We recently connected with Lewis Foster and have shared our conversation below.

Lewis, appreciate you joining us today. How did you learn to do what you do? Knowing what you know now, what could you have done to speed up your learning process? What skills do you think were most essential? What obstacles stood in the way of learning more?

Image retouching was never something I thought I would be doing. I did a degree in graphic design and specialised in illustration, but quickly realised after graduation that there weren’t many opportunities as an illustrator. 

I worked in at Fanatics as a studio assistant where I could occasionally apply my skills from producing vector based illustrations to retouching. The techniques with the pen tool in adobe illustrator are very similar to cutting out products for retouch in Photoshop. I moved into a junior retoucher position in the same studio and spent a year retouching e-commerce sportswear.

After this I moved to another Junior retoucher position at Beauty Bay, and over the next 3 years there I grew my skills and worked on many creative and model-based briefs and built myself up to mid-weight level. The senior retoucher at Beauty Bay at the time, Robyn, gave me the time and support to really enhance my skills whilst working on live briefs.

Last year I decided to take the plunge into freelance. I have worked on many varied projects over the past 18 months and it has continued to expand my skill set. The variety of work I receive I think is really healthy – it keeps it fresh and exciting.

I think in terms of speeding up the learning process – I could have spent more time with photographers and learning the basics of photography to gain a better understanding of working with different lighting etc. A lot of retouchers I know have a background in photography, but I’ve come at it from a bit of a different angle so maybe this sets my work apart from others.

Sometimes I think timeframes are a big obstacle to learning more. If a brief has a very tight turnaround then I tend to stick to tried and tested techniques. However if there is more time I like to push myself and try new things. I’m working on a test shoot with a photographer who got in touch via linked in at the moment. The images aren’t like anything I’ve worked on before, so it’s nice to retouch them without the pressure of a looming deadline.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I’m a freelance image retoucher and musician based in Manchester.

I started as a freelancer in April 2022. I also work as a freelance musician. One of the biggest factors in deciding to take the freelance plunge was to have more time for my music projects and create a more healthy balance between retouching and music and satisfy all my creative cravings. This has worked wonders for my mental health. When I’m not retouching I’m usually playing saxophone.

I provide image retouching services – everything from E-commerce to creative product/still life and model-based campaigns. The tagline for my business is ‘precise and progressive image retouching’. These are the two words I like to always have in the back of my mind when I’m working. I like to take a surgical approach to retouching as I believe that making all the small changes that are almost un-noticeable culminate in a crisp, realistic looking final image.

As a retoucher, there’s always a bit of inner moral conflict about this line of work as I’m essentially creating a fake representation of how something looks. I think the industry has changed a lot in recent years and there is a lot more emphasis on models looking real and their looks obtainable. I keep the word ‘progressive’ in mind as I try to do what I can to accelerate the cause of realistic beauty standards within the industry.

What else should we know about how you took your side hustle and scaled it up into what it is today?

I feel I have 2 side hustles running side by side with retouching and music. It might seem crazy to have both of them rooted in creative endeavours, as everything in society tells you that creative jobs aren’t ‘real jobs’ and imposter syndrome crops up for me all the time.

I never thought that music was something that I’d be able to earn a living from, but working a full-time job never gave me the opportunity to try.

With all the experience I gained from full-time industry retouching, I was confident enough that I’d be able to pay the bills as a freelancer and have a lot more time to pursue music. It’s all been a bit chaotic, but looking back at it, it looks like I had a plan all along.

Image retouching is still my main source of income, but in time I would love to be able to upscale the music side of things, a massive achievement of 2022 was being able to pay 2 months rent purely from playing saxophone.

It’s difficult to look around you sometimes as there are so many exceptionally talented and hard-working people in the music scene and the photography/retouching scene. I often feel that by not pursuing one or the other fully that I’ll never be top of my game in either, but I love the variety and I think it’s a far less toxic lifestyle to not put all your eggs in one basket.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

Perhaps the biggest thing I am grateful for is word-of-mouth recommendations. I’d say that over 50% of the projects I work on have come to me through someone putting my name forward. It’s like a chain, so it always motivates me to do the best possible job I can, as the person who took me up on a recommendation may well pass my name onto others.
 Aside from word of mouth, working on campaigns during my time at Beauty Bay helped to get my name out there. There were a few campaign shoots which had external agency support, and I was surprised to learn that these agencies had heard my name when I had talks with them after taking the freelance leap.

The creative industry up in Manchester is thriving but it is also quite small, there’s only a couple of degrees of separation, and names get around quickly. It’s lovely to be a part of it.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.lewisfosterretouch.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lewisfoster_retouch/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lewis-foster-78b090235/
• Other: Music instagram: @_stan_lewis

Image Credits
STRANGESUN@SAMCORPHOTOS-08118 Photography – Sam Cor