long walks in the park and music....lol.

I've been shooting since '92 and went "PRO" in the sense that I make my living shooting photographs...not "PRO" as in "knows it all" in 2002.

My summer vacation...I went to the lake and swam and saw a snake...

I shoot many differnt types of subjects, people, places, food, products and what ever else gets in the way.

I also like to laugh...

Current projects... working up two weddings, two restorations and one "Please remove my ex from this picture of me and my truck." Along with hundreds of smaller photo jobs for my day job.

I'm looking forward to reading all the threads and if there is something I know and think it will be useful I'll share. Please do the same.

Thanks,

[Robert Martens]

Ooh! I love threads like this, don't mind if I take advantage.

My name is Robert Martens (bet you'd never figure that out), I'm twenty-one years old, and I'm a plumber's helper on Long Island. I'm lucky enough to work for my father, which has been a wonderfully rewarding experience. Three, maybe three and a half years of my training down, another four and I can get my license in New York City, where most of our work is done. That training will, unfortunately, be interrupted by about two years of education in the field of electrical engineering at the local community college (if I can pass the math tests, that is). I love plumbing, and fully intend to get that license, but I'd like to cover all my bases, you know? Have as many prospects as possible, that kinda thing, and a grounding--pun intended--in both electricity AND water, two things that normally don't go together very well.

Never been much of a photographer, really. I took a photography course in high school which was very helpful, at least at the time. I've since forgotten everything I learned, and have yet to use the Nikon D70 camera my parents got me for the class. In addition to that camera, I've got a cheapy Kodak EasyShare digital camera that, while hardly professional, has produced some of my favorite photos--mostly of our cats being cute. The limitations of such a camera provide, if nothing else, an opportunity to practice my photo enhancing skills. Hey, it's convenient, and if it's a less-than-perfect photo versus none at all, I'll take what I can get.

I've become interested in filmmaking over the past few years, though I find I'm more interested in purchasing and learning to use expensive toys, then breaking them in a fit of temper when I get angry with myself--for some completely unrelated, trivial matter--realizing that "I don't deserve this stuff". As an aside, I have a penchant for the dramatic when speaking about myself, and find myself playing the part of victim all too often. Anyway, I'm finding many of the lessons learned with regard to color grading video and film footage, among other things, can be applied to photo restoration/retouching, and vice versa.

I have a website, for some strange reason, that was originally intended for all the short films I was gonna produce, but to date contains nothing but some computer game related content I've made. Hopefully, I'll soon have some photo work worth showing off on the thing.

I also love parentheses, and I apologize a lot (sorry).

[PixelHawk]

Hi Everybody!

I joined this list a while back, posted a bit, then dropped off the face of the earth. Life got hectic, and the job didn't really lend itself to letting me come on here as much as I wanted.

Things are changing soon, however. I'm taking a part time job at a service bureau as a photo retoucher/pixel jockey for the place that does the output for a company I used to work for as a designer. Ironically, when I worked there I did the lion's share of their photo retouching, which was really my favorite part of the job. So now, same building, different employer, the fun part of the job, more money.

So, quick bio recap: I've been working in the graphics industry for the past 13 years, web, print, digital art. I've been teaching computer graphics for the past two years (and I've managed to corrupt, ahem, enlighten a few students to the joys of Photoshop. I am also in to old cars, metal work, and pinstriping.

Hello Again!

[HexImpaler]

Hello there

First of all i have to say that my english sucks so this will be a short introduction :P

My name is Mikael, 23 years old and i'm from Sweden. I have studied graphical design and webdevelopment but i am currently unemployed since 6 months.

I use PS CS for my Digital Art, check it out on my website www.mikaelhollsten.se

This seems to be a great forum/website and i hope to learn alot about resoration and retouch.

thats all folks

[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