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Quick Retouching?
I went to an interview for photo retouching the other day, and was asked to do a retouching test. It was fun, and I was a couple of minutes in, when the interviewer came back in. He then proceeded to tell me that I wasn't doing what he wanted, and that he had done the same image - a very red and acne-ridden young man - meaning removing the blemishes, correcting the redness, and smoothing the skin with no splotchiness, in 4 minutes flat, while talking on the phone. Now, aside from being a jerk the whole interview, it got me wondering how the heck you would retouch something that quickly without having a magic wand or action or something. I always take my time, and I like taking my time, but I'd like to have the ability to do it more quickly. Does anyone retouch this quickly? If so, how? May 15 09 02:16 pm Link Did you watch him do the photo? or did he already have it done.. and was his photo better than yours? May 15 09 02:18 pm Link He wasn't critiquing your retouching. He was bragging. B May 15 09 02:18 pm Link portrait professional will do it in that time - still, a jerk for taking down to anyone like that. Were you supposed to read his mind how he wanted it? May 15 09 02:20 pm Link No, he wouldn't show me, he ran me out rather quickly. He just had an example of "before/after" on the desktop to show people what he wanted. EDIT: Also, I didn't see it for long, but it did look like his was better than mine. May 15 09 02:21 pm Link . The interview was not about a "nitternet", so-called "PhotoShop Wizard". The nitternet is full of nitwits. You simply failed the real-time, real-world test, which was designed to create the stresses that the position for which you applied would have, including the interrupting change orders.  . May 15 09 02:27 pm Link RSM-images wrote: + 10 May 15 09 02:29 pm Link RSM-images wrote: Right, and I understand that, what I don't understand is how you can retouch someone with that bad of skin that quickly. I'd really like to improve so that the next time I go in for a similar interview, I can deliver. May 15 09 02:33 pm Link He probably had a plugin which was set on max. May 15 09 03:51 pm Link In the UK, most studios will send expect their artworkers to be able to do certain tasks in a certain time. It's the same as taking your car to the 'shop. The garage has a set time for a certain job, changing the exhaust, whatever. If the mechanic can work faster the garage can make more money, (they can bill 10 hours work for an 8 hour day) if the mechanic works slower, the garage loses money. (They can only bill 6 hours for an 8 hour day) The test may sound harsh but a trained Mac op should know how to do it in the time. May 15 09 03:58 pm Link I can think of two methods: 1) I think writing curves in LAB would be the easiest way. Switch to LAB and make a curves adjustment layer. Select the A channel and lock in your neutrals by placing an anchor point dead center. Place anchor points on the lips and a good portion of the skin (i.e. not red and blotchy), if any such areas exist. If there are any green areas you don't want to affect, place anchor points in those areas as well. Now place an anchor point on a red, blotchy portion of skin or a zit (which ever is more saturated), and drag that point directly down to desaturate that tone of any red till it looks about right. Color balance the rest of the image in the B channel as neccessary. Should only take a minute or two at most. 2) If you prefer to stay in RGB, make a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer and select Reds from the Edit drop down menu. Click on the brightest red zit you can find and then select the Minus Eyedropper and click on a portion of skin with good color. Drag the Hue slider all the way to the left to visually see which areas are affected. On the rainbow gradient at the bottom, drag the outer triangle sliders to isolate just the desired regions you want to correct. Then drag the Hue slider back to the right until the skin color balances out. You may have to bump the Lightness slider up a bit to get everything to balance out. Again, it should only take a couple of minutes to perform. Either of these methods will get rid of the red but you'll still have to take care of the zits. The Spot Healing Brush tool works great for that. May 15 09 04:19 pm Link Do you have a picture similar to the one he wanted you to do? The fastest way is to use a plugin, i.e imagenomic portraiture, Nik software in photoshop. Otherwise a lot of practice at becoming quick at burn/dodging, masking, spot healing, blurring(unless its for a high-resolution print, then blurring isn't an option) May 15 09 04:28 pm Link Without seeing the image, it would be hard to say how fast I could have done it. With that said I'm often amazed at the times people say they spend on one image here. I would hate to see the price for one image from a studio charging $300+ per hour if the retouchers weren't efficient. May 15 09 04:29 pm Link Ruben Vasquez wrote: I'd have done something similar to this. Photoshop is full of tricks which save you time if you think about it May 15 09 04:31 pm Link Raven Shutley wrote: I practiced over and over on a friend of mine that had a face full of pimples and dark freckles. I went through the entire set of images just using the patch tool so I can choose the area I want to select from. After that I just adjusted colors and contrast. I did it to avoid using blur and be able to match the pores on skin. May 15 09 04:33 pm Link I have been forced to retouch an image that fast, however I prefer to take my own time. If you could show me a similar picture like the one you had to work on I could give you more advise as to how fast I think it could be done and what I would do. Without seeing a similar image I would only be guessing. May 15 09 04:37 pm Link does this guy have a website? what was the file size you worked on? May 15 09 04:39 pm Link toan thai photography wrote: Good question about the web site May 15 09 04:44 pm Link Sounds like he just didnt like your (insert anything here) and decided to use the "retouch test" as an excuse to not hire you. But from the information given it's hard to tell anything really. I didnt see your final edit, nor his. May 15 09 04:46 pm Link portrait professional is ok software for skin clearing, but not very useful for a professional retoucher who then has alot of other work to do with regards cleaning up an image. A pro photoshop artworker who knows all his (or preset) shortcut keys and is working with a full scale graphics tablet will have no trouble working that quickyly, don't be too troubled tho, after all everyone is different with their taste in this area and no 2 artists the same. When working with a magazine for instance tho let me tell you from experience that Everyone is expected to work quickly & efficiently. He is probably that shit-hot May 15 09 04:56 pm Link I worked in a high end photo lab in Rochester, NY many years ago. They retouched every negative; most were shot using 100ft (or greater) magazines using 120 Vericolor and a Beatty Camera-Systems Camera. Each negative was hand retouched. To become a retoucher you would have to go to Al-Bob Color and be tested. They take a negative 6x9cm (each would be put in its own cardboard mask for the then very high tech printing machines) and put it on the floor and grind it around, spill something on it, etc.,. They would then hand it to the retoucher and say, "You got x minutes". A little bit of the test was watching how the respondents reacted to this challenge. In reality the work was done/paid per negative at the retouchers place of business. They would send the the negatives via UPS (new then) and give the contracted a certain amount of time to do a certain amount of work. The retouchers could work hard and fast and get a bonus. If they were late the retoucher would be dropped and put on a no-hire list. A tough business... Most of them were old people that had been doing it since the thirties and forties and were very, very good. I tell this because there are lots of places that have tough rite of passage testing of potential workers- code writing software sweatshops come to mind. Sometimes it is a blessing when you don't get the job. If you want it bad enough find out what they want and work in that direction. May 15 09 05:05 pm Link It's nice of so many of our colleagues here to take your side and assume he was bragging (which may be true), but the long and short of it is you didn't do the job quick enough to get the job. I lost a compositing gig (which would have kept me busy 10 hours a day for a month just before Christmas a few years ago) for being too damn slow. They even loved my work; but time is money. That arrogant bastard may not have even been the retoucher, maybe he was a manager or the owner's nephew, but he knew who and what he was looking to hire, and it wasn't you - well, not this time... May 16 09 03:34 am Link This is kind of funny, because I tested at a boutique NYC retouching studio the other day, to be turned away for the same reason (and then some). To give you an idea of the quality of work this place turns out, their website features work by Avedon  So I went in only halfway expecting to get a foot in the door, but came away with an education on how far off the mark I am instead. They gave me an image to work over, and asked that I do beauty-level retouching on the model's face (terrible skin, no makeup) and pull separate masks for the hair, skin, dress and jewelry. I had a total of two and a half hours to get it done. About halfway through, one of the retouchers said "You know, just forget the masks and concentrate on her face." I took this as a relief, because skin is what I do best, and I work with faces all the time. The studio owner gave me his take on my work when I wrapped, saying "You've done a good job of preserving details and taking care of the big stuff, but honestly I could have done that work in under 5 minutes." And then he proceeded to cycle through my channels, and ask why I'd been doing softlight dodge-n-burn on a CMYK image, because it introduces problems in the K channel. He showed me gaps between my channels where my work had introduced artifacts in one channel where there were none in the others. Then he zoomed in on the largest trouble-spot on the girl's face and said "This whole patch looks nasty and I need to know you can take care of that, while keeping it looking natural." It was a patch of skin on her forehead with a ton of densely packed little bumps. He took the Wacom pen and began working on it -- he was moving so quickly it almost looked careless, using a very fine tipped clone stamp tool to move all over the model's skin. It quickly became obvious to me that his years of experience allowed him to make confident, aggressive moves with the clone tool, and would expect anyone working at his studio to be able to do the same. He gave me an honest and critical assessment of my work, which I find invaluable. He wasn't saying "5 minutes" to be a prick -- that's the level you need to be at to work with world-class clients. Needless to say I'm dropping softlight layers and working on my clone skills May 16 09 02:13 pm Link Wow, thank you all very much for your honest responses. They are VERY much appreciated. A few points for clarification: he may or may not have been bragging or trying to be a prick, but his attitude both on the phone before the interview {when he hadn't even heard my experience or seen my resume yet} and during the interview was very negative and demeaning. It wouldn't surprise me if he were bragging, but that's a moot point, now. And I hate that this sounds like an excuse {and maybe it is!} but I had no tablet {which I've grown used to, now}, and no access to any palettes and was not "allowed" to change anything in Photoshop, including showing the palettes. I had layers and the tablet taken from me, which made me realize how much I depend on them, so maybe I need to not depend on them so much? I know I can do the work without a tablet, but layers are my bread and butter! The image was similar to this one, in skin quality: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_pLMobWnhfHY/S … acne1b.jpg The image was higher res, of course. I plan on practicing a lot more, and not letting anything slow me down or distract me {like MM, haha!}. So I hope to be that fast and efficient, one day. :B PS http://www.atlanta-photography.com/ This is the studio. May 16 09 04:04 pm Link Raven Shutley wrote: Sheesh. Looks like they did you a favor. May 16 09 06:47 pm Link Raven Shutley wrote: Gibson Photo Art wrote: haha so true May 16 09 06:52 pm Link Raven Shutley wrote: It is really weird that you posted this. My girlfriend had an interview with the same guy and she told me almost verbatim the same thing you wrote about how it went. She said he was a total jerk. Small world! May 16 09 06:58 pm Link I say keep practicing Raven and the next time this "retoucher" contacts you because your work becomes amazing you can tell them to go F themselves. Now I see why it only takes 10 mins.... I could do what they do in 2 mins and I'm not very good. May 16 09 06:59 pm Link It's good you avoided them. May 16 09 07:41 pm Link Raven Shutley wrote: yuck! run like hell... May 16 09 07:48 pm Link Raven Shutley wrote: Well if it's any consolation, I bet that big fish know-it-all at atlanta-photography would have his ass handed to him if he went on the test Jim just described. May 17 09 04:19 am Link Raven Shutley wrote: Picture Perfect Photography? Hardly. I wouldn't sweat it. Looks like the guy did you a favor. May 17 09 04:22 am Link I think this whole scenario depends on the pay. If they were going to pay you as if you were already and expert (top dollar) then they should expect you to know your stuff. If, on the other hand, they were paying mid to low rates they should be willing to teach you. Regardless, they don't seem interested in teaching anyone so I think you are better off finding work somewhere else. Working for an ass is not worth any amount of money. May 17 09 05:04 am Link I take it back. Working for that studio would be worse than working for an ass. Working for a boring ass would kill all of your brain cells. You are lucky. Move on. May 17 09 05:06 am Link GD Whalen wrote: Been there done that.....what was I talking about? May 17 09 05:18 am Link theres no way he done it in that time while talking on the phone, you can,t tell me you can concentrate editing a photo while talking on the phone, it,s a load of bollocks May 17 09 05:36 am Link Could be that he wanted to know how to do the edit. Probably don't know how to use layers and don't have a tablet so he wanted to see it done with without them. May 17 09 06:10 am Link Seems retouching is charged by the minute. May 17 09 06:18 am Link i disagree with those saying you are better off without the job. it would be HELL, i'm sure, but you'd learn more in one week there than you've learned so far in your profession. even if you flake out aftera few months, it would be a huge benefit. May 17 09 06:45 am Link Raven Shutley wrote: I can see you never exagerated when you said they retouched in 4 minutes flat May 17 09 06:57 am Link |
