[i-inspire]

Not sure if this is the best place to put this...but here goes.
I just got a job retouching wedding photos for a very nice photographer who is mediocre.(I'm not saying I'm better - but I have to be honest.) I am charging $15 an hour for corrections= color/exposure/noise (most of the work) and more for manipulation=cut/paste/clone stuff.

So in answer to the question I do make money, but I am not making a living.
Here is my question: I live in northern CA, and my only teaching has come from the web and HOURS/years of hands on. Can anyone tell me of another resource like this one where pros share some techniques for me to try?

[KR1156]

many pros will not hand over the recipe book because they put in many hours/years/blood sweat and tears perfecting their techniques.

your best bet is hitting the local ad agencies to start, and get a foundation for what the job entails, and also get experince dealing with the other factors that weigh in like deadlines and art directors and clients and big egos…

[cardmnal]

Your question was not as clear to me as it seems to be to others. It seemed to me you asked if people are making a living using Photoshop ( and not necessarily just high end retouching). If I interpreted that correctly then my answer is absolutley yes.

I do not work for an advertising agency, or do beauty retouches are anything like that. I do color correction and restorations. I remove redeye and make enlargements. I create contact sheets. I do occasional colorization and make posters and I teach others how to do what I do. I spend a great deal of time working in photoshop and make a living at it.

I do not live in a 30,000 a year Apartment in NYC nor do I have any desire to. I do, however, live in a nice four bedroom home with a double car garage on a quiet cul-de-sac in a smallish town. I do have a family of five and I do have 2 fairly new vehicles. My oldest daughter does have braces and the entire family has new ski gear.

My point is I am making a very real and liveable living primarily because of my ability to use photoshop effectively but, I had to do it in concert with other skills (ie. supervisory and administrative skills). I have been able to take one of my hobbies and, by being flexible, support myself and my family comfortably.





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[DJSoulglo]

Yes, I make a living using photoshop. Just bought a house, it's not very big, but at least it's mine. I don't work as a highend retoucher, but I work at an ad-agency as a studio guy. 90% of all my work is in photoshop, but I'm a proficient photographer, Illustrator and a good Indesign/pre-press guy.
It's great fun, but for instance last wednesday I worked 21 hours. And they don't pay overtime.

It's a great industry to work in (I've been quite lucky), but you have to work your A$$ off and the money, especially starting out, isn't fantastic. That said I've doubled my salary in the last 2 years, and am now looking to get a job as a retoucher.

It's a good place to start, but not sure wether it's a great place to end up.

[pixelzombie]

sounds like you're on a salary, which is unfortunate if you have to work long hours...

[Markzebra]

Its true in London too- Ad agency work is the hardest, requires longer hours. Certainly freelancing doing ad agency work, going from job to job, which happens to be what Im doing at the moment, can be very hard. My experience suggests most people don't last very long at this and eventually take perm roles elsewhere to get away from it. You got to have VERY thick skin: You need to be technically proficient enough to hit the ground running on each job, able to work at sometimes tremendous speeds, able to listen and take vocal briefs and good enough to pull it off in terms of standards too.

Most permanent jobs on the other hand will require a certain narrower set of skills to a very high standard.

[skydog]

If you have a steady job, I don't know who doesn't work their a$$ off along with high stress and tension. Unfortunately many professions (computers, accountants, manufacturing) are being outsourced - especially jobs that can be done via computer communication. Could this not be just a true for retouchers? Would that mean someone like Ant would need to move from NYC to Bombay or Shanghi?

[pixelzombie]

Originally Posted by Markzebra

Its true in London too- Ad agency work is the hardest, requires longer hours. Certainly freelancing doing ad agency work, going from job to job, which happens to be what Im doing at the moment, can be very hard. My experience suggests most people don't last very long at this and eventually take perm roles elsewhere to get away from it. You got to have VERY thick skin: You need to be technically proficient enough to hit the ground running on each job, able to work at sometimes tremendous speeds, able to listen and take vocal briefs and good enough to pull it off in terms of standards too.

Most permanent jobs on the other hand will require a certain narrower set of skills to a very high standard.

i have to agree, ad agency work is very hard but i have to say it really pushed me to elevate my skills and i would go back to that kind of work if i could...

[DJSoulglo]

The trick with agency work is that it's always busy and everything is always important, so in the end I just end up not caring about things. Which works wonders for me, because I don't really get stressed.If you get stressed easily, it might not be the best industry for you. It's good fun though

[Markzebra]

"so in the end I just end up not caring about things" I can't do that, if I did I would have trouble doing it at all. As soon as a find myself thinking that way I take a break.

"pushed me to elevate my skills" yes its a kind of boot camp. And skills move on all the time. Last time I freelanced, more than 3 years ago, the general level of skill was a lot lower and frankly you could turn up for jobs with quite a high level and surprise them away with whatever you could do. There was a lot of older guys around with "old world" skills, and because it took THEM a day to do one image, that was fine. Now it seems to have all changed ,they have either been fired or retired or something. Least thats my reading so far.

[zganie]

Thanks for people having input I asked in another Question about Canadians,looks pretty Bleak

[DJSoulglo]

We are 14 people in the studio where I work, only 1 of those is over 35, so it's fairly new school.

When I said that I just stop caring I only mean that I've completely stopped caring about how busy it is, or how important it is. I do my job, and I do it well (as good as I can anyways) and so far it's working out for me

Then again the great requests you get at times really don't help either:

"we need you to do this completely hi-res, the Raw files are here, and we need the finished product in 30 mins"

Happens ALL the time sadly. The times where I actually can take the time to really make something shine are sadly few and far between....

I can't wholeheartedly recommend advertising agency work, is all I was saying.

[pixelzombie]

it's not just the ad agencies that have that type of environment, i work for a large format printer and one of our biggest clients pulled a stunt like that last month..they cut 4 days off the production cycle and told us that if we didn't finish the project in time they would no longer be doing business with us..

[abenormal]

Well, in answer to the original question... Back when I was making a living retouching I didn't have time to surf the internet all day. Now that I've been laid off and have all day to loaf around waiting for my unemployment check to be direct-deposited, I discovered this site!

Big understatement, especially in regards to this board's members. Most here think a few hours spent on one image is crazy. Try 60. ... This is a business of perfection, invisibility, refinement, communication of ideas, art, commerce, science, color theory, input, output, processing, lighting, capture, anatomy. ... (do what you're told, work well with others, respect deadlines, do what it takes, good enough never flies, provide more than what's asked for). It's a collaborative effort, a business of interpretation, thick skin, big egos, beaten down egos, client pleasing, client wowing, subjectivity, and style.

Indeed! I'd say if you aren't prepared to put in literally THOUSANDS of hours learning the craft then you probably won't make it. When I was in college I was putting in at least 60 hours a week drawing; life drawing from live models, still lifes from posed and lit tableaus, and anatomy studies from books and plastic models. That's just under 1,000 hours of drawing per semester, and that's just learning how to "see" things clearly. I spent a few years after college with Photoshop as my main hobby, and then when I started retouching "for real" I was shocked at how much I still didn't know. Now, after 4 years at much more than full time in a pressure cooker environment, and I'm using my time reading tutorials on this site and others, reading Katrin Eismann's book, to fill gaps in my knowledge and technique. I have a long way to go if I am going to achieve my goal of becoming the Best Retoucher in the World.

Hey, you'd be cranky too if you just spent 60 hours working on an image of the Olson twins.

Ha! The first time I was allowed to work on the Got Milk! campaign (and it was a big deal to me to be judged "worthy" at that point in my career) it was the Olsen Twins. (I did the retouching on this image, it's a composite of 3 or 4 shots: http://img2.timeinc.net/people/i/200...0719/olsen.jpg) It was definitely more than 60 hours, and very stressful hours too... the art director was picky about who he would work with, and it was a secret that I was the one doing the actual work. His "approved" retoucher had to present the work at the light table and I had to hang around in the background and listen to the comments, the AD would leave, and the job would get handed back to me! So I was all excited that it was finally approved, it got released to one or two pubs, they had some cocaine/anorexia scandal, and the whole campaign got pulled.

[zganie]

Great answer Abenormal,you made some great pointsabout learning things other than just retouching like Seeing and Drawing,This was one of the points behind this question.

The only thing I might add is what ANT said,its not only about learning But you must get your hands dirty)theres nothing like the real thing