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Interview With Digital Artist Gabor Richter
Gabor Richter is a digital artist and retoucher from Germany. In this interview, Gabor discusses his humble beginnings as an apprentice furniture salesman, as well as what it takes to create a professionally retouched image.
QWelcome to Psdtuts+, please introduce yourself. Could you tell us where youre from and how you got started in the field?
Hi, my name is Gabor and Im from Germany. To be precise, Im living nearby Heidelberg at the moment, which is one of the most beautiful places in Germany. It has always been my dream to work as an artist using a computer, but Ive never had a precise goal of what I wanted to work on. I started at the age of 16 with a simple apprenticeship as a furniture salesman. I then had a great opportunity to start a second apprenticeship as a media designer when I was 23. And it was during this period that I discovered my passion for Photoshop. Although the program wasnt used very much at my company, I always tried to spend as much time as possible learning it. Sometimes I even slept in the office as an easier way to improve and further develop my skills. Money was scarce and I didnt have my own computer or camera at the time, but the agency I worked for had its own photographer.
One day after work, I started to work on a few of his pictures to try to improve them even more. The next morning I showed them to my boss with the proposal that he should offer this kind of work to our customers. Unfortunately, there werent any customers within the customer base who were prepared to pay for all those working hours. Therefore, I continued with my passion as a hobby and started to organize some photo shoots to realize my own ideas. The equipment required for my hobby was a camera, so I borrowed from friends. And through the internet I got to know the great photo artist Calvin Hollywood. For a long period of time I had already been following and admiring his work, then one day he was looking for an assistant whereupon I applied immediately! After being recruited by him, I gave up my well paid job at the agency and moved away from home. I made these sacrifices for an unpaid internship but it was well worth it. Nowadays I have a well-paid job with Calvin as his personal assistant. I work closely together with Adobe, make video tutorials for the company video2brain and photoshopfreaks, and I write regularly for German magazines. I am also writing for PSDTUTS+.
QHow long have you been using Photoshop? What was the tool or technique you had the most difficulty mastering?
Ive been working with Photoshop for six years now and professionally for four. Initially when I started with the program I was asked to do small corrections like optimizing brightness and contrast or applying minimal retouching techniques. I really started working with Photoshop during my apprenticeship with Calvin Hollywood three years ago. During that time I got to know my favorite Photoshop tool: the Healing Brush. I enjoy working with this tool quite a lot and even use this tool in real life.
Cracks on walls, graffiti, and ugly clouds I now naturally remove in my mind. So I think the reason why I like this tool is because its easily applicable. The results make such a huge difference that you might actually think it would have taken much more time.