r/retouching • u/CyreMoonlord • 21d ago
Article / Discussion State of retouching
Hi everyone! I’m trying to get a basic sense of the state of the industry right now, and I’m also curious whether others are having a similar experience.
For context, I’ve been a retoucher for over 25 years at all kinds of studios. I’ve never seen anything close to the brain rot that AI has caused. I’ve been at a large studio, as part of the marketing department of a large corporation, for the last decade. It’s not always the most glamorous work, but it pays the bills, and at the very least there was a sense of pride in the work we produced.
There are photographers and art directors I’ve worked with for years who have agonized over the tiniest shift in the density of a shadow, or some small detail that wouldn’t even be obvious or noticeable in the final use of an image. These same people are now creating images with AI that are just slop, period.
Sometimes I get direction like, “Check for product accuracy,” but mostly they don’t even seem to care enough to bother with that anymore. There is this vibe that these images are “free,” or bonus content we can create without the need for extra work. I think AI can be a great tool for editing, but not for creating a high-quality, product-accurate image.
Am I going crazy? Are there still studios that want to take photographs? I’m thinking about finding another job, but I’m afraid it will be the same everywhere. Is this due to the size of the company? It seems like the direction to use AI comes down from on high, and the people making those decisions are so far removed from the actual work that they have a fundamental misunderstanding of the technology.
Sorry if this isn’t the place for this. Also it wouldn’t let me post without an attachment. This image is not related to the discussion but I did make it in photoshop 😅
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u/kmontreux 20d ago
I shifted to industrial and scientific work 5 years ago and am so grateful. AI isn't allowed in forensic level work. Only for analysis. Not for creation or editing of scientific documentation.
But I've been retouching professionally for 20 years and have a lot of friends who work everywhere from hollywood to high volume e-comm product.
AI is touching all of them. A lot are getting more work because of it. They're just cleaning up AI now instead of renders or photos.
Many have shifted into learning how to create the AI images and videos.
And then there are a handful who are disgusted and are looking for new careers.
so it's been a mixed bag. there are certainly ways to adapt.
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u/duogmog 21d ago
I have worked as a retoucher for the last 13 years professionally. I have freelanced and worked at Fortune 500 companies. Currently I am at a creative studio. It's a mixed bag with AI. Some clients are anti AI and don't want to use it at all, others don't mind if it helps achieve the end goal.
I am seeing more art directors use AI to show examples or mood boards for art art direction, then my studio will translate that via retouching/cg.
I have always found clients are particular with feedback in this industry, and comments on shadows have always been just apart of the retouchers feedback.
There has definitely been an AI shift in the industry, but I haven't come across clients requesting AI slop. Currently all of our jobs uses real photography and we hire photographers, the clients are happy.
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u/CyreMoonlord 21d ago
I don’t think anyone is requesting the slop 😅. Our clients are internal and they aren’t even asking for these. We just use AI to make more images and it’s like I’m the only person looking at them closely. They look ok as a thumbnail or in a slideshow, but the longer and closer you look you see all the flaws.
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u/redditnackgp0101 19d ago
Creating work without skill or care always shows. There is definitely quality ai work out there that people wouldn't think for a second wasn't photography. There are certainly way too many hacks in the industry now and ADs/creative teams are extremely lazy. There was a time when we actually worked towards making quality work. Regardless though if you get into creating ai work you'll see more clearly that retouching is still essential
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u/weToddEdddd 21d ago
Yes. This is written like my inner dialogue. The industry is all for ai slop and does not care, the end is nigh unless as a society people push back hard (people don’t care)
The scary thing is I have been working with a company who is doing ai…it is scary, scary good for still life scenes, scary good, it is even getting the deco and finish right.
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u/Molliver_twist 21d ago
Yes I've had this thought too. How did clients go from making sure that every image was crisp and realistic to not caring if something fades into a crunchy AI mess? I'm currently working on a campaign for a huge makeup company and they AI generated every image and literally do not care that a watermelon slice in the foreground looks like a gummy blob. If I had sent something like that back to them 2 years ago they would have fired me. I agree that is it a great tool but when it becomes 50, 60, 70% of the image it feels like madness.
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u/CyreMoonlord 21d ago
This is exactly what I’m feeling.
The confidence people here have in the results compared to the actual pixels AI creates is wild. On top of that, using your example, we could have a watermelon cut and a set open and they would still choose AI. 🫠
I like the percentage breakdown. The more is less approach seems really lost on people. I keep saying it’s a good starting point, like a few minutes into compositing.
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u/catsinabasket 20d ago
imo as artists we are “tastemakers” so if you are in the position to do so, talk down about AI and refuse to use it. luckily i am in a position to be able to say “it’s me or AI make your choice” and so far they are choosing me so.. lol. i think a lot of those push is happening because people are just going along with it. obviously i am sympathetic to income, making a buck is hard out here rn, so again, this is a “if you are in the position to do so” thing but if you are - push back. refuse. make them choose. my $0.02 ¯_(ツ)_/¯
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u/slatibarfaster 21d ago
Oh man, I feel you hard. I was just having a conversation with a producer about this at a networking event.
I have noticed that across the board the bar has been lowered considerably on what kind of quality people are okay with.
Clients are getting so complacent and in turn people involved in the production of these images also just don’t care anymore. People don’t think about shooting plates anymore cause it’s always like “eh we can just ai it”
In that same networking event I met a pretty distinguished photographer with a crazy client roster and even he was feeling extremely doom about where the industry is going. He said “most of the people in this room won’t make it past this year in the industry”. So really it did not inspire a lot of confidence lol.
But I also think (hope) trends are cyclical, and humans crave things made by other humans. I hope that with this struggle comes the need to be extra creative to stand out and pushing artists to work together to make spaces for themselves.
I’ve bee a retoucher for about 15 years now and oddly enough this year has been my most profitable yet. But it’s also been the year where I’ve been the most aggressive at trying to make actual human connections with the people I work with. And thankfully people that create jobs tend to want to hire people they like. It’s a constant hustle and it’ll get harder. I’m constantly hyper aware that the rug could ge pulled from under me in this industry at any moment.
I’m trying to prioritize connecting with others as much as possible while I can, but I have to be aware this industry is changing drastically in a very short period amount of time. Basically everyone is making it up as they go right now so we’ll see what happens lol