[CJ Swartz]

Originally Posted by mche

... Darn, should have been here sooner.

There's plenty of room in this internet "town" for "the two of you" or even many more -- the more knowledgeable people around, the more the rest can learn, and you can find plenty to do with your skills here!

[stockriderman]

A lot of photographers now know how to do retouching. I've seen good and bad. As high end retoucher,you have to be way above them,to show it's worth paying you. For what I've seen in my area and field,there are way too many wanna-be retouchers who aren't even good.
A lot of photographers now have photoshop and are able to adjust brightness/saturation and do basic skin adjustments. Not a lot however can mess with backgrounds,eyes,futuristic effects(eg. sin city or any movie posters). Not a lot have wacom tablets,which are a must with retouchers. There are many noobs out there who think mouse is the best tool..

[stevebarrett]

Some thoughts. Sorry for rambling.


In the end it is the Advertising Creative or Art director who makes the final decisions on an images. They want more control over creative and cost.

Some do all or part of the compositing work themselves, if they have the skill, leaving the color work for production retouchers.

Some try to get all of the retouching done by the photographer, if possible. There is more money budgeted for creative retouching work. Though, I have heard that some art directors exhaust photographers and their retouching teams, squeezing out every penny.

Print producers still have a lot of respect for prepress retouchers, because they direct the work to us and are the one's responsible for the printed image. Although, there is a lot more competition for less and less of this work, since color profiling has arrived.

In general advertising retouching, my peers and I have worked on many projects from the best commercial photographers, where we have taken the photographer's RAW files or RGB digital selects and have restarted the project from scratch. Usually, the problems are a combination of bad Photoshop compositing, color work, impossible subjects, creative differences (between the photographer and the AD), or changes made by the Creative Director or client.

These images eventually convert to CMYK. Product color matching, ink densities, black only shadows, newsprint UCR are always tough to tackle. Color profiling is getting better, but CMYK retouchers are needed to answer many problems.

Art directors oversee these minute retouching and color issues.

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There is a constant tug of war between creative and production retouching. Some agencies have taken some or all retouching in house. Many haven't because large companies can handle high volume retouching, turning it around overnight.

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There is much more job competition now. In the past three years, we have lost two high end scanner operators. These guys truly understand color better than most retouchers hired for their compositing skills. Getting to contract color is expected by our clients and these guys get there faster.

Since good retouching is a combination of artistic compositing AND color, you can rarely find both in the same person. You now have to try to attain both skills or you are left behind. Although, being a great artist will NOW overshadow being a great technician.


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There are just more people doing this type of work, because the technical barriers have crumbled. Retouching will be around for many years to come, but more artistic types will be able to survive the changes.

This happened with photography and illustration. Many left those fields altogether, after the digital age started effecting them. The more creative ones who could learn computers and adapt have moved into retouching design, art direction or computer graphics.

If you are more of a technical retoucher or color operator, taking art and drawing classes, learning perspective, 3D, typography, design, layout etc. will help you survive.

If you are the artistic type, study color theory, take prepress and printing production classes.

Everyone should know Photoshop and expose themselves to Illustrator, InDesign, Quark and some 3D programs. Learn from each another while you are together. Hopefully you will help each other survive the changes.

Steve

[DBizzzaro]

My experience and thoughts

I think older retouchers are a dying breed. ( no pun intended). A little about myself first. Started Photo restoration (before the pixel was even invented) . Most of this was done using an airbrush. Moved on to commercial retouching B&W for newspaper, Dye transfer, C-Print and some illustration work. There were skills involved you could only learn as an apprentice and you still needed a strong art background. There were maybe 100 retouchers in NYC back then. Making a very good living. Minimum was $50.00 to $350.00 per hour.
Then the pixel was invented, I held out as long as I could. Went to learn the Quantel Paint box, Shima Seki, Hell Combi. Barco Creator. and now
Mac Photoshop.
I worked for 4 different companys and they all were sold or went out of business due to mergers. I was let go after 6 years due to a merger and also because they relized they could hire 2 people for what they were paying me. It took 3 months to find a job. I making less then I was making.
I think they still need retouchers and Photoshop has made alot of competition and the price agencys and employees are willing to pay have come down alot. There is no such thing as a retouching studio, They need to have scanners, output devices, billboard ect. ect. to stay in business.
Retouching has been good to me and there were alot of good and fun years. Present I'm working at Marcus and Indranii studio.

http://www.markusklinko-indrani.com/photoGallery/

High end retouching is still alive.

Dan Bizzaro dbizz38329@aol.com

[aaa1retouchskil]

I'm a new member. I have to say that stevebarret is a gentleman and a scholar and it was such a pleasure to read his post.

I started retouching back in the day, used mornicks, calculated exposures with light candles on huge prints ... in a darkroom, all in a small city between New York and Washington. There were too many studios to count and although it wasn't the big city I was a hot retouch artist. Call it intuition or providence but somewhere around 1993 while studio after studio closed down I felt the only way to go, for me, was to return to school.

Playing both sides of the isle I majored in illustration but insisted that I take as many digital oriented courses as I could juggle.

By 2000 I kept hearing that illustration was a dying art because of the digital explosion. Maybe it's my "seeing the glass as half full" tendency but I saw a need on the horizon for a combination of the two. I had no idea at the time that manga, animation and 3D would breath life back into illustration on tv, comics the game industry.... at this point — you name it.

Right after graduation I recall freelancing at one of remaining local agencies. It was the first time I heard the words clipping path. I knew Illustrator like the back of my hand and paths were my friend. My rates were high and there was no way I was going to act like I had no idea what they were talking about. Keeping my cool, I watched, listened then ran home at lunch time and ravaged the internet to find out what they were expecting me to accomplish. I survived by figuring it out.

Very recently while working on a freelance retouching project, an art director complained to me, "how hard is it to get these retouchers to put together a decent clipping path." I know that there are fabulous retouchers that still don't know what this means. And I hope like me they too are running out on their lunch hours to find out. This week I read a post here from someone who turned down a job because they were missing a very simple pre-press skill. I would have moved mountains to find out how to address the missing skill and accepted that job.

Like Steve, I agree that you have to keep learning. Reconcile with the fact that just ahead there are 3 new softwares to master. When the manga rage hit, I hated it and resented that more than likely the beautiful illustrations of old might be of no interest to anyone. But having basic skills I had to decide
— adjust my attitude and embrace it or forget it. Or better yet use my creativity and make it work.

The good news is that once onboard with learning new skills — Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Flash... the upcoming software is similar in principle. Sometimes I think it is a matter of welcoming that we don't know everything and that it's ok even if we are accomplished to ask questions or look for answers. I acknowledge this must be extremely difficult for anyone who was worshiped as being the most knowledgeable and accomplished.

My son just graduated from if not the best, the most expensive recording art technical institutes. Having many reasons to smile while attending his graduation in Florida, one of my biggest grins came from hearing a final remark, "remember, never stop learning, never stop asking questions." This remark from a state of the art school whose tuition is $45,000. per year and they even concede how difficult it is keeping up with the latest technology.

We are not alone.

Oh and a freeing thing happened while accumulating all this new information, gear, technology, ftp's wacoms, toasters, modems, books, voip systems, portfolios, artwork, printers, scanners, websites, plug-ins... whew — I discovered that there was no room left for my ego. Well maybe it does still exist, but I'm either too busy learning or it's just too hard to locate under all this stuff.


Cheers!
Trish

[dvaught]

Here is my thought. I agree with both ant and cricket. There will always be a need for high end retouchers. Will the market shrink? Maybe, do in part to the more frequent use of online publications. But honestly, I have not seen high end print slow down, but rather just the opposite. I think that art directors are doing more and more comp work these days and that is a good thing because we can follow their comps to produce images that represent exactly the look and feel that they are going for with little room for interpretation. This only makes our jobs more efficient and somewhat easier.

High end retouchers have an equal mixture of artistic ability and technical knowledge which truly is a difficult thing to find. Being able to visualize and alter an image to the point that it is not possible to tell it has been retouched is the artistic ability. The technical knowledge is knowing how achive the desired effect in the most efficient and flexible manner and more importantly is the ability to produce images that will reproduce as good as they look on screen on what ever medium they will be used, ie. print, web, news print, duratrans, billboard etc. Example, there are many ways to get mix color thru CMYK mixing. For instance, a mix of 21, 26, 63, 0 will give you a light tan color on screen and will print on the green side because of the cyan which may be exactly what you want. But a mix of 0, 14, 55, 22 will give you a screen preview that is almost identical but it will print more like what is represented on screen because of the lack of Cyan.

What seperates the high end retouchers from the rest is attention to the small details and the technical knowledge that comes from experience.

[dvaught]

Originally Posted by mche

I was retouching Christie Brinkley when you were running around in sh#&ty diapers.

WOW, that means you were retouching her around 1974ish? which is totally possible because she was about 20 and being used by CoverGirl. Pretty impressive. What hardware/software were you using at that time or was it traditional film dodge and burn. None the less, if you've been retouching that long you already know the answer to your original question.

[aaa1retouchskil]

Shout out to dvaught,

I so appreciate your productive point of view. This site is offers such the opportunity for gaining experience as well as insight from the brilliant
talent it potentially attracts.

I found that regardless of whether I was using dyes, brushes, air brushes and compressors or a wacom that instinct for pulling areas together, the genius behind creating those subtle seamless transitions is not something that had to be re-learned. Falling deep into a trance of being on a roll with accomplishing such transitions never leaves you. Getting to the point of re-learning the new tools to allow that trance to become effortless was easier for me because to me the tools in photoshop were slow coming in the beginning. Making that early transition made to be eager to embrace the new tools that allowed me to broaden my efforts.

As I explained my local economy forced me to make the digital transition. I'm very sympathetic if some continued to find work in a non-digital format then suddenly found themselves overwhelmed with a dizzing array of technical skills to learn as their clients or companies went under. Thru the lineage of illustration I also understand the resentment of not wanting to let go of the past. Not wanting to participate in the new, even though the skills were there the passion had gone missing.

That being said, the question are retouchers a dying breed somehow became focused on high end retouchers. I was hot, not worshiped, appreciated not pampered. I found just as much satisfaction in helping restore a low end photographers chemical spill as I did retouching the genius photographer. I appreciated them both for sending me their business.

Perhaps this also aided me with making transitions and learning new things because I never got to the point of thinking I was above learning new things.
There will always be a need to perfect what we want others to visualize, in print or online. Especially when it comes to marketing to consumers. Reality will always bite and retouchers will always be there to soften or maybe enhance that fact. We just have to embrace transitions and be ready to rally when opportunities present themselves.

[mche]

Hi Everyone,
Just stopped by to see how much traction this thread created. Jeez, stop the press, your responses are relevant, concise, and appreciated. Please forgive me if my arrogant remark concerning high-end retouching ruffled any feathers. Yes, retoucher's are alive and well. :cool
Call off the troops!

[zganie]

I am no expert in retouching but seems to me theres a lot of bad work out there.Same with photography These are crafts,something you have to put your time and effort into.Just because you can afford the latest equipment does not make you good or a proffessional.I think whats missing is a lot of people do not get the basics down,you need those essentials whatever your doing,its like building a house before you have the foundation.Example is I was at a wedding and watching the photographer he was shooting away,now is that a skill or just law of averages if i shoot enough photos some will be good or i will photoshop them thats not skill to me anyway.Example 2 restoration of older photographs that are over sharpened,blacks are to black,
whites are to white,glossy paper used in final image why because a lot of people do not have the fundamentals It takes time research and really paying attention to detail to become a fine craftsperson.
just my opinion zganie

[lonelaser]

I am a professional retoucher, & have been for about 16 years. I'm not aware of any signs of my imminent demise nor that of my colleagues.

What I see dying is the tidal wave of mediocre Photoshop doodlers usurping the title of 'retoucher' because they learned how to use the Clone Tool & the Magic Wand. In the shops where I work, they don't last the day, sometimes they don't even last their first hour. It's easy to lie with a portfolio, impossible on the job. For a time the whole field was polluted with them.

Where high quality is required & appreciated grubby work for the poseurs, well, maybe that's dying.

[aaa1retouchskil]

Lonelaser,

Sorry been a bit busy lately. I agree that there will always be a need to perfect, manipulate, alter, reality. As a freelancer, I haven't
experienced that tial wave of doodlers as you have. Not sure how one would lie with a portfolio, but I will take your word for it.

I really like working from home. I imagine it is fast paced in the trenches. Well good luck and thanks for the point of view.

[kchase]

interesting thread that is brewing and although not a retoucher, i have spent many years on the producer side of retouching and have recently become an agent to 5 independent craftsmen and from where i sit, there is plenty of demand for superior talent so keep learning and keep your rates up as best you can so that it continues to be a means to make a living in the arts.

http://katechase.com

[manu_retoucher]

Retouching is coming up like never before. We retouchers are a special breed.
People can do Graphic Designing, Web Designing etc but retouching is a different art all togather & everyone cant be a master of it. Its 100% skill & creativity at its highest.

[DBizzzaro]

I noticed retouching has become more international. Retouchers competing for work in the US from India, China, Hungary, Poland. I wonder what the retouching rates are in other countries?