about eric

Eric Peterson I was originally trained as an Ektachrome retoucher in 1987. This was 5 full days of training. We worked on 8"x10" transparencies primarily, over a light table, with chemicals, dyes, baths and washes. To mask images we used a tacky transparent film to cover the transparency and "traced" out our mask with a razor blade. This was delicate because if you cut into the emulsion on the film you pretty much kissed away an $80 piece of Ektachrome.The work was very focused and many processes were less than forgiving if you made a mistake.

The computer program which became Photoshop, was already around, and I remember saying to our instructor that I thought all of this would soon become digital. The reply was: "Eric, you don't understand, because the human eye can recognize millions of colors, while computers can only distinguish 256 colors." There wasn't time to argue the point. I knew how fast digital was progressing and how much I wanted to be a part of it. I left that experience with skills that had a little longevity, but more important, I developed some of my early philosophies of what portrait retouching meant to me in terms of seeing the subject and balancing perfection with reality.

I had been a Mac owner since 1984 but It wasn't until 1994 that things really started to take off. Adobe Systems released version 3.0 of Photoshop and added the "Layers" capability. 1994 was also when IBM introduced the PowerPC chip with Apple Computer introducing the Power Mac. Apple had introduced ColorSync into it's OS in 1993, and color graphics were getting better while equipment was becoming more affordable. I had been married to a celebrity photographer since 1986 so work was almost always around. Photography had also been a serious hobby of mine since the late 70's. My initial plunge into the artistic side of computing took place musically, in the mid-eighties, with the explosion of MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface.)

Today I work with a multitude of graphic, CGI (computer generated imagery), video, motion graphic, music composition and audio engineering applications. I have retouched 100's of celebrity photographs for publication and I have engaged in countless solo projects and freelance digital art assignments. Clients have always expressed great satisfaction in my work.

For a list of software experience; please click here.

Contact Eric: eric@ericnp.net

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	I was originally trained as an Ektachrome retoucher in 1987. This was 5 full days of training. We worked on 8"x10" transparencies primarily, over a light table, with chemicals, dyes, baths and washes. To mask images we used a tacky transparent film to cover the transparency and "traced" out our mask with a razor blade. This was delicate because if you cut into the emulsion on the film you pretty much kissed away an $80 piece of Ektachrome.The work was very focused and many processes were less than forgiving if you made a mistake. The computer program which became Photoshop, was already around, and I remember saying to our instructor that I thought all of this would soon become digital. The reply was: "Eric, you don't understand, because the human eye can recognize millions of colors, while computers can only distinguish 256 colors." There wasn't time to argue the point. I knew how fast digital was progressing and how much I wanted to be a part of it. I left that experience with skills that had a little longevity, but more important, I developed some of my early philosophies of what portrait retouching meant to me in terms of seeing the subject and balancing perfection with reality. I had been a Mac owner since 1984 but It wasn't until 1994 that things really started to take off. Adobe Systems released version 3.0 of Photoshop and added the "Layers" capability. 1994 was also when IBM introduced the PowerPC chip with Apple Computer introducing the Power Mac. Apple had introduced ColorSync into it's OS in 1993, and color graphics were getting better while equipment was becoming more affordable. I had been married to a celebrity photographer since 1986 so work was almost always around. Photography had also been a serious hobby of mine since the late 70's. My initial plunge into the artistic side of computing took place musically, in the mid-eighties, with the explosion of MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface.) Today I work with a multitude of graphic, CGI (computer generated imagery), video, motion graphic, music composition and audio engineering applications. I have retouched 100's of celebrity photographs for publication and I have engaged in countless solo projects and freelance digital art assignments. Clients have always expressed great satisfaction in my work. *For a list of software experience; please click here.* Contact Eric: eric@ericnp.net < Back