Interview with an experienced retoucher

I periodically collaborate with several retouchers. One of them is Lina, who agreed to give a short interview regarding her work. You can see her work here и here.

- Lina, how long have you been doing retouching?

- In general - the fourth year. But for myself personally, I estimate the last 2.5 years most seriously.

- Is this the main type of employment, or just additional income?

- This is the main job. In recent years, quite a lot of regular customers have gathered, which is why the work flow is constant and the workload, as a rule, is maximum.

- How did it happen that retouching became one of the ways you earn money?

- It all started with an ordinary interest in post-processing. At first, I just mastered the program by the 'typing' method, then I began to study all kinds of video tutorials, manuals, materials. And when I realized that there was a great desire and due diligence, I started making money on it. And in comparison with the current situation, it should be noted that at the time I started working in the field of processing, the market for retouchers was very small.

- Who are your main clients?
- Definitely photographers, about 75% of the total, and makeup artists - about 15%.

- Where do the orders come from?

-Orders come from everywhere: Russia, Ukraine, Belarus. There is work experience with the West.

- What are the most common retouching tasks?

- Smooth skin, clean background, be sure to work with plastic, especially if this is a full-length photo, add photos of 'glossiness'. In short, make it 'beautifully'.

- What do clients or agencies usually ask to do?

- Surprisingly, lately only 15-20% of customers indicate more or less detailed terms of reference (terms of reference). As a rule, attention is focused on such details as the elimination of certain objects from the background, clothes, hair. Everything else is 'standard'. The rest simply hand over the photo for retouching and rely only on my vision (perhaps, trusting the works from the portfolio).

- What are the funniest requests for the quality of retouching?

- I remember once asked to open my eyes in a photo where a person closed them. If there was a similar photo with open eyes - no problem, I would make a collage. But there was no analogue and the person was convinced that there is such a button in Photoshop that takes and opens his eyes. Some people periodically come up with questions like 'do you do photoshop?', 'Do you work with photoshop?', 'What is the name of the photoshop program in which you take photos?', 'What kind of filter did you use to get such skin?'.

- Have you worked as a photographer yourself? How important is it during shooting to understand how the image will be processed later?

- Did not work. But, since my husband is doing this, I had to hold the camera in my hands. In my opinion, it is not necessary to understand how the image will be processed later. The main thing is to give your best during shooting and show attention when working with light, the horizon, details that have got into the frame, even leaked makeup and a model's hair that has moved out, so that as little effort as possible is applied during post-processing. It is clear that Photoshop can do anything, but people who shoot and process their photos probably would not want to sit over one frame for hours.

- A very interesting question for my readers: how strongly the difference in the number of pixels is felt for convenient photo processing. Is there a significant difference in the processing of 10, 18, 24, 36 MP images? More pixels - more work?

“That's exactly what I would say: more pixels means more work. This is especially noticeable in large portraits.

- Are you watching EXIF data, how was this or that picture taken? If so, which cameras or brands most often receive photos for processing?

- 85 percent - Canon owners. Even now, I basically looked at my last 5 orders. All photos were shot with different Canon models.

- Is there a significant difference in color processing from Nikon, Canon, Sony, Pentax cameras? What about skin tone brands? Which cameras do you like the picture the most?

- In my memory, I didn't have to work with Sony and Pentax. The main stream of orders is Canon, less often there are photos taken with Nikon. In both cases, there are both bad and good photos, and in general, the situation is similar with skin tone. Therefore, I came to the conclusion that it does not really matter which brand you hold in your hands. I think that good visage, correct work with light, color temperature and shooting in raw will help to get the right color.

- Is it difficult to make the right skin tone using Photoshop? Should the photographer worry about the color during shooting if the photo will be further processed? Is it always possible to make a good skin tone?

- Not always, especially if it's not RAW. The photographer should worry, as I noted above - it is better to do the maximum before the post-processing process. I have a specially created action to create a standard skin tone, so I would not say that there are any global difficulties.

- Is it easier for you to start processing from a raw RAW file or from some kind of JPEG?

- Of course it's easier to work with RAW format! Raw material - more possibilities.

- Don't you think that sometimes your treatment kills the skin?

- I know it! Because I do not practice Hi-End processing. And in working with frequency decomposition, one way or another, the texture of the skin is repeatedly copied and replaced and the volume is partially killed, which then has to be enhanced or added separately.

- What can you say about the fact that the entire Internet is clogged with plastic skin with unnatural anti-aliasing. Is this a fashion statement or a downside to the grief of photographers / retouchers?

- In my opinion, both! The grief of retouchers is, of course, a separate topic, but gaining experience is on their way. Taste and outlook on processing very often change, therefore their shortcomings are not as terrible as trends set by fashion. In the west, for example, natural processing is the price.

- What is more difficult to retouch? What takes the most time?

- It is difficult to retouch large portraits with porous skin. It is difficult to work with hair, to paint eyelashes, especially if you don't have a tablet at hand. As a rule, it takes a lot of time when working with color, especially if you do not know exactly what you want to achieve from a picture and start experimenting.

- Tell us what art processing is? How does it differ from retouching?

- Artistic retouching is also retouching. The only difference is that in the artist, in addition to standard work, all kinds of light and color effects, texture overlays are used, you can experiment with toning, add some additional details, partially or completely replace the background or individual parts of the photo, in general - from the simplest collages before drawing!

- How long does it take on average to edit one photograph?

- It all depends on the tasks. From 30 minutes to several hours.

- What tools do you most often use for processing (photoshop, lightrum, plugins). Are there any secret techniques?

- Photoshop. Lightroom is extremely rare. I try not to use plugins, especially in terms of working with color. Sometimes with the help of a plugin I add a backlight (although this is quite easy to do manually) or bokeh. I appreciate manual processing more. There are no secret methods - except that I write most of the frequently used functions into actions, which greatly saves processing time.

- Do you teach retouching? How long does it take to become a good retoucher?

- I am doing my training, so far only on the retouching of the portrait. My lesson is designed for 2 hours, during which time I have time to tell and show the techniques of frequency decomposition, dodge and burn, how to work with volume and other details. This is quite enough to get the basics and understand the theory, and everything else is a matter of the student's subsequent practice. To become a good retoucher, you need a lot of diligence, patience and attention, and when your hand is full, the processing time will take several times less.

- Readers are interested in how not to overdo it with retouching?

- It's all simple. Relax in the process, periodically leave the computer. And if there is an opportunity - then generally look at the photo with a “fresh” look at another day. Be sure to review the work “before and after”. If there is too much retouching, it will be obvious in comparison.

- Tell us about the hard life of a retoucher, are there any moments with which you would like to share?

- There are situations when the hand on the photo simply does not lie down. Retouching, which takes an average of 20 minutes, takes an hour or more. And when the workload is large and it is simply impossible to calculate the deadline with accuracy - this is a nightmare. Almost all customers expect to receive the finished material in a short time. Some people generally think that I work at any time of the day and do not have days off.

Sometimes there are clients who voice the technical assignment only after the delivery of the finished material. In such cases, I always ask myself a question - why all these details were not indicated before the start of work?
There are quite a few people who do not understand the difference between good or bad photo quality and its influence on the processing result. And it is very difficult to explain to them that the pictures in my portfolio are from good cameras, taken by professionals, and that the same result cannot be obtained in a photo from an iPhone.

The most difficult thing is when you see the processing in your own, definite way, in which you are used to working, and the customer drew something else in his head, of course, he did not issue the TOR and was surprised that he received a different result. Without difficulties, nowhere, and, probably, there is a retoucher for each customer. The main thing is to love what you do.

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