Career Challenges...

[icthings]

Hi Gang

I have been retouching for the past 17 years. Most of my work has been for ad agencies. I have noticed a big slow down in work, I think a lot of the agencies are getting kids fresh out of school to do the work in house, whether it's any good or not is another question, if the agency does it, it must be OK. Sure, some of them still realize and appreciate what quality work is.

My question is this; I am curious as to what some of you are doing with your vast knowledge of Photoshop? Career opportunities etc.

I'd love to hear about it. Thanks, Glenn

[Mike Ornellas]

This question is better asked here

<http://www.adobeforums.com/cgi-bin/webx?13@@.1de5f598>

[Linda King]

As a freelancer sometimes I have more work than I know what to do with, other times I can play. I usually have at least one or two jobs going though. My husband is the primary bread winner and there is very little pressure for me to work. I was able to help him through a time of catch-up last year which really helped after a six month period of him being unemployed. Now that we're doing better he doesn't care if I work or not.

[Jamie Dennis]

Glenn, I use photoshop to design merchandise for theme parks, all of the major ones (esp. in Orlando). Mostly T-Shirts but also other items like Mugs, Caps, Hats, etc.

www.mooicreative.com

a few examples, it's my own company, but have also considered getting a full-time job like you Linda.

I also agree, this is an ok place for this topic.

[Linda King]

I think this topic fits in here. Believe me, it will only take one or two posts in the lounge and it will be worthless. There are some good people in the lounge, but then there are some who seem to delight in their lack of manners when it comes to trashing more serious topics.

Glenn: I use PS for a little bit of everything, from designing promotional print pieces (two color, four color, grayscale), to photo retouching, to Web work.

[Linda King]

Jamie: I tried to visit your Web site but it says I'm missing the plug-in. I thought I had all the plug-ins.

[victor maldonado]

Hello, Glenn :)

I've been a photographer (both in cinematography and still photgraphy) and airbrush airtist (surfboards and paintings) since 1971. In early 2000 I made the switch to Photoshop and Final Cut Pro to replace my color and B&W darkrooms. All of my clients remain the same and they seem to be happier because the work is done faster, more precise and I can give them options they never had before when they worked with me.

I'm shooting slide film and scanning them into a Nikon LS2000 film scanner (the quality is barely acceptable this way for printing but OK for the web, I need to invest in a much better film scanner, don't get me wrong this is a good scanner but pales in comparision to what I'm used to), maybe sometime down the road I'll buy a digital camera. Vincent Versace convinced me that digital photography is the way to go, he's already made the switch and getting very good results.

Career wise it was a good move to learn Photoshop, but it has been an uphill road for me to learn Photoshop even though I have extensive photgraphy and darkroom experience just learning the Photoshop/computer terminology was a challenge, this forum has been a great help for me- thanks to all of you (even those who rant and flame). I miss the smells of the darkroom and the interaction with the other photographers in the darkroom, like seeing their work and listening to their storys about how they took the shoots, all this is gone with digital photography I think, in digital photography it's just you and the computer, the days of sharing trays is gone.

My Iwata airbrush is collecting dust and so is all of my darkroom equipment.

No matter how nice it's been working in Photoshop I would like to see the quality of digital photography and digital printing enhanced. I've seen so many crappy photos taken with digital cameras, it is amazing what a lot of marketing will do, the masses have runned to the digital format at the expense of quality. Because of digital cameras and digital printers I think we're living in a time of photography history that will go down as a period of time that produced the most miserable looking photos ever!

So, Glenn, my camera is the same, my clients are the same, only the darkroom has changed for me.

love & peace,
victor :)

[graffiti]

I tried to visit your Web site but it says I'm missing the plug-in

Same here. It says it wants the Minnie Mouse plug-in.

[Tim Mckinnon]

Glenn- Let us old timers feel lucky our careers brought us through the electronic/digital time, and heck we adapted. I still go in my old trade shop tool box and fondle my stipl pen, my exacto and my dried up opaque......I now work for a major Retailer with hundreds of digital shots per week that must be matched to samples, bo's made, drop shadows etc.....

I do miss the old times, color correction with light or acid, retouching with a needle, those were the days. But now you better adapt or those guys with tthe graphic degrees will be there to take that job.

[Jamie Dennis]

Well I wish there was a Minnie Mouse plug-in, you need Shockwave player to be able to view my site. It works fine for me in Safari and arrgghh, IE.

Let me know if you have any more problems.

[Tim Lookingbill]

I taught myself photo restoration as a means of learning PS the hard way. No professional agency stuff, just turning faded, yellowed and scratched Kmart quality family portraits into agency quality shots. Not easy!

I've learned so much about peripheral devices, computer systems and digital imaging this way that my job opportunities seem endless.

In addition to the creative end, I could teach or consult graphic systems troubleshooting and purchasing, desktop publishing and digital imaging.

I have yet to learn web design and html. I don't like spreading myself to thin. There's so much to remember.

[Bob Janusz]

I learned to retouch from the master craftsmen back when Nixon was still in the White House, using inks, paint, dyes, and bleach on c-prints, dye subs, and transparencies.

I had an excellent freelance business going with the big agencies in town until they started using pre press shops and printers to do it digitally.

I went to work for a client / friend with a print shop and trained on the Hell Chromacom (Great learning experience for color correction) and got into Photoshop around version 3.

I am freelancing again (laid off) for about a year and a half now. It's been tough to get back the clients I used to have because I have been out of the loop for so long. Many use young in house production people that give them "good enough" work.

Don't get discouraged though Glen. There are still plenty of AD's out there that recognize and appreciate quality work.

Also, skip the agencies for a while and concentrate on in house advertising departments at larger local companies. Network with photographers too.

Bob

[Ken Nielsen •]

Mike, how can you say that this question needs to be asked in the lounge? Most of the lounge is the casual user. The Mac Forum is where the working professionals hang out. I think this is a good place to post the question of careers for the pro.

Anyway, what is working for me right now is taking a full-time job at a medium to large corporation. That way you are covered in the income department while you wait out the sagging economy and look for a better time to be freelancing. This is just my opinion and for my situation; Many people like Linda King, with the right connections and in the right position, are doing well with freelancing at this time. You really have to add up the things you want out of your career and what is going on, business-wise, where you are right now.

[Mike Ornellas]

Ok OK Ken.

geez.

I hate the concept of a Lounge anyways.

[Ken Nielsen •]

"I hate the concept of a Lounge anyways."

I'll bet Ann and more than a few others would agree with you here.

[Linda King]

Zina: I love your work and your style of illustrating! Please share more about yourself. How did you get started? What kind of education? Do you draw most of your images freehand first or right in Illustrator? Is there any particular book or training program that has stood out as being beneficial with your skills?

[Zina Saunders]

I'm an illustrator and use Photoshop (and Illustrator) for creating illustrations. I work primarily for large publishing and entertainment companies. If you'd like to see the kind of stuff I do and how I incorporate the painting tools of Photoshop in my work, go here:

<http://www.zinasaunders.com>

I am entirely freelance and have been for years. Business is booming for me, for which I am most grateful. And although I worked with traditional media for years, I love working digitally and do the majority of my work on computer nowadays.

[Linda King]

Leave it to Phosphor to find the typo. lol!

[Phosphor]

I really admire your talent Zina, but I have one little E-Menschian question:

P-38 LightEning?

I take it that was just a mock-up?

[Linda King]

By the way Zina, your Web site seems to hang after a while. The first time I tried to go there the page just got stuck and wouldn't respond to anything I did but closing it. The same thing happened again when I clicked on the Humor button.

[icthings]

Hi Gang

Well, I certainly appreciate all of the replies. I have posted many times here before, but this topic seems to have touched a nerve with a good crowd.

I currently do work full-time in a pre-press company and have only freelanced a couple times 'in-between' jobs!

I too started and trained on a HELL Chromacom system, far more complicated than Photoshop, and slower too! , but a great start, besides, Photoshop wasn't even invented yet! I remember doing an ad for the Apple Lisa on the Chromacom! Having an artistic background, seemed to be a natural progression into this business.

Again, all of the replies are much appreciated. I probably made myself out to be an 'old' guy, but in reality technology changes so quickly that I guess it can age the best of us! I'm 'only' 40. I guess to a teenager this seems old.

I asked this question initually as I have to sqeek another 10 to 15 years out of this business, just trying to see where the next opportunities lie.

Thank you all, Glenn

[Phosphor]

Linda...

I may not have been so quick to notice it if it weren't for the fact that I think the P-38 is one of the coolest bits ever of aeronautical engineering. Beautiful planes.

I remember as a kid in the early- to mid-60's being excited, seeing them flying overhead fairly regularly. We (rightfully, or not) nicknamed them "Flying Boxcars" because of the shape formed by the twin fuselages. Even back then I was conscious of negative space!

[Zina Saunders]

Phosphor: No, that is the actual video cover (not a mock-up), and I also wondered about the spelling, but apparently that's the way the Discovery Channel spelled it. And thanks for your nice comment.

Linda: Thanks so much for your kind words. I went to Music and Art High School here in NYC, and I went to a few weeks of college at Cooper Union, but dropped out to go live on a commune and be a levitating lady in a traveling circus in upsate NY. Really. That is the extent of my education. I've been working on computer since about '98 or '99, and I'm self taught. I work in gouache and pen and ink and stuff like that in traditional media. I have a pretty wide variety of styles, so I have a lot of clients in different industries, so I'm cushioned when any particular industry gets slow (like trading cards or comic books or postage stamps, all of which I got a lot of work from and which have sunk below the horizon in recent years, pretty much). I work 7 days a week, about 12 hours a day. Which I love.

Thanks for asking about me; I'm honored by your taking an interest!

[Jamie Dennis]

Yes indeed Zina has some great work, nice to hear also that business is booming Zina! :) Hi!

Linda, were you ever able to view my site? I may have to trouble shoot it if there are still problems. Thanks for trying to look though.

Yeah its always fun to deal with those powers-that-be.

[Phosphor]

"...I also wondered about the spelling, but apparently that's the way

the Discovery Channel spelled it."

These people, apparently, are from the same braindead trust (along with the powers-that-be at TLC, The History Channel and CourtTV) who for a couple years now have approved the continual airing of voice-overs wherein website addresses are read "www.Blah-Blah-Blah.com BACKSLASH Buy-This-Video".

Imbeciles.

Nonetheless...if this is what you were paid to do, fine, the rest of it looks GREAT. But if it were me I'd've been imploding eardrums over the phone until I got to someone high-enough up in the food chain who was detail-aware enough to realize there was an egregious mistake being made.

[Linda King]

Wow Jamie, you've got a beautiful Web site, one of the coolest I've seen. I especially like the colors as well as the design. I had to download and install Shockwave to view it but it was worth it.

Zina: You're very welcome. I enjoyed exploring your Web site. Lot's of interesting artwork. The postage stamps are very cool. I love your artwork. Thanks for sharing how you got where you are.

Phosphor: The P-38 is very cool as are so many of those old classics.

[Jamie Dennis]

Thanks so much Linda, I appreciate the feedback. I'm glad you were able to get it to work. I kinda thought that was going to be an issue with shockwave player.

Thank you again for the nice comments! :)

I love to look at other people's work, if anyone has a web site they would like to share please do. It's always great to see how other people are able to push Photoshop to its limits!

Jamie

[Linda King]

You're welcome Jamie.