Really hate the expression high end.

[garnet01]

What the heck does high end retouching mean?
I keep seeing it being offered but when I look at the images they don't look very high end.

[Godmother]

What does professional photographer with 15 years of
Experience means? I keep seeing that in bios but the portfolio doesn't seem to agree

Yes... It's the same thing

[Repairman]

In the 80's and 90's most hand retouching gave way to digital 'second original' image manipulation. 'High end' (powerful) computers were necessary to handle the large file sizes and hourly charge rates of £300 were the norm. At those prices the workload picked itself ie 'High end' spend products such as booze, cars, cosmetics etc. By default this attracted the best artist/operators and their work became 'high end'. Like a lot of things in the world of smoke and mirrors, it means something and nothing!

[fraiseap]

To me, high end retouching is a useful term. A beauty shot that has received high end retouching should look almost like an untouched photograph, but without any skin imperfections and with wonderful lighting and expertly applied makeup. Only when you compare the untouched original with the final version is it clear that there has been retouching. This is a totally different thing from a shot which has been blurred and had a bit of noise or grain added.

BTW, a professional photographer with 15 years of experience means someone who has been taking photographs for 15 years (could be as little as a dozen shots per year) and gets paid to take photographs. It says nothing about the quality of the persons photography.

[garnet01]

Nice one repairman, I like your reasoning and answer!
If you worked in hand retouching can you give some explanation as to why rgb values go from 0 to 255, it's always bugged me.

[ashphotoart]

Originally Posted by garnet01

Nice one repairman, I like your reasoning and answer!
If you worked in hand retouching can you give some explanation as to why rgb values go from 0 to 255, it's always bugged me.

But for today's industry, I think I would go with the Fraiseap. reason is simple. images should not look edited and your photoshopping should be creative.

[Repairman]

So, creative comps of disparate elements don't count as high end? Think again!

[garnet01]

Maybe I should have said really hate the way the expression high end has been hijacked.

[chillin]

Originally Posted by Repairman

In the 80's and 90's most hand retouching gave way to digital 'second original' image manipulation. 'High end' (powerful) computers were necessary to handle the large file sizes and hourly charge rates of £300 were the norm. At those prices the workload picked itself ie 'High end' spend products such as booze, cars, cosmetics etc. By default this attracted the best artist/operators and their work became 'high end'. Like a lot of things in the world of smoke and mirrors, it means something and nothing!

...and sounds better than the overused "the best".

[Godmother]

Originally Posted by fraiseap

BTW, a professional photographer with 15 years of experience means someone who has been taking photographs for 15 years (could be as little as a dozen shots per year) and gets paid to take photographs. It says nothing about the quality of the persons photography.

Exactly my point

[lokki]

Originally Posted by garnet01

why (do) rgb values go from 0 to 255?

Each color channel (red/green/blue) has 256 levels between black and white. This is due to the image information being 8-bit in each channel (2^8 = 256). Computers don't count in ordinals, so 0 is the first digit, and you stop at 255.

0 = black
255 = white

Going to 16-bit, you get 65,536 levels between black and white, which gives much higher fidelity and more subtle differences between hues and luminosity.

-Scott

[Der_W]

Originally Posted by lokki

Going to 16-bit, you get 65,536 levels between black and white, which gives much higher fidelity and more subtle differences between hues and luminosity.

-Scott

In fact 16bit in Photoshop is really "just" 15bit (from 0 to 32768). If you want to test it yourself set an eye dropper to measure 16bit in the info palette.

But the rest is 100% correct of course :-).
That's btw. also why 50% gray (128/128/128) goes to 127/127/127 while inverting (because 255/2 = 127.5, not 128).

A little off topic though ;-).


To the OP: many folks just describe their work as high end because they want to tell everyone that they'll deliver best quality.
If they're really doing is another question, but since this term is not bound to a test or something it's easy enough to call yourself high end.

[Filip Cz]

Most pictures doesn't look high-end even thou they ment to be, because of the price. Many photographers would like to have high-end rtouched photo in 1 hour time. At least they would like to pay for 1 hour :-) That's why a lot of high-end called pictures are rubbish in fact.

[Repairman]

LMAO - Hey Bleifuss, if you want stuff retouched in an hour, take better photographs!

[lokki]

Originally Posted by Der_W

In fact 16bit in Photoshop is really "just" 15bit (from 0 to 32768). If you want to test it yourself set an eye dropper to measure 16bit in the info palette.

Yep! Thanks for the correction - it's easy to get on auto-pilot and forget details like this. And if we go a bit further, most camera sensors are limited to 10-14 bits, so there's a lot of wasted 'space'.

Back on topic, I think the question has been answered by a few here... there is no official metric, so it's just words

[Godmother]

Originally Posted by Repairman

LMAO - Hey Bleifuss, if you want stuff retouched in an hour, take better photographs!

Doesn't really work like that

but oh well...

[Filip Cz]

I never seen picture that wouldn't need at least 6 hours of retouch to become "high-end".

[garnet01]

give the photographers, models, makeup artist, assistants, art directors, etc some credit.

[Repairman]

Personally, high end has more to do with working to a certain standard rather than a time or budget limit. Anyway Bleifuss, I was joking with you - notice the winking eye!
R.

[Filip Cz]

Repairman. I've noticed :-) My reply ment that I agree with Godmother.

[plugsnpixels]

Maybe Low End is the new High End-?

[ashphotoart]

High end is "High End", how can Low is High ?????

[Markzebra]

I've never understood it. What does "end" mean? end of the job? "ends justify the means"? Bell end? End of your career?

[ashphotoart]

Markzebra,

I guess, "End of Retouching a photohraph at a certain Look"

[Pari]

haha interesting topic
I was too wondering the same from the long time

[Janko]

I am so sick of seeing it too. It's used way to much in my opinion, and most of the time it's undeserved. Why do people feel the need to qualify themselves anyway? The work should speak for itself...

Another pet peeve since were on the topic is when people say photo editor when they mean retoucher. An editor is a person that looks over a bunch of pictures and chooses the right ones for the layout/spread, not someone that makes edits with Photoshop.

[Jenndo]

[QUOTE=fraiseap;284246]To me, high end retouching is a useful term. A beauty shot that has received high end retouching should look almost like an untouched photograph, but without any skin imperfections and with wonderful lighting and expertly applied makeup. Only when you compare the untouched original with the final version is it clear that there has been retouching. This is a totally different thing from a shot which has been blurred and had a bit of noise or grain added.


I totally agree with this. High end means that high end techniques are used. The time and the effort required. Also, I have found it interesting to learn where the term originally came from - using high end machines for the work.

I think it has a lot to do with what is being retouched, if like has been said it is beauty, fashion then the term "high end" applies to the products and techniques.

[plugsnpixels]

OK, let's try "top shelf"...

[Jenndo]

"Top shelf Retouching" sounds like a good name for a company. hahah.

[Mike Needham]

Porn magazine company, that is!