The Art of Photo Retouching

[fstopper89]

I WAS the retoucher for a local photographer before her family moved away. She was an excellent photographer/mentor and that’s where I gained a lot of my skills. She had 3 or more shoots per week and wanted the time with her family so hired me on to do the rest. She coached me on her editing style at the beginning but I quickly caught on and she really enjoyed having me, and I enjoyed the money and experience.

[Bill]

All that is good to know. I wish I had been tutored under someone that had retouching skills a lot earlier in life, explains the long gradual learning curve, but I make the best from what I got. The only real editing skills I was ever taught in a classroom was back in high school in the darkroom, developing negatives and prepping them for presswork, but that was very basic. Good, but basic.

I have a local edit shop (retoucher) nearby, that has been getting a lot of decent press and is big in this area [So-Cal], so I don’t doubt that they know what they are doing, I just have never gone through the process myself.

I learned early on that there are some things you have no control over, mainly time. You can’t make more time, but you can certainly waste time. So in essence, the less time you waste by delegating or outsourcing things that take the most time away from your productivity, the better you become and the more productive you should become.

I like to shoot, I don’t mind editing, but it takes a lot of time away from me shooting. I think I may look into using that voucher I have to see what they can do for me, maybe make me a little better at my final product. We’ll see.

Thanks guys and BEG, LOL

[Author]

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