Najan wrote:
Well, both. Give advice when needed if you wish, but otherwise you can't obviously seek every retoucher's portfolio around here and check if their standards are yours. Learning isn't an easy path. It wouldn't be interesting if it was. Mistakes have to be done. We need to learn from them, but there's a time for it. What you're seeking during the different stages of your leaning and experiences are different from your first steps to the last. So if you go and tell one person that what he is doing isn't what you're considering as the right way to do it, there's a possibility that he/she won't listen. Because it is not time for him/her to accept it. During your long learning and through your experiences, you learn techniques, but you also have to educate your sight and sense of quality.

That was basically my opinion on it. I didn't want to come across as a fascist or elitist saying "this is the only way to do it" any time I come across it but I've seen a few people that use this method who are becoming frustrated because they've been declined by magazines/clients and can't figure out why.

I don't know them personally, so it could go either way really.

Side note: How on EARTH do you only list "some experience"? You are incredible.