A short article on how photoshop manipulations can make you a better retoucher or photographer. It also features my new photoshop manipulation speed art video (link to full res image if anyone cares to have a look https://ponte-ryuurui-photography.smugm … -2pXjJTR/A)

article link
http://www.ryuurui.com/blog/what-are-th … composites

nice article

you are definitely not stingy with layers, one word.
groups

I'm always amazed by what I learn from just about anyone at any level of experience, for instance, I work in 3D as well as 2D imaging, and I had no idea there was a site like PixelSquid. I probably won't use them because it appears you can't change camera focal length or lighting on the assets, but I can see where they provide an interesting alternative in the composite world. So, thanks for that one!

I'm curious about a few things I saw on your video, and please bear in mind, I'm simply asking questions, I'm not criticizing anything.

Your use of the pen tool seems to start out very loosely and then you come back in and clean things up. To me this seems like extra work, but, do you have a specific reason for doing it that way?

I work primarily with ad agencies, and I'm the only one ever to perform retouch on my files. Sometimes they also hire me to retouch other files when their in house studio departments are swamped. Because the agency is necessarily responsive to the whim of their clients, everything I do needs to be in complete layered format, nothing hidden or flattened. Because of that I generate a lot of layers, but the primary difference between your work flow and mine is all of my layers have to be named, while yours seem to keep the default naming. I don't know the genesis of the image on your video, but if it were a job, would you also name each layer, or each layer group, or do you never rename the layers. Do you ever share layered files with clients?