I am a photo-retoucher and I work in New York City for the Graphic Arts Industry. My Experience goes back to the times where images were separated in reproduction cameras, color correction and photomontage was done with density masks, rubylith, and contact frames film etc.
I worked for printers, prepress houses and retouching studios for the last 26 years as a retoucher, offset stripper, color corrector, assembler on many different computer systems holding positions as an operator, technical consultant, and supervisor.
I feel very lucky because when the first usable Apple computers in this industry showed up I was able to utilize all my skills gained in the traditional field and apply them in this new emerging field.
Those years were very rewarding because there was so much to discover. My first Apple Mac IIci (bought in 1992) is still in my house and in working condition. Over the last 15 years I worked with many computer systems but I always knew that Mac will be the one. Today I operate Quark, InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop, GoLive with the same success.
I work on the entire spectrum of high end image retouching, from color correction, newspaper color adjustmens to creative retouching. I hope this site demonstrates my proficiency in working with product and beauty shots.
Presently I work for a high end retouching studio in NYC.
My passion for years has been Adobe Illustrator. There is something about this clean look of vector images that I like a lot.
Gradient Mesh introduced first with Version 8 of Adobe Illustrator seems to be entering the mainstream graphic community very slowly. For the first few years it was a disaster to print. InDesign didn't handle flattening right. Quark didn't have flattener at all (latest Quark 7 has it but I don't know if it works). No rip could handle it. But I see it used more often now that people realize the full potential of this tool.
I found it to be very helpful with image creation especially where there is no image at all to reproduce and you have to simply draw it or that the only thing to go by is a very low-res and poor photo or simply to enhance an existing shot. It takes a very skilled and good photographer to shoot pictures which will not require any image manipulation. In the real production environment most astounding images for billboards and advertising take hours if not days to retouch, alternate, and enhance. It looks like overall image enhancement, especially for the advertising industry, is always going towards that symetrical, flawless, clean look with well-defined shapes, high-lites, shadows, and other details. In my career as a retouching artist I found that gradient mesh is greatly complementing Adobe Photoshop in image creation. It allows to create images with a personal touch that most of 3-D software doesn't allow for.
I hope this site will illustrate my point.em ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Praesent aliquam, justo convallis luctus rutrum, erat nulla fermentum diam, at nonummy quam ante ac quam. Maecenas urna purus, fermentum id, molestie in, commodo porttitor, felis. Nam blandit quam ut lacus. Quisque ornare risus quis ligula. Phasellus tristique purus a augue condimentum adipiscing. Aenean sagittis. Etiam leo pede, rhoncus venenatis, tristique in, vulputate at, odio.