The Invisible Touch wrote:
Hmmmm not convincing mate. Sorry..

No problem. I have heard this many times. I am not here to convince anyone of anything and I understand it is difficult to understand from your perspective. I wouldn't be convinced myself if I was not part of it.

anchev wrote:
No problem. I understand what you mean and I will tell you as we are all sharing something here.

You may consider this stupid but I don't have a portfolio website at all. I am so busy working for others (including building their websites) that I just don't have the time to make one. FWIW I am primarily a CG person and photographer, not a retoucher per se. I have just recently registered on MM as a retoucher to see if there will be any interesting opportunities.

As for the current content of my MM portfolio: those are primarily photos which were created during my days as stock photographer when I was working with fairly limited resources. There is also some content from shoots which I have made with models for non-commercial purposes, just for fun. So you will not see any high fashion and so on as I have not published any content which was covered by NDA.

To answer your question: my information is based on my own experience. Working under NDA has its pros and cons. The pros is that the particular clients who require this pay well for it. The cons is obviously the difficulty to communicate. As you also noticed quite well my portfolio does not show any of this work. I am not even allowed to talk about this content. It is a closed circle - difficult to enter, difficult to exit. Obviously this set up is not suitable if one is looking for the traditional approach: marketing through self branding and personal showcasing. But of course as long as one has work marketing is not so important.

You claim on forum that you work high fashion Ad campaigns and Ad Campaigns for Big Brands  without personal/agency web site ( as a photographer or retoucher ) , without  client's list and examples of  Big Ad Campaigns  , without being represented with some major players and agencies  on the market , without any proof with portfolio files and you work Big Ad Campaigns  directly with Big Brands as a freelance photographer/retoucher?

And you don't want to show that because you have " some NDA" agreements with all of them?

Have I understood correctly your post?

Thank you

ST Retouch wrote:
You claim on forum that you work high fashion Ad campaigns and Ad Campaigns for Big Brands  without personal/agency web site ( as a photographer or retoucher ) , without  client's list and examples of Ad Campaigns  , without being represented with some major players and agencies  on the market , without any proof with portfolio files and you work Big Ad Campaigns  directly with Big Brands as a freelance photographer/retoucher?

And you don't want to show that because you have " some NDA" agreements with all of them?

Have I understood you correctly?

Thank you

No, you have not. To understand it you should read the answer and look at it as a whole, not try to analyze it piece by piece, extract phrases and give them meaning they don't have.

I answered the question which was supposed not to be taken the wrong way. Now you are twisting my words by adding things I have not even talked about, giving the whole thing a nuance of a claim and making me sound like the taxi driver in Rush hour 3 Is that not the wrong way?

I don't know if you have ever seen an NDA saying you are not allowed to even mention the very existence of an NDA (I guess I am breaking it right now). Perhaps it would be best to stop focusing this discussion on my persona as I am not important. Consider me nobody, I don't mind.

The Invisible Touch wrote:
The challenge Anchev is that you keep making statements that aren't true and based on nothing..

And you have to understand that you are so keen to give your opinion, you have to back it up with some work and at the moment we don't see it. You said you do 3d, professional retouching, etc but I haven't seen anything that proofs it, neither here or in your facebook.  I have also seen the thread that you offer free help to people by showing them what can be done to an image and I have to say the retouching and the colour/tone choices aren't professional or right. So based on what I said, please understand that sounds a bit bullshitting and trust me I have seen quite a lot of people like this here (MM) and in facebook groups.

Why not being honest? Is it because your NDA?

So after answering you honestly I am "people like this" and I am not honest according to you?

How do you know someone is not being honest? Just because one does not approach business matters the way you do? Or because one is not necessarily an exhibitionist in what one does?

Why should I put a client list on a web page just to prove things to someone in a forum, especially if that someone doesn't even respect the time I am taking to answer his questions? What makes you think the way you are doing business is the only correct way, especially when you don't know a thing about mine? Do I need to also provide a DNA sample just for your satisfaction? I am not comparing myself to you. Why are you comparing yourself and judging me?

I don't mind the disrespect you are demonstrating but why should I feel any obligation to back up anything to you? You obviously put a question just to become cynical as soon as you receive the answer.

It seems you are even bothered about what I am saying in another thread. What is your problem and why are you trolling at me? Have I done anything against you? Have I taken anything from you? Why are you so concerned about me and my work at all? Is that "professional or right"?

I really don't understand what you are aiming at and honestly - after your last post I no longer care.

The Invisible Touch wrote:
Because I think people like you are confusing things to others.. your "game" in the other thread is not teaching anything, is actually the opposite as you are providing something to newbies/amateurs that they might think is the way to go but its actually the opposite. IF you were who you really claiming to be, the results that you would be showing on that thread should have been more professional. That's why I think you are not who you claim to be and therefore I have no patience to listen to bullshit or NDA crap which is not what happens in the real world.

I have never seen a professional ( high end ) showing amateur images in any form or place and then say he/she has worked for big names.

If you are here on MM to participate, at least get your facts right!! :-)

Sir, the common denominator "people like you" means you are not talking to me but to some image you have about me, so you are talking to yourself. Plus I don't think I have asked for advice or clarification about what your personal rules are. I kindly and honestly answered your questions but I don't feel any obligation to follow instructions from you or to conform myself to any particular cynicism handed over with a smile. This thread is not about your opinion about me and I don't think the way you are continuing to lead this discussion as a sequence of personal attacks is of any help to the OP. Plus it is against the terms of MM as you are clearly trolling at me. If you have to say something personal - PM me.

As for that other thread (that thorn in your eyes) - it clearly says it is not a tutorial and I am not a teacher and that actually anyone is welcome to retouch, discuss, learn etc. It is an open friendly discussion if you know what that means.

I already understood that you like to abuse others directly or subtly, call them newbies/amateurs or ask questions just to tell their answers are crap (in the non-wrong way) so you don't need to continue with this. I admit this high end form of professionalism you are demonstrating is not within my specialty, which means I won't be able to discuss with you any further.

Michael Brittain wrote:
Mac said it best... There are no hard and fast rules. You charge what you can get, in my opinion/experience that has a lot to do with networking and relationships. Major magazine retouching pay? Zero per image to thousands per image... Someone quoted hourly rates up to $150 on the high end... I know retouchers charging $600 per hour (not a studio), I charge way below that, so again... no hard and fast rules. $.02

You won't get many hours of work if you put a price of $600 (or $150) per hour. I have had jobs for $800-900 a day but that is not every day of the year.

One of the big problems is that 99% of clients have an imprint in their brain that high end is something charged per image (bulk retouching) or by the dollar (budget retouching), e.g. $15 per image.

And there are those "high end" photographers owning 40k EUR camera bodies and expecting their 50mpx images to be retouched for $20-30 or less, including full body skin retouching, hair etc. They like to say "i want the best quality, will you do 2-3 for free test?" And many of them can't even get their images consistently in focus and properly exposed but have the same "high end" claims.

So obviously when everyone is shouting around "high end" it really means nothing. Just another empty marketing term for promoting mediocre quality product. Most people are merely repeating what they hear/read and don't want to understand that when the goal is quality, the only measure is time to get things right, not doing what is possible in a hurry within a predetermined budget.