Pixel Perfect - article in The New Yorker

[david b]

This article is about a guy named Dangin who is the fashion industry's leading digital retoucher and his process.

You can read the entire 6000 word essay here.

Then read some of the ruckus from it here.

But here is a quote from it:

“Photography as we knew it, meaning film and Kodak and all that, was a very subjective process. With film images you had emotions. You used to go out and buy film like Fuji, because it was more saturated, or you liked Agfa because it gave you a rounded color palette.” With a ten-dollar roll of film, he explained, you were essentially buying ten dollars’ worth of someone’s ideas. “Software, right now, is objective. ‘Let the user create whatever he wants.’ Which is great, but it doesn’t really produce good photography.”

Go with caution.

 

[ajmiller]

I have looked at this long article and I can't say I read it all, but I'm always amazed that in the part of the industry he works in there seems to be so much money slopping around. Not only do they now have a shoot which has a photographer, an army of assistants and truckloads of equipment, they still need this guy to retouch the finished 'product'.

- Tony

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

Is there anything really new here? As long as there has been photography in advertising, retouching has been part of the work. Professional portraiture has generally involved retouching as long as there have been negative/positive processes. Julia Margaret Cameron was sometimes criticized for her inept retouching.

 

[Michael W]

Nothing new about retouching but I thought it was interesting that one guy seems to have become so dominant. Shame the article was so breathlessly overwritten. Reminded me of that rubbish about Robert Frank in China from Vanity Fair. Note to these writers - it's the subject that is interesting, not you.

 

[Nick Zentena]

I have looked at this long article and I can't say I read it all, but I'm always amazed that in the part of the industry he works in there seems to be so much money slopping around.

How much does a full page ad cost in a large glossy mag? Relative to that I'm guessing a little extra money spent on the ad isn't a big deal