Today we’re going to talk about hiring a full-time retoucher (or a half-time, or a quarter-time). Retouchers also provide this service.
It’s not when you give orders to a retoucher from time to time, but when you «book» him for a month/half/quarter job. That is, you guarantee him payment for that time per month and give him a sufficient amount of work. Let’s take a look at how much more advantageous this is compared to one-time orders. All prices are approximate just for illustration and calculation purposes.

For example, you make an order for six photos of medium complexity. An experienced retoucher spends 1 hour on 1 photo and charges about $50. Total he spends a full working day on 6 photos and earns $300. There are 22 working days in a month. The retoucher will be able to take 132 photos in a month. So if you do individual orders for 132 photos, you’ll pay $6600 a month. But if we look at the statistics of how much a retoucher makes on average per month, it would be about $4200/month (US in 2022). Do you know why a freelancer can make more than a full-time person? Because he has to look for clients, make an effort to be seen, i.e. spend a lot of resources to provide himself with work. And all of this he includes in the cost of his job.

And here we come to the main point — why would it be more profitable to hire a retoucher on a full time basis? Because a retoucher spends a lot of resources to find new clients, even if he has different clients. So if you offer them permanent employment (you book yourself some time a month for your photos), the freelance retoucher needs to spend less time/resources looking for permanent work, and he is willing to lower his rate for you because he saves his resources as well. It’s a discount for volume and for a steady stream of work. And there may be a discount of about 20% for you. The exact price depends on the retoucher, the country you live in, the complexity of the work and other factors.

So if you’re constantly taking photos and have a constant need for retouching, it’s more advantageous for you to find a retoucher on a permanent rate. You do not have to book a whole month. If you have a job for a quarter of a month, you can arrange for a retoucher to work only with your photos for a quarter of a month (about 6 days or 36-42 hours of pure work time). And you not only save money, you also get the assurance that your photos will be done in time (if you ask a retoucher from time to time, he may be busy a week or two in advance, and you need the photos to be ready in a few days) and if it is a permanent retoucher, he will know the characteristics of your style, which is usually needed, will adjust to you.

So as a retoucher, I recommend you: if you’re constantly busy shooting and asking for help from a retoucher, try working with him on a part-time basis for at least a month and you’ll see how much more comfortable it is.

If you decide that you are ready to try working with a retoucher on a permanent basis, even if not for the whole month, then you can contact to me and I will be glad our cooperation: serg@sergretouch.ru or https://www.instagram.com/sergretouch/

You can also see approximate prices for retouching: https://sergretouch.com/price/

There are many important nuances in business portrait retouching, it’s very similar to portrait retouching, but still different.

When I retouch business photos I pay attention to the clothes (remove large folds), the background (nothing should distract from the person), props (it can be a notebook, a folder or some branded things). Of course I am not forgetting about the person. But retouching business portraits in most cases has to be natural, the kind of retouching that exists but is not seen too much, it’s not like beauty retouching.

Advertisig retouching? It’s easy! I share for you the post-production workflow of advertising retouching the Saucony sneaker. It’s not difficult image, therefore it will be useful even if you are a beginner or middle retoucher or photographer. This layered Psd-file and video will improve your skills and give you the understanding how to make high-end commercial images for you and your clients.

Today we gonna do a pastel colors in Photoshop. Also I’m not only show how exact do one photo in pastel colors, I also will explain the principle by which you need to process photos to make them looks as pastel tones.
But at first let’s talk about what is a pastel colors? This is a soft hue obtained by diluting the pure tone with white color. So that is any color but low saturated and bright.

This is one of my old work. I retouch this image only with dodge&burning technique. No frequency separation or something else. It’s longer, but a completely controlled process and result.

Also you can see process with basically changes and d&b layer.