MARKUS LINKE | PHOTOGRAPHY - Latest Comments

Re: Headshots Group Started at Meetup.com

james — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 10:06:27 -0000

Well, Peter Hurley is one of my favorite head shot photographers as well. Also, Keith Carey is the most of my favorite.
Actor Headshots

Re: Modefabriek 1/2011 videos now online on youtube

Markus Linke — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 13:45:31 -0000

Now in HD!!!

Re: Work in progress

Markus Linke — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 04:55:22 -0000

Due to other priorities the move it's still not complete. Mind the gap :)

Re: On retouching

pau — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 14:17:13 -0000

This was indeed an interesting topic.I have been a full time professional retoucher for a couple of years.I heard a quote once about photography: "Having a camera does not make you a photographer".I guess the same applies to a retoucher: "Having Photoshop does not make you retoucher."I have done so many covers and I still remember every single one. Every photo is a new challenge and every day I learn something new.I think every photographer needs a retoucher, it helps to put some distance between yourself and your artwork.Others might just see something important that you dont.Retouchers should also respect "their" photographer's work as we all take pride in what we do.A good brief does wonders for a desired result.

Re: On retouching

TC — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 16:34:15 -0000

All of my retouching work is done by me as the photographer. I've often wondered the same thing about my work, self taught vs. "the professional retouch artist" let's face it, many "pros" have taught themselves over the years, an education can be good if you have the time, and money, and get a lucky break to work with a good company.

Re: On retouching

Markus Linke — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 03:17:55 -0000

Hi Michael, actually I was suprised too, that “the professionals” spend more time on this than I did. However, this is because of different techniques being used. Even though I didn’t blur the image, my approach did loose some detail in the skin. If one does it properly, just like Matt did, this indeed just takes more time. @All, If anybody is interested I could post the original RAW file and you could submit your versions if you like. Please let me know.

PS: I’m not a big fan of SEO postings or sales rethoric in my blog.

Re: On retouching

retouchMOJO — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 12:58:59 -0000

Just as the photographer is best behind the camera, good retouch should be done by people with years of experience doing retouch full time.
I am surprised to hear you talk about spending 2 hours on this image, and a retouch house spending nearly 5 hours! I know it's not popular to "advertise" to people in blogs like this, but it sounds like you need a solution. I serve clients from New York all the way out to Las Vegas. I work out of my home in Kansas City and have a second high end professional who I share overload work with. I believe that the most important part of what I do is make the photographers life easier while taking their work to a new level. My longest standing client is in New York, and he can speak to the relationship that we have which has produced some work we are both really proud of. Contact me if you want to talk, Im sure I can help. I can provide sample that represent whatever you need done, in the mean time you can see samples on my NAPP portfolio at: http://www.photoshopuser.com/m...

-Michael michael@retouchMOJO.com

Re: On retouching

Markus Linke — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 11:25:53 -0000

I've uploaded the results of the two plugins: portraiture and portrait professional

Re: On retouching

adaptdigital — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 14:32:16 -0000

Hey Markus,

Looks like you spent quite a bit of time to figure out some good points. As a retoucher myself, I thought I would chime in a bit regarding your interests and needs for digital post on work:

- You are right... retouchers are not the right answer aesthetically or financially for every gig. The better the work the more it can cost per image (though I would imagine you get discounts for multiple images, etc.). Ideally you can add them as an additional expense that piggy back off of your estimate for jobs... which can take the burden off of you, financially, and share it with the client end. When that is not available for editorial or personal work, often there are different price points that good retouchers will offer you to help make it work on the limited budget - or, depending on the specific project, could be done as portfolio trades for either of the members involved.

-The price is always the first thing to deter a photographer from using someone as a digital artist to help fine tune their work. Outsourcing and using low end places like what you tried, (including the likes of people found on model mayhem, etc.) are never ideal.... You found that out, but the fact remains : someone has an interest in photoshop and wants to support themselves on it... but they lack the necessary finesse and experience that it takes to get the work done properly.... hind sight is what you found to be true: you should have done it yourself!

- Something that I often see as a reason to push your imagery to a retoucher (or hire one to work with you more exclusively) often has to do with the overall picture, and is summed up in this great quote i found recently on A Photo Editor's site:
"i also suggest not doing your own production. in my experience, there simply is not enough of a margin to be made (if at all these days) in doing production and it is a waste of a photographers time to attempt to suck 10-15% out of a budget. you are a photographer. be a photographer. if you are making 50K fees on an ad job and the production is say another 50K, it is simply not worth trying to make another 5K out of the production. as you are holding a lot of overhead which if it goes wrong and/or over budget, you and your business will be held responsible. not to mention the headache."
granted, they are speaking about production people and not specifically retouchers.... but the same concepts apply: If you are a photographer and are trying to shoot as many jobs as you can get your hands on.... why would you sacrifice the time doing the post production work on the imagery which can cost you 5-8 hours an image - inevitably keeping you up late at night cursing photoshop? Your job is to capture and manage the process. If you can get someone to do post while you are out on another job, why would any reasonable business person choose to turn down work? Not to mention if you can push their expense to the client (or at least share it with the client) and have control over direction and corrections on the image(s) - that would be the ideal system.

- Another concept to consider, which is founded in the above statement: People who have limited budgets have to do most of the post work for themselves to accomplish the look and feel. It requires them to actually learn photoshop enough to be proficient to get their concepts across in their image(s). If you spend too much time working behind the computer, you are losing touch with working behind the lens. Doing this will work for some time, though eventually lead to a crossroad where you will have to determine what you want to focus on and what you want to delegate to others to achieve your goals. No one is saying it is a problem to set up FPOs of what you want the direction to take for your image(s) - but difference between directing and doing can cost you time and money and should be looked into for your business' future.

Cheers & Randomness,
Matt Taylor
www.adaptdigital.com

Re: Spezialeinheit «Skorpion» rückt nach Streit an die Weststrasse aus

Markus Linke — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 05:11:57 -0000

http://www.tagesanzeiger.ch/zu...

Re: On retouching

Markus Linke — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 04:16:23 -0000

You are right; I've started adding the 100% views (zoomify), but will need to upload Matt's version again as the current uploads of his version are in the wrong colorspace; I'll also add the Plug-In Samples tonight.

Re: On retouching

Brent DeShazer — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 09:31:54 -0000

Thanks for testing these, very useful information. You should add the plug-in images for comparison. Of course they won't be as well done as the hand retouch but that's kind of your point, right? Maybe add some 100% crops of small skin patches to show the difference between all the different versions as well.

Re: On retouching

mattfredny — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 11:09:18 -0000

Thanks for the plug Markus. -