Forums » Smalltalk » AMA: High-end retoucher and photo composite artist

Hello, decided to make a thread for my profession here, since this is what I do for a living and I do it almost all the time.
For me. to able to finish a gig, I sometimes work up until 4AM. High-end retouching and photo compositing is a really time-consuming job and often the turnaround period is not enough.

I do high-end retouch for photographers that specialize in beauty, fashion and editorial photography. Photos like these get published in quality magazines like Vogue or they're used for campaigns for certain brands.

As a photo composite artist, my job is to create something from other things. I started doing this for fun, because I love creating interesting worlds (mostly fantasy), but turned out I've been offered a few paid gigs. What these artists do is take elements from other photos, combining them, blend them, color correct them and a whole lot of other stuff to make a proper scenery that looks like everything used in there belongs there.

The two things get me overly-stressed, but pleased when I see the end result. I guess I'm a masochist for doing this for almost 9 years.

The software I'm using for retouch is either Capture One or Lightroom and then the photos are taken to Photoshop for an extensive retouch.
The software I use for photo compositing is Photoshop.

If you have any questions, I'd love to answer them. Bear in mind that it might take some time and I wouldn't post my work here due to privacy concerns.

That's such a cool career! Good on you for doing something you enjoy, even if it's stressful.

Are there any resources or tutorials you'd recommend for someone interested in learning how to do photo composites? How did you first dip your toes into the art?

Well, I've started doing photography when I was 14 years old. I really liked what I do to my photos in Photoshop, I kind of fell in love with Photoshop more than I was in love with photography. I wanted to create things that are only in my mind, that are impossible to see in this world.
Didn't watch anything back then, all of my technical knowledge came by practicing in Photoshop. I wanted to do something, I didn't know how, so I had to figure out a way, so I did. I don't know why I didn't watch or read anything for Photoshop back then, I taught myself basically.
A few years later I started watching some videos about Photoshop, most of the stuff I already knew, but there were still things that I didn't know, so that helped.
I don't remember what I watched back then, but I will post a link here to people I sometimes watch for fun and just in case I'm missing something, new techniques and so on.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3nfb_y2ThMJqKpCiriXDxg
https://www.youtube.com/c/BryantamaArt/videos
If you're willing to pay for a course, then I recommend PRO EDU, there are really quality stuff there.

There was one other person I follow on youtube, but I can't remember their name now lol.

Anyway, there are a few things that you'd need to know perfectly if you want to do a good job:
- Technical knowledge - how to "extract" an object from another image, how to color correct it, how to make a proper shadow, how to make the highlights to pop up, how to change the color of the shadows, how to change a light even and so many more.
- Composition and perspective
- Lighting - the lighting of every object has to match the light source in your composite.
- Color theory - every color has a weight, every color has a "buddy" or "buddies" that matches good with, the thing you're doing shouldn't seem like a mess, it has to "flow" good in the eye. Monochromatic, complementary, split complementary, triad, tetrad, analogic, accented analogic, etc.
That's important for color-correcting, because often, the resources you'd use won't be toned for the thing you're working on.

You have to have a good calibrated monitor because if your thing goes to printing it will most definitely not look how you see it on your monitor.