Demand for photo retouching/digital art?

[cooltouch]

I know there are a number of professionals who frequent TPF, so I'm thinking this is the best place to ask with the hopes of finding out what sort of demand there might be for this sort of talent/service.

My daughter graduated from Memorial High School (Houston) a couple weeks ago, and is looking for a part time job during the summer, with the likelihood of continuing on into the fall as she goes to college. She is a very talented artist, has won several awards, and is proficient with pencil, oils, and especially Photoshop. During her last three years of school, she attended a special vocational program offered at SBISD's Guthrie Center in computer animation, and this is what she plans to major in in college.

See some examples of her work here:

http://dinohunter.com/gallery/

I'm encouraging her to seek out employment in an area where she can use her talents, instead of waiting tables at Olive Garden or the like. Nothing wrong with the latter -- I did it while going to college -- but I think she would like it a whole lot more if she could be employed doing something she's really good at.

All of the artwork at the above website was done from scratch. However she's also done quite a bit of photo manipulation with Photoshop, from light to heavy. I'm after her to post some examples of this as well up at her site, but I don't think she has any up there yet.

So anyway, I'm wondering how this works at a reasonably busy photo studio. Do the photographers also do the retouching/photoshopping, or will they hire someone to do this? If the latter, care to offer any advice I could pass along to her so she might have some luck getting past the front door?

Best,

Michael

[Daniel W.]

Each area varies from place to place, why not cold-call a few studios and ask? I know the studios who do have in-house retouchers and heavy pixel pushers keep it in the family, (mom and dad shoot, daughter retouches) but who knows. A strong case would be if she were also a decent shooter too.

[KimHurt]

Your daughter's stuff looks great. She might want to join some photography forums and put up a post offering her services with links to her work. She would probably want to show before and after examples. I use an outside retoucher I found by calling up an old graphic design professor and asking for recommedations. So she might want to talk to her professors and let them know she is interested in doing this. I use my retoucher most often for basic adjustments - color correction, cropping, minor contrast tweaks and pay $2 per file. If I get really backed up I will ask him to do artistic edits and pay an extra $5 per file for that. I also provided him with copies of all the software and actions I use that he did not already have. Hope that helps your daughter out!