Sometimes, you find yourself in a bind and need to get some work done quickly without spending your usual amount of time retouching. Check out this video for some techniques to get things done if you find yourself in a bind.
Brought to you via Nino Batista, this video highlights some ways to be extra efficient in a pinch. If you've spent any time retouching images before, you know that often, this can be a very time-consuming process, depending on the image and what all you're doing with it. Having a technique in your back pocket for when time is of the essence (as well as if you find yourself working with images that don't need a great deal of work to begin with) can be a particularly valuable thing.
It's important to note, as Batista mentions right out of the gate, that there is a time and place for time-saving methods and that shortcuts aren't a one-size-fits-all approach to editing. With that said, he demonstrates a skin retouching technique that pairs effectively with his retouching plug-in. In a perfect world, the images we end up editing have been shot in a manner that syncs well with our editing (basically, that we've taken appropriate steps in camera to make our editing life easier).
Leave a comment below after you've watched the video with your thoughts. How much time do you typically spend retouching your work? Have you found any ways to save yourself time in post-production? I know that for me, clearly structuring my workflow as well as creating actions that streamline the process have definitely made a big difference.
I'm embarrassed to say how much time I spend retouching. Too much.
The most epic example of 'time is short" can be found inside media rooms in any professional sports venue that is being played either between innings, periods, quarters, or halftime. We have about 7 minutes to go through potentially 2000+ images on culling, exporting this to Ps, and doing an adjustment, and then uploading the small files to the wire.
Another 3 minutes for them to assess... and then to re-select the full size images, place them in a zip file and off to them for a final edit. This by measure -- is kinda funny to watch.
It's always so awkward when I find myself there, at the stadium, and I bust out my Wacom to try to dodge and burn every shot I snapped in the previous inning. "Just maybe 20 min a shot!" is what I cry out for, in vain. Oh wait I do editorial and glamour.