RETOUCHING
My retouching skills started out as a banjo player. Now just listen, and quit giggling. I’m in an Irish band (it goes well with the missing tooth, overalls, and pitbull), and someone needed to run sound and make posters. So, I volunteered. I learned which levers to push to flood a restaurant with feedback, and eventually which ones to pull to get a nice sound (as nice as a banjo can). I used and abused the GIMP, my first piece of digital art software, in pumping out posters, cd layouts, digital assets, etc. Me, the GIMP and Myspace were a fearsome threesome in the days of Web 1.0, let me tell ya! Eventually, I graduated from College, took the advice of my friend, Eric Owens and interned at his company OMS Photography as a junior retoucher. And my wild digital ways were molded (maybe even pounded) into something useful by the retouching staff. I have them to thank for any skill I have as a digital artist (thank you Scott, Charlie and Lisa!). Most of my experience there was product retouching (sports apparel for Under Armour), on and off model. From the basics of masking out for colorways, to some more esoteric interpretations of line art. If you needed stuff that looked shot, but didn’t exist, we did it. Retouching is nearly the opposite of art to me. A good piece of art is a mountain of evidence left by the artist: brush strokes, drafting lines, etc. A good piece of retouching should look like no one has ever laid a hand on it. As if the camera just spit it out that way. We’re like elves and Santa Claus, we might even be made up.
