Retouching is now a part of life
The world of Photoshop
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
I am now realizing that for every hour I am actually shooting, I spend about eight hours working in Photoshop retouching. Not only is this a pain in the butt, (no pun intended) but this plays havoc on the eyes. For years I couldn’t gain weight to save my life, but with all this sitting around, it is everything I can do to keep the six pack showing.
When digital finally came along, I thought great, now I can save time not having to run back and forth to the lab. The problem is, clients are now paying less for the actual shooting time, and don’t want to pay anything for the hours of retouching. The only way I see around this is to create images that become such a part of your look as an artist, that to get it, they have to factor in the retouching.
Most of my composited images consist of two parts, a subject and a background. If you have followed my blog I posted an image of Paul and his dog in the Denver Union Station that I believe had seven images to create the final. Creating an illusion with multiple parts can be tricky and I must admit I am still in the learning process. Here I have three images, the background which included the car and the two subjects were shot in studio on a white sweep. After I photographed actor Dennis Haysbert in the studio he drove his car a few blocks away and I shot this background in HDR. You got to love his ride.
