Photographic Digital Retoucher
I was trying to locate 18 Fennel Street amongst the houses and flats. The street numbering was off, but I got there with time to spare. The doorbell was weak and needed a couple of pushes. I pushed once. In a room I faced a closet under stairs and a rack of border corners used for photo frame beefing. In my hand I held a CV but as soon as the interviewer, Tony Lee, stepped into the room I just knew it wasn't for me.
The practical interview was conducted on a dual monitor G4 Mac system inside the kitchen. The keyboard was extremely grimy and shiny. Opened was a family portrait in Photoshop 7. From experience in Paintshop Pro I tinkered a little with the Curves of the image to bring out the distinct colours and tones in the image. Adjusting the Brightness/Contrast just doesn't cut it. Then I had to figure out how to take out the shine from the father's bulbous nose. This is where the "test" went sour. I stumbled trying to figure out what the keys on the board were as well as how the hell I was going to dull the lustre. I first tried a Smudging of the adjacent colours and then tried to use a 3 pixel bruch on 100% opacity. Results weren't looking great. Then he comes across and chooses a 50 pixel brush on 40% opacity and does it himself as a comparison on speed and efficiency. "I guess you could do it that way" I told him. Another hint was that he asked, "I take it you're not familiar with the tools here."
The second image was of a family in a park setting walking hand in hand in hand. The toddler's face wasn't good and so the task was to swap another, happier, face over it. I created a layer on the base, lassooed the face over on to the new layer and things went rancid. I was checking out all of the menus looking for the Free Transform box. He showed me where it was. "Pretty distinct border there," he pointed out. There was a glaring border around the floating face that I could not figure out how to remove and I kept asking stuff such as, "what the hell?" "little help?" and "I have no idea what's going on here, do you?"
Either the twenty minutes was up or he just couldn't stand it any more, but he slid the mouse from under my hand and ended it with a definite "NO" It was one of those interviews any one could have gotten had they simply replied to the ad.
Classic Color
Address: Fennel Cottage, 18 Fennell North Parramatta
Wearing: Pants and shirt with a tie. Shoes with increasing crusting and dusty Vaseline.
Wednesday, 23 April 2003 - 06:29
Unsuccessful
Earlier interviews