Retouching Charlie Sheen, Cardi B, & Bruno Mars with Errick Jackson; Photo Retoucher

00:01.12
davemaze
hello and welcome to another episode of the golden hour podcast brought to you by the polar pro studio I'm your host Dave Mays and today we're here with. Eric Jackson Eric thanks for coming on the show. Dude this is awesome I love your work. We found each other on Twitter Eric is a photo retoucher photoshop master photographer and I think you dabble in all sorts of other creative.

00:19.80
Errick Jackson
Thank you so much for inviting me. Yes.

00:34.36
Errick Jackson
Yeah, I'm kind of all over the place I would say my main things especially over the last few years has been retouching but also entering as ah, a freelance colorist and I've been a photographer since before I was a retoucher. So.

00:34.72
davemaze
Things is that right.

00:52.38
Errick Jackson
And my interests are kind of all over the place.

00:55.39
davemaze
That's amazing. So yeah I mean it's actually interesting to hear you say that you you dabble in coloring as well as a colorist that kind of makes sense because anything that you would learn in a retouching environment and photoshop would I would imagine translate over to video.

01:09.42
Errick Jackson
Yeah, yeah, um, so I mean I've been I've been technically studying color for as long as I've been studying photography but it was very much just kind of an offshoot interest that I you know was just curious about so I was.

01:09.86
davemaze
In resolve I Assume you're doing color in.

01:28.45
Errick Jackson
Was messing around in resolve back before it was an n le and like you could you know do your fullblown editing and it it was just purely there to color. Um, and so it has evolved quite a bit since I first started messing around in it. Um, but yeah now that I'm kind of pursuing it.

01:37.11
davemaze
Yeah.

01:48.20
Errick Jackson
Being able to work on different people's projects and stuff. It's been really interesting to kind of utilize how big and advanced a tool. It is now compared to when I started but it's also surprising how much a lot of things from Photoshop Carry over and in the way that it's structured. Ah, the way that you might go about color grading so it picks up pretty easy.

02:10.11
davemaze
And that's fascinating. You say that I studied actually to be a traditional artist I was wanting to be an animator an animator I said that weird 3 d animator so I went to like art school I didn't finish I went for like a year and a half at a.

02:21.40
Errick Jackson
Yeah.

02:27.90
davemaze
A community college but I was studying like in art classes and I remember learning about the color wheel and understanding the opposites and the the triangle of color and like the complementary colors and all that and I learned that when I was young and before I even started video then once I started doing color grading I realized all the techniques that I learned as like. Painting and understanding the color theory and the color wheel completely applies to color grading as well. Like if your image is too Red. You have to know in your mind that the opposite of red is green so you want to pull some green in and that was all stuff that I learned in college with painting. It's crazy how it just translates over to all sorts of different.

02:52.51
Errick Jackson
Yeah, yeah.

03:02.90
Errick Jackson
Yeah, no absolutely because I mean at the end of the day you're kind of especially as a retoucher myself but you know with color grading you're playing with perception and that's pretty much you're a whole game is to make sure that.

03:07.14
davemaze
Ah, career paths.

03:22.49
Errick Jackson
Um, you're not throwing a person's perception off of the image and they're not getting distracted by anything being too crazy or off so you're kind of playing a psychological game just as much as like a color theory game.

03:36.10
davemaze
Well one of the main reasons why I had you on the podcast here is because um, all you got to do is just go to your website and immediately you're just overwhelmed with unbelievable images with unbelievable people. we've got Bruno Mars we've got um

03:51.66
Errick Jackson
Yeah.

03:54.22
davemaze
Do we have Kylie Jenner here somewhere I don't know we've got all sorts of different celebrities that it seems I assume you've retouched these images total magazine covers by the way as you're listening to this I'll put a link in the show notes and you can actually view this website. It's http://ejackson.com, but he spells it j a cs o n um, go check out his work because that is it's just mind blowing the the clarity, the cleanness, the sharpness and the precision of the things that you're working on. It's really quite incredible and.

04:12.64
Errick Jackson
Um, yeah.

04:30.00
davemaze
As soon as I saw your work I was like holy cow I got get this guy on the show because we've never had a retoucher. Oh dude, you're so welcome. Um, and by the way you're in Arkansas so your're southern boy like myself out here in Nashville. So.

04:32.72
Errick Jackson
I Really appreciate that.

04:42.14
Errick Jackson
Yeah, yeah man I have a couple friends in Nashville as well. But yeah I've been here my whole life. Um.

04:50.95
davemaze
That's awesome if you ever come to Nashville let me know we'll get some hot chicken together. It's like my favorite thing ever. Dude yeah seriously hit me up. Let's do it. We'll we'll do a follow up here. Maybe maybe we'll do a video on my actual channel we could do like a retouching.

04:54.53
Errick Jackson
You know I'm planning a trip out there next month yeah we should definitely link up.

05:06.91
Errick Jackson
Oh that be sick. Absolutely absolutely.

05:07.79
davemaze
Based video that'd be super fun. Yeah dude. Heck yeah, oh I'm super pumped. Um, so can you just walk me through your career I mean it's when you look at your portfolio. It's really impressive. Um, how did you get started in this.. It's. Kind of mind blowing when you see the the work that you've done now I Want to hear the journey of how you got to where you are.

05:30.74
Errick Jackson
Ah, well naturally it was from being moved away from something completely different. Um so I was initially going to school for engineering in California. Yeah I'm i'm.

05:44.26
davemaze
Wow. Okay, what school did you go to by the way. Okay I'm not familiar with that.

05:49.91
Errick Jackson
Ah, went to Harvey Mud college it's ah yeah, it's ah it's a small little and private institution and kind of ah a consortium of of different colleges in Claremont California but they. Specifically were ah, kind of a stem-based school like you went there basically to major in either you know math engineering chemistry bio computer science, um, some combination of the few they had a a few different majors but it was like 10 majors. Max and like 800 students at the whole school is a very small school but I mean me kind of with my upbringing that was my background. It was what I was good at I got a really good scholarship to go there and it was interesting because I school had always been.

06:26.41
davemaze
Wow. So.

06:44.54
Errick Jackson
Fairly easy for me so I hadn't given much time or thought really to what I wanted to do in the future. It was kind of just treating everything like the next step I got to that school and they're like no, you gotta want this like pretty badly and I kind of.

06:59.31
davemaze
Ah.

07:02.87
Errick Jackson
I Kind of just realized you know everything that I was doing was cool but it wasn't really want to want it to devote my life to and it was hard like you know trying to balance like stuff I was interested in with a pretty heavy course load.

07:17.53
davemaze
Yeah.

07:18.47
Errick Jackson
Um, but yeah, basically I stayed there for a year and a half and then I took time off to kind of just see like did I want to continue that track and I basically didn't at the time I was also exploring like photography and it was really starting to be a pretty solid outlet for me.

07:36.32
davemaze
M.

07:38.41
Errick Jackson
Um, so once I took that time off it was one It was the first bit of time I'd had where I didn't have like school breathing down my neck and I was literally just like I was I was working a job like yeah I started working at best buy back then. Um, so I was working full time at best buyy and like basically just living and I really liked that. Um I liked kind of the lack of stress to a certain extent of just kind of like living life and working. And it was also giving me a chance to explore how I felt about photography how I wanted to pursue it. Um, so I ended up I went to school for a semester after taking a year off.

08:20.12
davemaze
M.

08:33.70
Errick Jackson
State cause I knew I wasn't going to go back to try to go back to that school in California but um, yeah I went to a school hearing state for a semester I was still working full time at the time I hated it I got really depressed because I couldn't shoot anymore and it was kind of just like the clearest moment of okay this is.

08:36.13
davemaze
Yeah.

08:52.37
davemaze
Yeah.

08:52.79
Errick Jackson
Want to pursue this because I'm clearly happiest here I'm still stimulating my mind. This is what I want to do so I left after that semester dove headfirst into it and and tried to start and treating photography. Seriously um. And from there it was kind of just ah, a learning experience I'll be the first to admit I probably dove head first too quickly back then because I was I was pretty intent on making photography my career because I was just like trying to focus on getting a career under me. Um, but. Don't know these days like my advice to people is like no just take it easy like if you don't have to jump in full on you know, find where it fits where it makes sense but back then yeah I was trying to dive head first. Um, start a business, get a client base. Um, and I had a friend at the time. Was a friend I closely work with now Caleb Shane amazing photographer and he taught me a lot of things back then um and so he kind of just like put me on over the years and so I was learning a lot with him and from other colleagues in my state. Um. And over time I ended up where do we get to I think it was 202018 I want to say um I first set up like and first had a studio in in downtown little rock.

10:21.70
davemaze
Okay.

10:29.82
Errick Jackson
And I was working out of there up until the pandemic hit. But yeah I was basically shooting out of there for local boutiques and just doing all kinds of different photo shoots but I was mainly at that point I had moved from Primarily you know. On location work to primarily in studio work. Um, and I had a little bit of like retouching clientele that I was building as well. But it was definitely smaller at that point it was primarily photography retouching was something a skill that I built up out of necessity for my Work. Um.

10:49.15
davemaze
Ah.

11:04.89
davemaze
Ah.

11:07.51
Errick Jackson
But you know when people recognized that I was good at retouching they would you know seek to hire me and that kind of gave me the opportunity to treat retouching as another form of income but also explore working as a retoucher as opposed to working as a photographer. So enter the pandemic 2020. It's like it's like three months out for my lease ending and I was pretty certain things were gonna kind of like it was gonna take a while for things to get back to normal. So I shut things down moved went to remote.

11:39.20
davemaze
Yeah.

11:45.23
Errick Jackson
And that's where I like really dug my heels into retouching and straight on and that's basically been my wave ever since.

11:51.92
davemaze
So the pandemic is the the reason for your retouching work. The catalyst.

11:55.67
Errick Jackson
The pandemic is the biggest reason for yeah, it's the thing that that pushed me like heavy into it being my primary thing. Um, and yeah, that's been. It's been great. Um, just because.

12:06.86
davemaze
That's awesome.

12:13.22
Errick Jackson
1 it made me realize how comfortable I was with that working relationship, especially you know as a retoucher I'm working with other photographers production companies occasionally the brands directly? Um, but you're kind of articulating their creative vision in a different. Like at a different stage of the process which is really interesting.

12:34.36
davemaze
So tell me what retouching is for somebody who doesn't even have a clue what that is I mean um, my guess is you're doing photoshop work but can you just walk me through kind of what that job entails.

12:43.41
Errick Jackson
Yeah, so ah, basically what'll happen is um, a client will reach out to me. They'll have images that and they either planned on shooting or have already shot. That they want to send to me and essentially my job is to refine those images so part of that is I may get sent like raw files and need to do some raw preparation first which my my software choice there is capture 1 pro. Um.

13:16.47
davemaze
Okay, yeah.

13:18.68
Errick Jackson
But most of the time you know I'll get like Tifs or psds that I'll open up in photoshop and get to work on but essentially I mean when you say refining because the work that comes in. It can be portraiture. It can be product. It can be environments that I'm having to maybe composite together or something like that. So it ranges but I mean a lot of the tools you use end up being the same across the Board. You're you're using like 10 percent of photoshops tools to do 90% of the work. But you're.

13:41.98
davemaze
Aha.

13:55.76
Errick Jackson
Just there to eliminate distractions because at the end of the day images viewing images. We don't view them the same way we do in real life. You know if you see an image on your phone on a screen or whatever you have the opportunity and you're most likely going to stare at that image. For a good 5 to 10 seconds or longer. That's not what we do in real life if I stared at you for the next two minutes you probably think I was insane. So it's about it's about kind of mimicking the lack of realism we get to experience in real life with a photo and that's.

14:27.60
davemaze
6

14:31.12
Errick Jackson
It's a weird way to classify it. But it's kind of what we're doing. We're trying to guide the eye to what's important in the image. Um and not let the eyes get distracted by stuff. That's not important. That's really all it is.

14:44.00
davemaze
That's a great philosophy. It's almost like you're trying to tap into what people's ah, kind of imagination or what they remember about somebody. It's like if I think about somebody that I just glance at. Really stands out to me. Maybe they're just wearing a really interesting piece of clothing or whatever. They're just an interesting person. Um I may have a skewed version of them in my head because that 1 thing that they wore stood out so vividly. But then when you see them in person. It's like oh wait, you actually don't look like what I thought but my brain like.

15:05.82
Errick Jackson
M.

15:12.70
Errick Jackson
Yeah.

15:15.79
davemaze
Came up with this imagination So you're trying to find those things that kind of enhance reality a bit so you're you're not. It's you're not creating reality. You're kind of enhancing it.

15:21.62
Errick Jackson
Yeah, a little bit exactly yeah and you're kind of you're you're choosing or not so much choosing. But you're kind of narrowing the focus a bit because on on the flip side of. Removing Distractions Sometimes you're bringing to the Forefront things that are really important. Maybe it's the texture of some clothing or maybe it's someone's eyes like it. It can vary but the point is you want people to focus where the artist is intending for them to Focus. Um. And not get distracted by you know stuff that just really doesn't matter if it's a blemish or a dust particles that kind of like it can be anything but that all really is up to the artist at that point.

16:08.30
davemaze
So if I go on your website How much of this is retouch and how much of it is your own photography is this mostly is this ah a blend of of everything on your website. You've got retouch the whole section I Assume that's all retouch.

16:19.70
Errick Jackson
So yeah, on my website, you'll see the retouch tab in that site by the way like what you're looking at currently and hopefully I'll have an updated website by the time the podcast goes live. But what you're looking at right now is probably like a year old. At this point, there's a whole bunch of work I haven't added to the site but I do have things separated so I have the the retouch tab which is just kind of some of my ah my best of in in my retouching up to that point.

16:42.22
davemaze
That's amazing.

16:53.16
davemaze
Aha.

16:54.23
Errick Jackson
And then and the other tabs are my own photography. So there's some beauty work. There's some portraiture and fashion work. But yeah, all of it ends up getting retouched by me regardless. So.

17:01.72
davemaze
That's amazing. So tell me tell me some of these celebrities that you've worked with because it's really quite impressive in terms of the the photos that you've retouched. What are some of the ones that stand out to you.

17:16.65
Errick Jackson
Um, so there it's interesting. So like if we look like the big 3 that are up top that I just have there because who's not going to have these celebrities up top. Um.

17:29.91
davemaze
Yeah, yeah.

17:34.54
Errick Jackson
So these kind of came to me at random and that's the interesting thing is like you build these relationships and you just don't know what's going to come through the door. Um, but.

17:43.40
davemaze
Yeah I mean tell it tell the we have a majority audio listeners. So if you could actually describe those celebrities who are that and also I kind of forget some of their names I recognize their faces but I personally don't remember their names.

17:51.97
Errick Jackson
Oh yeah, okay.

17:58.97
Errick Jackson
Yeah, so the first image is of Charlie Sheen um and this was just um I don't I don't remember what the context for the photo shoot was but a friend of mine shot these photos.

18:00.42
davemaze
And some of these.

18:05.93
davemaze
2 It's amazing.

18:17.50
Errick Jackson
And basically the the first image on the left here it it was just ah, an individual portrait of him just make him look good. He's got surprisingly good skin though like the man looks great at his age so there wasn't too much work I had to do there. Um, but it was mainly just like lessening some wrinkles kind of like making them less defined the image on the right we had to do actually a little bit of extension work there because where that lamp is um, it was actually right at the edge of a wall and there's this like long hallway. Um. To the right there so we ended up having to extend that wall over and then on the left side we had where his his coat is flailing out to the side. We actually just there was someone holding him so we had to remove that person rebuild that section of the wall.

19:01.85
davemaze
Ah, okay, interesting.

19:07.72
Errick Jackson
Um, and then just kind of clean up the floor. But yeah, it just results in some interesting looking images again I don't remember even what the context was for this shoot happening but it just it happened um and then bull. Yeah.

19:19.16
davemaze
Yeah, um, and by the way everybody who's listening. You can either look at your phone right now if your apps if your podcast app supports it. You may be able to see the the cover art of. This podcast right now will have the images that we're referring to I think Apple Podcast does it overcast does it a couple others. Do I don't know if Spotify does. But if you want to follow along I'll include this in the video on Youtube so just go to http://youtube.com/ghpod if you want to watch the video. So anyways, there's cause.

19:37.50
Errick Jackson
Oh that's super cool.

19:55.62
davemaze
Is a very visual aspect of what we're talking about Obviously so.

19:56.35
Errick Jackson
Yeah, absolutely. Um so let's see the next image. So this was klid milly Bobby Brown and I forget this streamer's name but he's a I believe a Twitch streamer. Um, and it's gonna drive me crazy not remembering who he was but.

20:04.51
davemaze
The the.

20:11.10
davemaze
Aha.

20:15.39
Errick Jackson
Ah, this was actually for a Samsung release this was they were doing this was a year ago I want to say last winter. Um, they release you know they release like a ton of phones every year this was one of their phones.

20:24.91
davemaze
Ah.

20:31.20
davemaze
Sure I Love how does that have anything to do with the phone I don't see the phone. Oh is he holding it. Ah, he's.

20:35.24
Errick Jackson
That was coming out. They. I think he's holding it but this was mainly this was kind of the hero image for the rest of so this wasn't the only image that was a part of this campaign but there was a series of images with these celebrities. And this particular yeah Millie Bobby Brown Khalid and I I feel like I have to look up who this Twitch dreamer is I feel bad like not being able to.

20:58.58
davemaze
Millie Millie Bobby Brown yeah

21:06.58
davemaze
I mean is it I know Ninja It looks like Ninja is in the ad but that's not obviously not Ninja. Um.

21:13.85
Errick Jackson
No, this is a different guy I'm it's gonna bother me I might I might figure it out later can I can I real quick. Let me see I might literally be able to find the ah.

21:18.78
davemaze
No take your time you can go ahead and if you want to do a quick Google search. Yeah, if you want to do a quick Google search I'll just edit this segment I'm I'm searching for that. It's called the Samsung Galaxy team galaxy

21:33.17
Errick Jackson
The emails for it.

21:37.68
davemaze
Team Galaxy Hashtag Team Galaxy is what I'm seeing everywhere.

21:42.67
Errick Jackson
Let's see let's see.

21:43.77
davemaze
Team galaxy is a show that's a anime Tv series. We don't want that.

21:51.54
Errick Jackson
Ah, yes, his name's myth like ah like yeah, um, but yeah, he's he's a Twitch streamer named myth. He does a lot of fortnite stuff.

21:56.23
davemaze
Oo That's a cool name. Okay, so can you can you rephrase that for clean edits to say Yeah, he's a and then the other guy is myth. Yeah, just something like that.

22:09.80
Errick Jackson
Sure yeah, the other guy is myth so we have Khalid Mellie Bobby Brown and myth the twitch streamer. Um, and basically what we had to do here was a composite all of these.

22:18.35
davemaze
So.

22:24.28
Errick Jackson
Different images were shot at different times and we needed to take all of them and put them on the same background make them look like they were all shot together. But also you know give room for graphic designers to do whatever they wanted to do to the image. So basically just taking um.

22:38.15
davemaze
Ah.

22:43.23
Errick Jackson
You know a bunch of images of them. Some plates of the background doing some extensions and rebuilding copping over shadows. Um, all of that good stuff basically to make this one image.

22:52.95
davemaze
Well, that well now when you mention that like as I stare at the image and I think about the fact that it's composited in I can kind of see how it's possible but I didn't even consider that that wasn't just a photo of the 3 of them in ah in a room. Because the shadows are so convincing and at at first glance when you look at it. You're just like oh yeah, I mean there they are how do you I feel like the grounding of it and the scale of things could get tricky because basically you know some of them are maybe taller than the others and like how do you deal with scale and kind of the weight. Of you know 1 guy sitting in a chair. One's on the ground like you chose to put shadow here and not here like that's really tricky to do.

23:38.65
Errick Jackson
So part of it is you want to use as much as you can from the original images as possible. So like for example, each person um had like each person in their shadow is from their images. So.

23:55.55
davemaze
Gotcha.

23:55.79
Errick Jackson
Khalid and myth were shot were both shot on these blue backgrounds like these deep almost navy blue backgrounds but their shadows were still intact so I was ah basically did channel masking to pull their shadows along with them. And bring that over so when we did the pink backdrop that Millie Bobby Brown was shot against we built that pink backdrop out and brought their shadows over so that was kind of key to make sure that was all good.

24:16.19
davemaze
Aha.

24:23.38
Errick Jackson
The rest was a lot of trial and error we were sending images back and forth to see how we liked the scaling and and this is where we left off but it was kind of hard to be certain because I mean some of these images were shot at wide angle like somewhere between 24 and thirty five millimeter focal links so there's some distortion as to the scaling of of their physical proportions and trying to match that up with how they look in real life. Um, you know we we got it as close as we felt was was a good place for it to sit. Um, but yeah I mean off jump.

24:46.40
davemaze
Yeah.

25:01.30
davemaze
It's amazing.

25:02.21
Errick Jackson
If ah if you don't think it's a composite that's kind of the point and it as long as it's not pointed out. You don't have to nit pick it. But you know there's inevitably. You can start seeing stuff if you know what to look for.

25:04.18
davemaze
Ah. Yeah, and. But most people don't know and if anything having it be again like you said at the very beginning of this conversation having it sort of more of a dreamlike enhancing of reality kind of just drives the point across of whatever the with the client is wanting and in this case.

25:30.97
Errick Jackson
Yeah.

25:33.85
davemaze
They just wanted a clean image of all 3 of them that popped and was in the color space that they wanted it to be in. So if that's the case. Super success. Um, now here's the here's the question I have for you as a photoshopper myself in a very amateur way. The only things I ever photoshop are thumbnails.

25:38.88
Errick Jackson
Yeah, absolutely.

25:52.85
davemaze
But it is photoshop and but and by the way I would I would like to comment about thumbnails later in this interview because I think you may be the perfect thumbnail artist and you don't even know it or or you do.

25:53.43
Errick Jackson
Yeah, absolutely.

26:05.61
Errick Jackson
How you you're definitely right that I don't know it I've looked at thumbnails and gone I don't know how people think of this stuff but I see a lot of cool thumbnails on Youtube.

26:15.13
davemaze
Um, so my question for you is I'm noticing that the the way that you cut them out. It's like very clean, very sharp walk me through your process of taking an image and in in this case, you're taking 2 guys and cutting them out of a. You said it was originally a blue background. So are you just using the lasso tool the magnetic lasso tool. Do you use? Do you just go by hand. Do you have? Ah ah, a wacom tablet or something like how do you get it so perfect because I feel like I get lazy sometimes and like I just maybe that's it is maybe you actually care more and you're actually.

26:34.62
Errick Jackson
Yes.

26:53.55
davemaze
Going over each thing perfectly. But it's just so impressive How you got every fold of the fabric in the hairs. So perfect.

26:54.60
Errick Jackson
Ah.

27:00.14
Errick Jackson
So part of it is I mean I'm a big proponent of using what tools are available to to aid you from the speed perspective. Um, but not everything can be done quickly. So ah, basically the way I would start is. Can't remember if at this time that that particular photo I think so the photoshop update where you have object selection and was out but typically for something like this at least now I start with the object selection tool which builds a pretty good like rough mass to start.

27:27.60
davemaze
Okay.

27:37.67
davemaze
Nice.

27:38.84
Errick Jackson
Um, then diving into selected mask. Um, and essentially just eating away at the edges and kind of getting like cleaning up the edges where the object selection may have been off or not you know, just kind of rugged. Um, so I will yeah, just go by hand and clean around. Um for it. It does also have a tool in there for refining the edge for specifically for hair and so it can get really fine detailed selections around the hair. And then I can also clean that part up a little bit. Obviously it's not going to be absolutely Perfect. There will I mean I've yet to see mass from anyone. That's just absolutely perfected that if the hair wasn't absolutely perfect. But especially around clothing and stuff. It's pretty easy to get a solid clean mask out of it. Um, the parts that you have to watch for um, being that these were different color backdrops is obviously you're also going to have.

28:46.69
davemaze
Yes.

28:46.76
Errick Jackson
Those color reflections come back onto their clothing onto their skin and so going from a blue backdrop to a pink backdrop very different reflection on the clothing and so that had to be managed once I brought it over to ah the pink backdrop and. Essentially just if we like I remember on the shoes. There was definitely ah, a blue tent to the the top of the shoes and it was either neutralizing that or using a brush and color blending mode to like bring in more of a a warmer tone. Um, or pinkish reflection and and kind of just match that you can start to restrict it a bit if you want with the kind of luminosity masking that that layers will let you do like the layer style section.

29:29.32
davemaze
Wow.

29:39.42
davemaze
Ah.

29:41.23
Errick Jackson
Um, so you can just essentially allow yourself to refine and refine more where you're acting up on the image so that you can get you know as clean, an impact as possible. But from there I mean um.

29:52.13
davemaze
Totally.

29:57.76
Errick Jackson
Yeah, you kind of start broad and then just get nitpicky and there's not really there's not really a way around that and I find that's probably even with when I was first learning retouching a lot of the things that you were seeing online were kind of ways to do things quickly but it would. At the cost of doing things cleanly and ultimately for me personally I was willing to spend the extra bit of time to figure out how to do it cleanly and then just practicing it faster at it. But yeah I would say probably the best advice I ever got on retouching was few things are.

30:26.95
davemaze
Yeah.

30:35.59
Errick Jackson
Difficult They're just tedious and time consuming but at the end of the day pixels or pixels and you're just pushing them around.

30:42.60
davemaze
100 % in my Youtube journey. One of the things that I tried to do was just add a lot of graphics a lot of cut-ins and text and sound effects and things and often it's like well if I didn't include these things I would be done much faster. But. I know like if I do this, it'll make it more entertaining and it makes my content stand out and it makes it unique compared to other people because I know I'm forcing myself physically to do this I don't want to do it and it's just called simply work and it's hard work and often. You have to actually do work that isn't enjoyable and but then the end product is so much better and you end up getting more work from it and in my case with Youtube stuff you get more views or you get more people interested like oh my gosh I love this stuff. It's like yes, those two days of editing were worth it.

31:26.25
Errick Jackson
Yes.

31:37.75
davemaze
You could have done got it done in a day if you really wanted to but you know that extra 10% that extra 10 or twenty percent really goes a long way and that's what makes you stand out against anyone else.

31:48.90
Errick Jackson
Yeah, it's It's the beauty of being able to get a clean result for me. It's also like you know when when we're retouching, we're we're going through rounds of revision as well. So we're sending this stuff off seeing if the client has. More notes on anything. Maybe they didn't address in the fort when they first sent it or something like that. Um, so for me I'm also kind of playing the personal game of like okay, let's see if I can get them and not have any notes this round. Um, and so.

32:15.30
davemaze
Ah, yeah, ah, good luck with that right? ah.

32:20.82
Errick Jackson
Yeah I mean everyone has a different standard of what perfect is for them and so you're obviously you're always going to miss something because it's either. They're not going to see it upfront or you're not going to see exactly what they're seeing in their head. Ah.

32:34.26
davemaze
Yeah.

32:36.47
Errick Jackson
When when they want you to fix something so there's kind of there's the basic stuff that you're always going to take care of with an image. No matter what? um, but then there's stuff that is really up to the the client and what exactly they have in mind for the final image. That you can't just you don't want to necessarily assume off-rip. Um, but ultimately you know you get, especially if you work with more and more of the same clients and and they become you know, repeat customers. You get a feeling for their eye.

33:06.97
davemaze
Ah, ah, totally.

33:11.60
Errick Jackson
And you get to the point where you can go. Oh yeah I I know you like to usually change X Y Z and I can just go ahead and do that. Um, so but yeah, ultimately I love.

33:17.93
davemaze
Yeah gotcha.

33:25.00
Errick Jackson
The refinement aspect of like getting to the end of the process and seeing basically it just taken up that extra five or ten percent that it needed to to be finished and and clean.

33:31.96
davemaze
Yeah. So let's move on to the next one which a lot of people may recognize it's Bruno Mars and Cardi B from the track please me I believe is the sink. This is this the single art or is this.

33:45.17
Errick Jackson
Yes, yeah, that was the cover for that single. Um.

33:51.68
davemaze
Yeah, so if you're familiar with that song which I'm sure many of you are the cover art for that is the next one can you walk me through that and tell me about that process.

34:01.52
Errick Jackson
Yeah, so um, this was this was shot by my friend. Caleb Shane this was after he had moved out to la um and he had gotten the opportunity to to shoot them for the cover of this single. Um, and so he convinced them to to bring me on as a retoucher for this and yeah, it was honestly one of the easiest retouching jobs though because I can't stress enough like good makeup artists and already having great skin like.

34:22.11
davemaze
That's so great.

34:33.84
davemaze
Yeah, and and a good photographer too. Obviously so.

34:35.65
Errick Jackson
You're you're leaving your retoucher not that much work to do so um, yes, an amazing photographer and so cardi and Bruno have a wonderful skin great tonality like there's hardly anything to fix what I actually ended up doing though. Um, was this cover was shot on um gray and I ended up doing a big mask out and essentially cutting them out of the gray so that they could be put on well I think at the time they hadn't.

34:59.62
davemaze
Ah.

35:11.38
Errick Jackson
Decided what background they were going to put on before they just went white. But yeah, essentially I needed to have them completely cut out as well as their very Accenture clothing and so that was probably the hardest part of the whole thing. Um the the skin and everything.

35:13.64
davemaze
Yeah, yeah.

35:24.60
davemaze
Sure and Bruno's hair is very fine. Yeah, he's got some curls that are very fine.

35:30.19
Errick Jackson
Yes, yeah, getting around the curls and everything. Yeah, um, but other than that and kind of these these parts hanging off of Cardi's sleeve like that was interesting to go around but ah yeah, that was that was honestly the hardest part of it.

35:41.77
davemaze
Yep, totally.

35:49.26
Errick Jackson
Was was it was just kind of tedious like I said before that's what it ends up being but that was a standout moment that was they were the first celebrity anything that had come across my computer screen. You know.

35:51.17
davemaze
Yeah, flip.

36:02.80
davemaze
Well.

36:04.12
Errick Jackson
Um, for me to work on so that was kind of a really big moment of when that came out and especially just seeing it everywhere like it was on in times square and it was on the cover of Spotify like just seeing all the places that the image ends up and that was kind of my first time.

36:10.15
davemaze
Yeah, yeah.

36:17.57
davemaze
Did Wow That's ah that gives me yeah that kind of gives me chills to think about it I can't imagine. It's like yeah you once you once you said that once you send it out.

36:22.26
Errick Jackson
Having an experience like that and for me, it was just like oh my God Those files were on my computer. But yeah.

36:36.12
Errick Jackson
Mean.

36:36.31
davemaze
And the client approves you wait a couple weeks or whatever and then boom there. It is and it's like everywhere and everyone around you is like talking about it and tweeting about it or listening to it or whatever the freaking video has over 400000000 views on it I just looked it up while we were talking and that's got to be such a cool feeling to.

36:49.70
Errick Jackson
Yeah.

36:56.25
davemaze
Like look at the image and see it like at a store and be like yep, there's my there's my there's my clone stamp right? there. There's my mask there. Yeah like you can see your. It's basically your fingerprints on that on that photo. You know that's really cool.

37:01.24
Errick Jackson
Am I masking there. Yeah.

37:10.00
Errick Jackson
Yeah, that's that's a lot of what it feels like. So yeah, that was that was a big moment and kind of the start of a lot of things to being seen by by other clients as well. So it just yeah, it kind of got the ball really rolling.

37:24.31
davemaze
Course.

37:28.78
Errick Jackson
Um, and also kind of showed what was possible as a retoucher because that was still that was pre pandemicic so that was still back when I was primarily shooting. Um, and yeah, that was kind of yeah so that was my first glimpse into a.

37:37.33
davemaze
Okay, yeah, it was 2019 when it came out. So yeah.

37:48.55
Errick Jackson
What it could be like like the kind of stuff you could end up retouching for and you just you never know, but it was also quite difficult to sit on my hands and pretend it didn't happen for like I think I worked on that image two months before that song came out so I just couldn't.

38:03.42
davemaze
Okay.

38:06.99
Errick Jackson
Like I was in D Eight I couldn't say anything and I I had a roommate at the time and I couldn't tell him he was just like like I was working on it and I had to hide my computer screen from him. But oh yeah I was like when when the when it.

38:08.69
davemaze
So of course yeah so.

38:19.61
davemaze
Ah, you probably thought you were doing something else. Ah.

38:26.66
Errick Jackson
Officially launched I was like out and so I just got a text from my roommate and he was like Cardi B That's who it was and I'm like oh I guess it's I guess it's out now. But.

38:35.22
davemaze
Ah, that's awesome. Have you considered by the way doing like Tiktok or Youtube or something because I feel like a lot of these stories and maybe even if you're allowed to opening up the project file and showing the process of like here's where it was and here's the layers that I used. Like I feel like that would blow up on Tiktok are you allowed to do that. Maybe not? yeah.

38:53.87
Errick Jackson
So um, well I mean for certain stuff. Sure not everything's not that kind of you know top secret or whatever like yeah there are definitely things that I can show my process on um, frankly I just.

39:03.41
davemaze
Yeah.

39:09.90
davemaze
You don't care. Ah, yeah.

39:13.30
Errick Jackson
No, it's not that it is like it's another thing like it's another process and you know obviously it's kind of I I'd have to improve my time management skills to like find the window to one I talk a lot like so I have a Youtube channel where I've done like a few things talking about. Just some stuff that I've worked or learned about color grading I'm long winded I like I think I'm talking fast I think I'm even talking at a decent speed right now and I'm sure it sounds slow but like when I recorded those videos I'm thinking like oh I'm really breezing through this.

39:35.56
davemaze
Ah.

39:51.72
Errick Jackson
And it's like a 30 minute video for something that really should have only been five or ten minutes I don't I don't think I can I don't know I'd have to get really good at um, at shortening things and like getting a bit more concise so that people will stay interested. You know Tiktok at this point.

39:54.50
davemaze
Ah.

40:09.96
Errick Jackson
I know they have 3 minute videos but I'm not making a 3 minute video for Tiktok I'm I'm keeping it at a minute long so I got to I got to work on just the format in everything. Um and also become ah a decent editor probably.

40:18.36
davemaze
Yeah, well well I'd be happy to help you with that front for sure because I think you could totally do it and I think what you do is so fascinating people really would find it entertaining and it it may lead to more work to who knows? but. Anyways, that's that's ah, kind of a sidebar. Um, so are there any other projects that maybe aren't on your website currently that that you really enjoy doing that you could discuss and maybe.

40:37.90
Errick Jackson
Yeah, yeah.

40:49.47
davemaze
If it if if it's not on the website. Maybe you could send it to me or or point it to me on your Instagram account or something.

40:51.96
Errick Jackson
Actually yes so this past week was the launch of one that I'm really excited to have worked on. Um, there's a brand called Pierre Moss um and they did a collaboration with Reebok they designed a.

41:03.63
davemaze
Ah.

41:10.86
Errick Jackson
Some clothing for Reebok and they just launched it this past week so if you go to the Pierre Moss Instagram page that's PYERMoss you'll see all of the imagery from that Reebok side of the campaign and.

41:19.10
davemaze
Aha.

41:28.94
Errick Jackson
Easily the most interesting eclectic colorful images I've ever worked on. Um.

41:32.28
davemaze
Oh cool. So all these literally everything here on this um account looks like it's a new account.

41:38.46
Errick Jackson
Yet. So let me see they have so they cleared everything off of their Instagram for the launch of this collection because this is their fourth collection. Their fourth and final with with Reebok.

41:45.83
davemaze
Wow.

41:55.14
Errick Jackson
So all of these still images are the ones that I worked on excluding this most recent one which is cut from and the video that they shot for the yeah yeah, it's like screen caps from from their campaign video.

42:05.75
davemaze
I was Goingnna say it looks really low res yeah looks like a yeah but anyways, the.

42:14.72
Errick Jackson
Um, but yeah, the other images here are are everything that I worked on just recently um yeah, ah like these last actually few weeks have been kind of like some really cool fashion stuff and that's like.

42:21.11
davemaze
Dude look at you, You're getting into some high fashion. This is amazing.

42:32.38
Errick Jackson
A lot of my work is is what you might generally call like commercial and and somewhat advertising. Um, and so the kind of like super eclectic stuff comes in fashion and the stuff I've been working on recently has been really cool in that lane. But this is the most recent one I can at least share with everyone. And we'll be able to post on my Instagram and and website soon as well. But it was also just really special because I've been following Pierre Moss and and specifically Kirby for several years now I think he's just has an incredible eye.

42:52.40
davemaze
Dude this is legit I'll definitely include this.

43:11.64
Errick Jackson
Um, and fashion and it is really kind of for me like that that next up guy. Um, but yeah, the stuff he's been doing is incredible and getting to like now work on a pierre Moss campaign is is nuts and I ralished it was great.

43:17.52
davemaze
Yeah, yeah.

43:30.36
davemaze
Dude congratulations on landing that and it looks Amazing. Everybody can go see it. This is certainly some high fashion stuff If You're not familiar with this type of thing but it looks the the coloration of these images do have kind of like a. Ah, filmic look to it was it shot on film by chance or is that all just in post-production.

43:49.11
Errick Jackson
No, it was it was shot digitally I Want to say on medium format like ah one of the fuji medium format cameras but excuse me. Um, yeah, it was the look of it.

43:57.94
davemaze
Cool. It looks great.

44:07.11
Errick Jackson
There was a few images we were trying to well I was trying to figure out the color for but I want to say they were using maybe like a Lut or something as ah as a base for the look of it. But yeah, very interesting I mean I know just the production design alone kind of they had a lot of different things going on with the lighting.

44:25.11
davemaze
In the Sand there's sand on the ground in a psych wall with some Rg B lights. It's really cool.

44:26.99
Errick Jackson
And just how yeah yeah, yeah, so they they really went all out just on the total production from from how they built the set to how the final grade ended up looking on the images. Um, and then you know just polishing it up with the retouch. It was all really really cool.

44:50.78
davemaze
Cool cool everybody go check it out. Pierre moss ah p y e r m o ss and also too while we're at it. Go ahead and follow follow Eric on his Instagram which is http://instagram.com/. e jackson e j a c s o n I don't go on instagram so I'm now following you on instagram because I'm a twitter guy we've we talked to each other on twitter.

45:19.60
Errick Jackson
That's awesome I will I will try to post more things on Instagram but I'm also I'm more a Twitter guy these days Instagram I've had a weird relation with a relationship with Instagram lately. But. Twitter has been the source of some very fun conversations as we both know.

45:36.29
davemaze
Yeah, absolutely one of my good friends drew photo. Are you familiar with him by chance. He's big on Twitter Drew photo are you guys.

45:42.22
Errick Jackson
Yeah, yeah, yeah, he's a friends with a couple of my friends and like model friends and photographer friends I've never I've never met him or anything. But yeah, he he makes some really great work.

45:50.55
davemaze
Yeah. And he does everything on an ipad.. Although I think he's just now got he got a Pc and he's Doing. He's finally opening up photoshop every once in a while but he still does the majority of his stuff on an ipad with Affinity Photo I believe.

46:05.31
Errick Jackson
Really. Interesting I tried you know I tried to switch to affinity photo from Photoshop and I gave it a solid month of my time and I just couldn't do it. It was. There's there's a few things specific to photoshop that I used that I just couldn't.

46:13.79
davemaze
Yeah.

46:21.91
davemaze
Ah. Yeah, and they'll they'll continue to develop it too. You can kind of have faith that as you pay your subscription over the next decade

46:28.30
Errick Jackson
Like break away from or workaround. Um, but.

46:39.42
davemaze
They will probably come up with some sort of crazy machine learning feature that you don't even know exists yet. You know what I mean.

46:43.37
Errick Jackson
Oh yeah, Adobe is going all in on the machine learning stuff which I I think is smart from from a business perspective as well as a creative because i'm. I'm a tech enthusiast myself and so I'm really intrigued by all of that stuff and I like to try it out. The first chance I get to? Um, so you know I like it from that standpoint but from a business standpoint It's really smarter than to develop things that can't be knocked down to like simple code. It's like. No, we've we've done all this machine learning against all these millions of images and stuff and this is all this is what it knows now. That's that's ah as proprietary I guess as you can probably get and and software.

47:26.93
davemaze
100 % and one of the things that I'm noticing with your work is that regardless of the skin tone. The skin tones are like perfect every time and you may have a certain grade that you're going for but are there any specific. Um, tips or techniques that you have in in terms of making sure that the skin tone is looking natural pleasing. But then you're not like sometimes if you affect the skin tone and get that to look good. It might affect the color of other things in the image. Do you mask simply just the. Skin tone and get that perfect and then do other things with other areas of the image or I'm just curious what your workflow is there.

48:06.33
Errick Jackson
So that's 1 thing that I've largely unified my photo in like video grading workflow with is that I try to work as generally as possible. Um, and so. 1 particular guideline I go by is skin tones have to be right and they and by right I mean like I said at the beginning we go largely off perception. Um. So for the human eye being technically correct doesn't mean all that much we there are things in life that we recognize and skin tone is 100% one of them if skin tone is off. It can throw an entire image off and on the flip side.

48:45.35
davemaze
Laha.

48:56.57
Errick Jackson
Skin tone is right? You can have the wonkiest looking thing you've ever seen and your mind will kind of justify it if the skin tones are right because it it'll just be like well this the the person's right? So I guess there was just all this weird stuff going on and your mind will just accept it.

49:10.54
davemaze
Ah, that's amazing. Yeah.

49:13.86
Errick Jackson
Um, so that for me at least skin tones are everything and I kind of center. Yeah that I center the whole the whole grade around it and then I just try to like balance it like my favorite tools to use for color. Um.

49:17.25
davemaze
Fly notice that because they're perfect.

49:33.50
Errick Jackson
Are so in capture one I primarily will use levels because Levels lets you adjust black point and white point and then the balance with the midpoint and so I can create these color biases and the black and white points. And then move the midpoint to essentially get because the skin tone generally just lives in the mid midtones so move that midpoint balance the way I need to to bring the skin back into range. Um, but it's also embracing especially lately.

49:57.87
davemaze
Aha.

50:03.98
davemaze
Aha.

50:08.88
Errick Jackson
I've been embracing the um, the variety that's in people's skin tone skin tones are made up made up of reds and magentas and yellows and all these different colors and. For a while I was like intent on trying to lessen some of that unify it a bit and into a tighter range. Um, and I've especially as I've journeyed more into film emulation I've really appreciated kind of all of the different um tones that'll that'll show up in skin.

50:30.35
davemaze
Ah.

50:44.67
Errick Jackson
And so now I try to just let them live in peace basically and just make sure that they're present and that there's not too much of a big shift in and the entire tonal range that throws everything off, but yeah. I Mean if if if I had any advice at All. It's like make sure your skin tone's right and everything else you can you can justify you know.

51:01.97
davemaze
That's amazing.

51:09.41
davemaze
You know it's funny. You say that. But for years Canon had kind of in the industry like some of the best skin tones compared to other camera brands and specifically sony cameras notoriously had terrible skin tones and.

51:18.18
Errick Jackson
M.

51:28.71
davemaze
I heard it said exactly what you said actually that Sony was the engineers at Sony were tuning their color in their sensors scientifically to be accurate. But if you were to look at a canon camera and pull it into like an rgb parade or or look at.

51:38.59
Errick Jackson
Um.

51:47.35
davemaze
Ah, like a waveform you would actually see a high pole in the reds and the oranges and it was actually incorrect. The image was not correct. It was creating a false reality and it was pleasing to the eye. They designed the sensor to be slightly off to not.

51:55.65
Errick Jackson
Yeah.

52:04.30
Errick Jackson
Um, yeah.

52:06.94
davemaze
Mimic reality but to have this perceived perception that you're speaking of and now I but I think Sony is actually kind of learned from that and now they're doing that themselves as well that all the new bodies have much better skin tones I've noticed so.

52:18.92
Errick Jackson
Yes, yeah, you know I think like because you'll see that ah canon kind of skews like red magenta sony skews kind of yellow green um, Nikon skews kind of more yellow. Ah so everybody kind of has where they they sit and where they base you know their color science off of which I would be remiss to say because this is a hill that I die on all the time but I do I am also intent in saying that when we shoot especially with stills cameras if you're shooting raw. We're more debating how your raw converter interprets the color than necessarily the camera brand because everything about the base color science of a camera if you're shooting raw can be reinterpreted completely at this point.

52:59.70
davemaze
Ah, yeah.

53:13.30
Errick Jackson
Any camera you've bought over the last decade is capturing a ridiculous amount of information and so it's more just kind of reshaping that matrix to the way that you want those colors represented if you want to go about that process of calibration. But.

53:23.91
davemaze
Loca. Yeah.

53:28.45
Errick Jackson
Um, there's a lot more control in the raw converter now than there is really in the cameras like sensor in terms of how colors end up. Um.

53:34.22
davemaze
That makes sense and especially as a stills editor you know I've come from a video editor perspective. So if I'm just getting an 8 bit 4 k four two o s log from the older Sony cameras.

53:41.69
Errick Jackson
Um.

53:51.22
davemaze
Pull the slog into rec seven zero nine and get some contrast and saturation in there and everything just looks awful because the skin tones are bad and it's not raw. It's a low bitrate and I can't really play around with it. But but with the canons in the past.

54:00.46
Errick Jackson
Yeah, you'll start getting banding and all that stuff. Yeah.

54:08.13
davemaze
With with the video at least for me with canon Cameras straight out of the camera even in the log image. It seemed to be more pleasing and again, that's not necessarily the case anymore. But that's interesting. You say that about the raw conversion because for stills and with Raw you can basically do whatever.

54:14.23
Errick Jackson
Um, yeah.

54:22.33
Errick Jackson
Yeah, which I mean that's an experiment that I've actually been running for a few years is capture 1 differently from Lightroom and they use icc profiles for their camera profiles. Well the icc profiles are basically luts. And so coming from the video world. You're like well I know what luts are and you can you can really? you know you can reshape a lut. However, you want to? There's actually some really great softwares for that and so what I started doing was experimenting with and ah creating essentially luts. That allowed me to use the color science I wanted for a particular camera and just basing it off of the calibration that capture one has um so my most recent experiment was using the the kodak Twenty three eighty three filmlet that Davinci resolve has. And adapting it for use in capture one so I could still use all my tools like all my controls and the raw converter but it's interpreting the scene data like Kodak 106 would um and based off of the camera.

55:18.86
davemaze
Aha.

55:29.39
davemaze
Wow, That's cool.

55:35.25
Errick Jackson
Um, so that's been really interesting because it kind of solidified What initially was just a theory which was that it's all the color can be whatever you want it to be and and made that a reality.

55:44.54
davemaze
Ah.

55:49.77
Errick Jackson
So I'm just experimenting with that more and it's also allowing me to learn a lot more about the internals of of capture one as I go but it does also show kind of where we are in the camera space. At this point we we have a bunch of cameras that capture a ridiculous amount of data and. Realistically we just got to get good at messing around with it and I'm personally of the belief that at this point your camera purchase should be less about what the sensor does by default.

56:22.12
davemaze
Ah, stop.

56:24.15
Errick Jackson
And more about what the camera does in the sense of if the color is the thing you can change the easiest you should make your camera decision based off the things you can't change like you can't change anything about how fast a camera shoots or how it autofocus is whether or not it has ibis that kind of thing. So if you like you know everything about a Sony a 1 but you want the color science of an r five I would just buy a Sony a one writ and r five and shoot some test charts and match them up and you've got an a one with our 5 colors. But.

56:55.99
davemaze
Aha there you go.

57:03.20
Errick Jackson
I don't like it's like it's thousands of dollars for these cameras and you know if there's something you really love about a camera that you can't change and you like about another camera that you can change yeah save save yourself the the stress of that weird thousand dollar purchase and.

57:05.74
davemaze
Yeah, yeah.

57:23.12
Errick Jackson
And change that 1 thing it's like a day experiment. You know, um.

57:25.51
davemaze
Well, what's your favorite camera to work with like when you receive images is there one file that you really take a liking to from a certain body or brand I'm just curious.

57:37.49
Errick Jackson
Um, I would say at this point there's 2 Um I've gotten my fair share of d Eight fifty files from Nikon and I love those and I've gotten my fair share of RFive files and that r five is something.

57:47.29
davemaze
Ah.

57:56.78
Errick Jackson
I don't I don't know what's going on but it's it's gorgeous, not just the the look of it but also the lenses. Ah, you're you know you're getting to experience what they have in their lens line up with these images too and they are just spectacular. Um, the R five has been a very.

57:58.42
davemaze
Wow.

58:11.26
davemaze
Wow.

58:16.78
Errick Jackson
Very convincing consideration for me lately because I'm I'm trying to decide on a new camera myself and so I don't know it's like I'm kind of battling that thing of like from a technical standpoint I feel like I like Sony right now. Better. Um. But there are some aspects to canons lineup that are are really enticing right now.

58:43.72
davemaze
That's amazing. Yeah, my my shooter Connor just bought in our 5 recently I'm shooting this on the c seventy and that's my primary camera right now which only shoots video obviously but they did yeah and I was hoping they would enable.

58:52.54
Errick Jackson
Yeah, they just had the raw update didn't they.

58:59.63
davemaze
Ah, raw stills even though it's only 12 megapixels but they didn't they did not include raw stills. So I would have to yeah although I mean I guess the r five c is sort of the true video photo hybrid that people would want. But.

59:03.10
Errick Jackson
Now that's too bad that would be a Killer camera.

59:15.30
Errick Jackson
Yeah, that that that's the one that that has the fan attached now. Yeah.

59:17.53
davemaze
Um, yeah, so you can totally shoot your eight K Raw video and then switch it over and take pictures if you wanted I don't think anybody needs especially non r three d as well like r three d has great compression. So.

59:26.47
Errick Jackson
Good Lord a K raw.

59:33.73
Errick Jackson
Um.

59:35.84
davemaze
You can actually shoot Eight K and and it's not too bad to work with but Cannon's raw is not good for video.

59:40.65
Errick Jackson
Yeah, those see like Cannon's raw the the structure over reminds me a lot of just like the open source Cinema D and G like it kind of feels like canon package Cinema D and G for themselves I'm not sure if it's true, but it it.

59:52.98
davemaze
Probably did. I Heard a rumor I Hope it's true I doubt that it is but I heard a rumor that Canon may be considering buying red which would be very very interesting if they did but I don't know if that's true at all, but that would be so cool wouldn't it if R three D was in Cameras and Canon cameras.

59:58.30
Errick Jackson
Operates a lot like that.

01:00:09.70
Errick Jackson
Um, that I mean wow.

01:00:17.82
davemaze
And then if you had dual pixel out of focus on a red camera that'd be so awesome.

01:00:21.31
Errick Jackson
Yeah I mean the komoto kind of has that doesn't it like it has really good autofocus.

01:00:25.18
davemaze
Yeah, well, that's yeah so when I reviewed the komodo and started comparing it to other canon cameras. It did look very similar and there were actually rumors that it was the R six sensor in there.

01:00:40.48
Errick Jackson
Interesting.

01:00:42.21
davemaze
Because the 6 k sensor exact same megapixels. It's got phase detect and it's got a similar color science. So there's some rumors out there that set and it's got a rf mount on it. So there's some rumors that say that red was sourcing their sensors from cannon so that'd be interesting.

01:00:51.22
Errick Jackson
Yeah.

01:00:59.11
Errick Jackson
That would be interesting.

01:01:00.94
davemaze
Um, have you ever worked with red as a stills camera did have have people sent you r three D Files ever I would imagine in the in the Portrait space. Some people do that but I don't know.

01:01:08.84
Errick Jackson
No so no, there's um, there's a photographer friend of mine who he shoots with I think it's it's either a red weapon or a red helium. He does a ton of like commercial and advertising stuff and he literally just shoots a red weapon and pulls stills from it and and edits those because he shoots photo and video together and he's like I got tired of having a stills camera and a video camera and wanting to match the two like. Image next to each other and he like I should just use the stills from the red and it's the actual image and he he does it like he's been doing it for several years now um but his name is Darrow Sanford

01:01:50.95
davemaze
Yeah.

01:01:57.29
davemaze
That's interesting. What do you know his name. Okay, Darrow Sanford Instagram I guess darl or Darrow.

01:02:04.49
Errick Jackson
Yeah, he's a ah D Dero D E R O I may be saying also his name wrong at it may be Diot. And I've been doing a saying it wrong all this time but I've never been corrected so sorry darro.

01:02:22.35
davemaze
Ah, um, it's all good I'll maybe I'll find it later.

01:02:27.94
Errick Jackson
But yeah, his his firm is called think darrow think Darre dot com. But yeah, he's ah yeah, he's got. Yeah yeah.

01:02:34.28
davemaze
Think there are photography. Yeah there he is got you? Okay, so he's doing it looks like he's doing a lot of travel stuff and food stuff and all sorts of different things. That's interesting. Cool Yeah, the travel stuff is fun because you can.

01:02:46.20
Errick Jackson
Yeah ton of different stuff.

01:02:53.41
davemaze
You get to sort of get a little trip in it although a lot of people when you start doing a lot of travel photography and work people like oh my gosh you're going to Hawaii. It's like yeah I'm going to a conference all day shooting for 10 hours and then going to sleep in a hotel and then the next morning I fly home. Yeah, it's not. It's not that it's.

01:02:54.55
Errick Jackson
Um, yeah, um.

01:03:08.30
Errick Jackson
Yeah, it's not exactly a vacation.

01:03:12.91
davemaze
Yeah, um, so capture one I'm curious about capture one for you like what is it that draws you to it and I have some friends that are using it. My friend Tyler Stallman uses it? Um, what is it about capture one that you like.

01:03:17.52
Errick Jackson
E.

01:03:25.48
Errick Jackson
Um, yeah.

01:03:30.62
davemaze
Ah, you're already paying a subscription to Adobe so you're getting Lightroom. So why are you also paying for capture one I'm curious.

01:03:38.20
Errick Jackson
I'll tell you so I switched from light room to capture one back in 2017 I believe I I was it was recommended I because capture one was the industry standard. Someone was like you need to use capture 1

01:03:52.83
davemaze
For specifically for retouching or for portraiture.

01:03:54.87
Errick Jackson
That's if you if you ah for anything commercial photography related specifically if you wanted to tether. Um because I at the time I hadn't tried to tether to Lightroom but I had always heard. It was a nightmare.

01:04:02.59
davemaze
Yeah.

01:04:11.21
Errick Jackson
And with capture one. It is plug and play like you don't even have to think about it. Um, but the main thing was just like in general as a software I was told hey this is this is the industry standard. You need to know this software whether you use it or not. So I switched to it literally just did the like 30 day trial and used it for a month and after that month I was hooked on it and the reason I was hooked is kind of I don't know now it's kind of I feel bad admitting. It.

01:04:30.59
davemaze
Aha.

01:04:42.95
Errick Jackson
I don't like curves and light room at the time I don't know what they do now. But at the time curves was the primary way you were color grading anything in Lightroom and I hate curves.

01:04:44.80
davemaze
Um, Okay, yeah. You don't. You don't like cur you don't like curves on women though I'm just kidding.

01:04:59.90
Errick Jackson
Well, that's a different conversation. Um, but yeah I I couldn't stand it in the Lightroom and capture 1 gave me more than one way to color grade an image. A you have levels you have the color wheels.

01:05:03.66
davemaze
Ah, ah.

01:05:13.13
davemaze
Um, oh like ah like in a color grading for video. You got the 3 wheel or.

01:05:17.46
Errick Jackson
Um, it Yes, yeah, ah you got your your shadow mid-tone highlight wheels and you can control which they don't work exactly the same way as ah, a lyft Gamma gain a knob structure but it's close enough to like give you a lot of different.

01:05:25.37
davemaze
Very cool.

01:05:32.84
davemaze
Ah.

01:05:37.60
Errick Jackson
Capabilities. Um, but it was just the fact that I didn't have to use curves as a primary tool for grading an image inside of like capture one without having to go to photoshop because in photoshop I wasn't using curves that much I was primarily using levels or the color balance Tool Selective Color. There's a lot of I think better color tools that aren't so hyper specific in the way that you have to adjust them um curves for me just I mean even with color grading and and resolve I I use the Hu versus curves.

01:06:12.86
davemaze
Ah.

01:06:14.82
Errick Jackson
Quite a bit but just the regular ah rgb curves. Not really a fan. That's just not my preferred way to work so that was the main reason capture 1 kind of caught my eye was like okay I have options here but then it was on top of that it was being able to completely restructure your environment so you can move. Everything around you can decide what tools are on the ah are upfront and viewable and what tools aren't it also has way more tools than um than light room like one of my favorites is the skin tone tool which I'll often use if I get raw files that come in and sometimes even on on tips.

01:06:34.99
davemaze
Um.

01:06:54.64
Errick Jackson
Um, you can basically select you know skin tone area I can now that we have layers in capture one I can draw a mask over that area select that skin tone and start to make specific like really minute adjustments that I wouldn't necessarily want to do and just like the hsl panel. Um.

01:07:13.60
davemaze
Aha.

01:07:13.99
Errick Jackson
And you can so even go as far as to unify certain aspects so I can unify the hue to like narrow in the Hue a bit or the saturation range if I have you know you you can have like really wide ranging saturation levels on skin. And you won't necessarily want to have that. In fact I think it throws skin off ah more than like different hues to so like you can use the Hue saturation or sorry the saturation unification to like bring that closer into range. So Whatever you have mass.

01:07:39.35
davemaze
Aha.

01:07:48.64
Errick Jackson
Um, kind of matches and saturation more you can also do it with luminance but it starts to look weird on skin. Um, but yeah, there is a lot of particular tools that just kind of gave you a lot more options for completing an image.

01:07:49.79
davemaze
Wow.

01:08:07.10
Errick Jackson
Inside of capture one and it got to the point where there are some instances where I've retouched entire images inside of capture one just because the things that I had to do were simple enough that I could do that like I've I've retouched head shots in it where it has a good healing brush and clone stamp brush.

01:08:14.35
davemaze
Wow.

01:08:26.20
Errick Jackson
Can create Moe Dodge and burn layers in there. So I can do a complete basic retouch just using the tools that capture one has and it's great because if I do a retouch in photoshop I'm left with like a 2 to 4 gig file. That's a tiff whereas.

01:08:41.77
davemaze
Aha.

01:08:44.40
Errick Jackson
And capture one I've just got you know whatever 20 to forty megabyte file that the raw is and like a little metadata sidecar file. That's it. So it's super late. It's working on ah unrasterized data. So it's literally calculating your changes in real time.

01:08:52.40
davemaze
Wow.

01:09:02.20
davemaze
Wow. See your.

01:09:03.95
Errick Jackson
It's just clean. It's ah it's a really nice work way to work if you can you know do a retouch that way.

01:09:09.18
davemaze
So again, maybe for ah somebody who's not familiar with raw and Jpeg basically kind of in Lightroom. It's it's great if you're a wedding photographer and you've shot 3000 images and you just want to call through them delete the bad ones. Do.

01:09:20.72
Errick Jackson
Um.

01:09:28.60
davemaze
Some presets find a couple you know all these images in this in this one room look the same so I'm just gonna copy and paste all the same white balance and exposure things. Lightroom is great at that in terms of mass images and just going through it and organizing it. My.

01:09:34.76
Errick Jackson
Um, yeah.

01:09:44.58
davemaze
Ah, my cousins are wedding photographers and they never even open photoshop. They never open it. They only use Lightroom and they're dealing with thousands of images.

01:09:49.20
Errick Jackson
Yeah I can't I can't imagine opening photoshop for a wedding because I do know some photographers who do like some minor retouching in photoshop. But I'm like you have like.

01:09:56.14
davemaze
Yeah, ah.

01:10:08.14
Errick Jackson
Ah, thousand to 2000 images you're delivering and you did minor even minor photoshop work just the act of opening 2000 files and photoshop is yeah so um, that's a beautiful thing.

01:10:17.50
davemaze
Ah I can't imagine Ah, but but yeah, when you pull into yeah it is and but um, but what you're saying and by the way and so and then the other workflow would be pulling it into photoshop. But once you're doing that you're manipulating the pixels. It's It's a.

01:10:34.82
Errick Jackson
Um.

01:10:36.79
davemaze
An image that's essentially baked in and now your dodge and Burn is not actually affecting the it's not a raw image at that point right? It's a tiff file so you're kind of playing with pixels.

01:10:43.87
Errick Jackson
Yeah, like working on the tiff is basically the closest you can get to all of the information that the raw has when you export it at those settings but it still has its limits. You can still push it too far. Um, so the beauty of a raw file is that nothing's been finalized. Nothing has been rasterized. So it's all ones and Zeros waiting to be manipulated and interpreted and inside your raw converter. You're essentially going. Okay I want you when you export this raw file. These are the calculations I want you to do I want you to raise the exposure plus one up the contrast plus ten pull the whites down wherever they fall minus fifty or whatever. And you do all those little adjustments and then when you finally export it goes and runs that calculation on the raw file for the final export. But until you actually do it. Nothing's been changed. Nothing's been altered and you have all of the calculable information that's available in the raw file to manipulate as best you can. Um, and so it is in my opinion the ideal way to work and I've I've said many times there's a few tools that have captured 1 ever adds to their program I could straight up drop photoshop for like 60% of my work. Um, just being able to do it. In capture one? Um, so yeah I do try to work on the raw file as much as possible, especially for some of the heavier things. But obviously there are things like you know compositing or very just intense. Cleaning things that I have to do in photoshop that is just much easier. It would be ah cumbersome and a hassle to do and capture one to not really save me that much in terms of color fidelity and all of that stuff. So it's kind of just measuring like what's what's useful. What is helpful enough to do it. But. Yeah, if I can if I can run through a retouch and capture one if it's simple I will absolutely do it. The results are just very very clean.

01:12:49.91
davemaze
Do do you find that you actually enjoy the app better too is it is the Ui experience better and in the overall speed and performance on your machine better as well have you noticed any difference.

01:13:05.10
Errick Jackson
I would say back when I switched yes but 2017 is a different time than 2022 so I don't I can't really compare to Lightroom what it is today I've heard light room is faster now back then. Lightroom was super sluggish I was working catalog only because that's all you had with Lightroom. Oh that's the other thing capture one has catalogs and it also has sessions. You can go. You know a heavy catalog or you can go really lightweight with sessions which is what I do everything runs through a session. Um, but.

01:13:41.60
davemaze
Was what does that mean by the way is is one is for like ah a thousand images and the other ones for like 1 and image at a time or something or.

01:13:42.81
Errick Jackson
Yeah, Lightroom was just oh yeah. Right? So so a catalog is essentially going to let you like if you make a Lightroom catalog. It's it's basically like a file system. It's where all of your images are stored when you open the catalog. It loads all of the previews for the catalog.

01:14:05.39
davemaze
Ah.

01:14:07.19
Errick Jackson
Which means the larger like if as you import more stuff you can keep track of it and keep organized. That's great, but it means every time you open that catalog you have to load all the previews for it. It's the same case in capture 1 Ah capture one's catalog system as far as I understand it because I really only used it for a little while works the same way as Lightroom did so when I switched that didn't really differ for me um sessions what that allows you to do is essentially create 1 kind of pocket. For just the thing that you're shooting or working on. So like if you want to tether and capture one if you're shooting. Um, you're gonna plug in your camera You're gonna open up a session and so every shot that you take goes into the capture folder in your session. And then you can just work on the images there. It's only loading the images in that in that session. You're not loading your entire you know file systems worth of previews that you may have made in a catalog. Um and the beauty of that is obviously that moves a whole lot faster. Um, but. Basically what I've done is I just do everything in a session. So every new job I create a session for and just bring the photos into the capture folder and start working and I just organize the folder structure on my computer and hard drives and and cloud the way that I want to and that's.

01:15:32.75
davemaze
Ah.

01:15:36.46
Errick Jackson
Essentially replace the catalog function of capture one for me. Um, but yeah that sessions sessions are are incredibly useful and I don't know if they only came around just for tethering to be easier. It is technically the only way you can tether and capture one.

01:15:53.83
davemaze
Ah.

01:15:55.43
Errick Jackson
Um, but yeah, it's just usefulness as as a workflow option is also just top of the market in my opinion.

01:16:03.52
davemaze
So and then I've also heard that like simply pulling in especially Fuji I believe in particular but just simply pulling in the the raw image and just the way that the app interprets color is just so much better than lightroom like just kind of the default. Um.

01:16:10.35
Errick Jackson
Um.

01:16:20.73
Errick Jackson
Um, yeah.

01:16:22.80
davemaze
Way that it interprets things I know specifically for Fuji I believe capture one is really the preferred option for fuji shooters because in lightroom I think there's actually some issues with color interpretation.

01:16:33.78
Errick Jackson
Yeah I I remember hearing issues with color and what was it sharpening. It was like whenever light room would sharpen. It was getting some weird artifacts and it's just kind of the way the ah Ref's files are structured. But yeah capture one.

01:16:46.68
davemaze
Strange.

01:16:53.92
Errick Jackson
Handles them flawlessly. They also now have the film simulations that a lot of fuji cameras have as ah profiles that you can select in the raw. They're not like exact but they're very very close matches to what Fuji has built into the camera. Um.

01:17:01.55
davemaze
Nice.

01:17:13.37
Errick Jackson
And so you can kind of if you were shooting with what is one of them like classic Chrome or something like that if you were shooting with that what in the field and you want that look on your raw file you can select it and capture one and still be working on a raw file. So yeah I would generally say I prefer capture ones.

01:17:17.58
davemaze
Um, yeah.

01:17:33.12
Errick Jackson
Color interpretation um to light rooms. Um I would say honestly it's to be expected capture one is made by phase one and phase one makes the $50000 medium format cameras and they they have an arm not just in.

01:17:46.47
davemaze
Yeah, yeah.

01:17:52.75
Errick Jackson
Consumer photography but also in like um, fine art and reproduction and like archiving like they have this whole other arm. That's all about pure accuracy color response perceptual response. They're really good. Their team is just a whole bunch of wizards. So I I think they kind of earned the right to be better if that makes sense just because they're kind of. They're focused on their 1 thing you know Adobe at the end of the day has a million different products that they're also focused on and I think the interoperability of Adobe like their ecosystem is certainly worth ah, something. But yeah.

01:18:25.13
davemaze
Sure. Oh yeah, ah.

01:18:40.44
Errick Jackson
I mean if if you're just you know this is what you do you work on photos. My workflow is capture one to photoshop back to capture one and that's that's how my whole photo process works the interoperability of of the Adobe ecosystem isn't all that important to me for for my workflow anyway.

01:18:57.64
davemaze
And then lastly I do want to talk about thumbnails have you looked into Youtube thumbnail strategy at all or followed any of the the accounts on Twitter that kind of break down these thumbnails and stuff and is that what we.

01:19:09.29
Errick Jackson
So.

01:19:15.10
davemaze
So how we met I think or whatever now I think you were commenting on something I don't remember.

01:19:15.96
Errick Jackson
No I think I'm trying to remember the thread we met on I Want to say it was something about display tech. But um, but.

01:19:21.89
davemaze
Okay, yeah I don't remember ah and it was also on the other account I think the Golden hour podcast account. Maybe anyways, it doesn't matter.

01:19:30.66
Errick Jackson
Yeah I think that's how you reached out initially. But um, yeah I mean I've seen some of the debate on Twitter I don't I can't say I know much you know to contribute to the conversation. But I have seen like the interesting debates especially as of late of like. Trying out thumbnails and like changing them later after the video is posted to see the effect on views and what people pay attention to I think the one I most recently saw was like Tyler Stabman's post on it where he had like 3 different thumbnails that he was polling. Um.

01:19:56.97
davemaze
Yes.

01:20:04.10
davemaze
Ah, yep.

01:20:09.70
Errick Jackson
But yeah I can't I can't say I really know much as to the psychology of of why people click on a video. Um I don't know maybe I can speak from just a a consumer of Youtube more than anything. Um.

01:20:22.37
davemaze
Ah, yeah, there's some. There's some really great accounts out. There are you familiar with jalto on Twitter um, so I'll I'll send you his ah on on Twitter I'll send you a link to his account. It's at.

01:20:30.46
Errick Jackson
No, not.

01:20:41.40
davemaze
J It's at the Jalto Yeah so he's a he's a thumbnail graphic designer and he has these great threads where he kind of breaks it down. Um, how like why people do it the way that they do it and anyways, it's a completely different way of thinking because.

01:20:43.62
Errick Jackson
Um, okay.

01:21:00.99
davemaze
From a graphic design standpoint some of these look pretty cringy and terrible. But there's a lot of philosophy behind them in terms of color. The use of color. The the cleanness of it and just making sure that exactly the action. That's you know, needing to be.

01:21:04.60
Errick Jackson
Um.

01:21:20.15
davemaze
Shown is is ah front and center. Um I don't know I just I find it fascinating and I personally want to figure it out for our niche in the filmmaking space because I feel like the Mr Beast kind of style um doesn't necessarily work in our niche because it's.

01:21:37.24
Errick Jackson
Is that kind of like the really expressive like face and which I'll be honest, that's maybe been a subtle and.

01:21:39.35
davemaze
Too silly.

01:21:52.42
Errick Jackson
A thing to push me away from trying to dive into Youtube too much because that is like a common thumbnail to like style that I see and I'm like do I do I have to make like a face or something for my thumbnail like is that the way I have to engage this Youtube audience and I don't.

01:22:09.22
davemaze
Ah.

01:22:12.75
Errick Jackson
It's like not something that I would want to do and then I'm wondering like well is it the only way to be seen like is this because it is the first step like someone sees the thumbnail and they decide whether they're going to click on the video. So it's like I don't know it's.

01:22:20.98
davemaze
Yeah.

01:22:28.87
Errick Jackson
It's definitely much much like any social media algorithm it. It is playing the game for sure. Um I'd be interested to definitely read more on like what the psychology is here. Um, because it's certainly something I don't fully understand.

01:22:32.74
davemaze
Yeah, yeah.

01:22:39.56
davemaze
So I um so I'm personally doing a lot of research on this for myself because I actually feel like there's a huge hole in the niche that I've been a part of in the camera filmmaking niche.

01:22:55.17
Errick Jackson
Um.

01:22:56.74
davemaze
People have basically gotten everything that they wanted the Sony Cameras are great. The canon cameras are great. All the cameras are great now so now I think there's a hole in the market for entertaining and informative and educational videos that don't necessarily have anything to do with cameras but are more about the the premise of the video.

01:23:14.75
Errick Jackson
Um, yeah.

01:23:16.23
davemaze
For example, this weekend I'm shooting a wedding this weekend for a close friend of mine but I'm going to turn it into kind of a game. So like I'm doing a sameday edit so I have to basically shoot the whole thing and have it done by the time that the reception happens and we're going to show.

01:23:25.69
Errick Jackson
Ah, okay.

01:23:34.40
davemaze
The highlight film that I make at the reception to the bride and groom and instead of using like fancy good cameras I'm using a cheap point and shoot camera the sony z v 1 which actually is pretty amazing as an all-around camera. So like.

01:23:38.40
Errick Jackson
Interesting.

01:23:48.90
Errick Jackson
Yeah I've seen that camera. It's It's pretty nice.

01:23:53.62
davemaze
I'm kind of setting up a premise I'm executing it. There's like tension and there's a reason to watch to the end to see if I actually achieve this grand goal you know or whatever but hopefully throughout the process I can kind of share how I did it and kind of teach people. What I'm doing and why I'm doing it that way and. But then it's also going to be entertaining and there's a hook in that whole concept that hopefully gets you to watch from the beginning to the end so like nobody's I feel like nobody in our niche is really thinking that through except for a couple of people and I do think in the filmmaking and photography niches on Youtube. Kind of have to take yourself a little bit seriously a little bit more seriously in terms of the thumbnails like you don't have to do a crazy face like Mkbhd doesn't do crazy faces for every single thumbnail that he posts he's in it because every time I see Marcus brownly I want to click it. You know because I know his face that is his branding um, but like he's not being crazy crazy with it for everyone and then not only that but actually I'm looking on his channel. He doesn't have his face in every single thumbnail either if he's talking about a certain product. So.

01:25:04.43
Errick Jackson
Well so but that is a question I have too is like is that a luxury he gets to have now because of where he's at in his Youtube journey and do we get like if I started a Youtube channel. Well I mean if i.

01:25:11.30
davemaze
Sure.

01:25:21.55
Errick Jackson
Took my Youtube channel seriously is that something I have the luxury of doing myself or what I kind of have to play that game a little bit at the start and kind of get an audience that knows what they're clicking on my videos for because I mean yeah I'm gonna watch a marquez video.

01:25:31.37
davemaze
Sure.

01:25:38.94
Errick Jackson
Any day of the week regardless because I I know you know what he's creating the quality of his work and like I know what I'm signing up for with his videos versus someone who I mean I've definitely I've definitely clicked on videos that have the like the really expressive thumbnails.

01:25:41.15
davemaze
Exactly.

01:25:55.84
davemaze
Sure.

01:25:57.68
Errick Jackson
I Don't know who the creator is but it caught my eye and I clicked it and you know maybe it was interesting to me. Maybe it wasn't but it got me to Click. Um, so I mean yeah I think there's definitely some um you know some utility to that style. I Think your idea is particularly interesting though because it it offers not just you know a reason for the audience to stay and be hooked and engaged. But I have a feeling you're probably going to grow quite a bit as like an editor even further past where you already are just because you know.

01:26:28.94
davemaze
Yes.

01:26:35.43
Errick Jackson
Pulling something off like that can't be an easy feat and especially if you do it more or similar challenges like that like it's just going to hone your skills to create you know, compelling content that's more concise like that's that seems like what you're having to do. There is really hone in on The. Important stuff to to make something engaging.

01:26:55.50
davemaze
yeah yeah I used to actually do same day edits when I got started in my career I did a lot of weddings. So I've done a handful of them obviously not on camera and not for a Youtube video. But.

01:27:03.78
Errick Jackson
Okay.

01:27:10.53
Errick Jackson
Um, yeah.

01:27:12.82
davemaze
Um, so I am confident enough in that but it will still be a challenge of course. But again that goes back to what we said earlier too about how putting in a little extra effort really makes your work stand out and it goes the extra mile and will book you more Jobs. So I think it's important to. Think about what you're doing and find things that you're really passionate about and just sink your teeth into it and put the extra work in and spend an extra Hou hour or 2 on something to really you know, take it to the next level. Especially if you want to grow in your career and actually like do this for a living for the rest of your life. So. Are you making good money now have you do you feel like you're in ah, a healthy state or is it like a lot of ups and downs with this I mean I would imagine you're right.

01:27:54.43
Errick Jackson
Ah, yeah I mean it feels good Now. It was definitely tumultuous during the pandemic. It was weird because switching So when I tried to like switch into retouching heavily it was it was a pivot of like. Clientele because it was like Okay, how do I engage like realistically with this new base. Um, but it was it wasn't as hard as I thought it was going to be just because the world was pivoting to and so what I saw a lot of ah was like.

01:28:27.46
davemaze
Sure.

01:28:33.40
Errick Jackson
Brands recycling material that they hadn't ever used before and just had like in the coffers and they needed it to be freshened up or you know recycled somehow like reshaped so there is a lot of like. From retouchers to graphic designers to kind of just everyone in remote post-production um, was kind of getting a new arm of work using material that had been shot and needed to be repurposed. So I found Elaine in some of that. Um. But it was also just kind of like working with the network of colleagues that I built up to that point to see where I could fit in. Um and so yeah I mean it would have its ups and downs but kind of as the market moves. So do you and lately the market has been getting right back to work really.

01:29:10.77
davemaze
Yeah.

01:29:25.17
Errick Jackson
Quite actively over these last like half a year these last six months so it's It's been pretty consistent as of late and I'm I'm pretty comfortable as it is my main thing though is you know as much as I ah love being a retoucher that hasn't.

01:29:26.58
davemaze
Yeah, yeah.

01:29:43.90
Errick Jackson
Pulled away any of my love for photography. So I do want to to get back to shooting a bit more but I I think now I Just yeah I think now I have the luxury of being able to shoot more for just like what I want to create um and and less for just everything kind of being client purpose.

01:29:47.31
davemaze
Yeah, you can do the whole thing.

01:30:01.14
Errick Jackson
But my big thing is also getting on some bigger sets because there are a lot of you know Arkansas is is cool but there's not just a bevy of big productions happening and you know I'm a curious person by nature. So there's a lot of roles that. I don't know about or don't understand and can't really experience here and kind of need to to be in places where those bigger productions are happening. So what I'm really hoping to do is also assist more in other parts of the country and and kind of up my knowledge a bit. On the production side of things because that also feeds directly into post-production regardless of just making sure that workflow is seamless so having knowledge on both sides of it is is definitely very important.

01:30:46.40
davemaze
Totally.

01:30:52.31
davemaze
Are you looking at specifically moving somewhere else or just booking travel jobs.

01:30:56.00
Errick Jackson
Um, so my dream is to move to New York but I I primarily just want to travel for the time being wherever I need to go? Um I have ah a big part of my network and client bases in la um. So I think that's probably where I'm going to explore first? Um, but New York has had my heart for quite some time so I do hope to ultimately end up there being able to work there. But. I'm also I'm I'm in no rush I'm kind of past the point in my life where I'm trying to do everything like right now I am I just turned 25 and I'm accepting that I'm I'm actually young and I don't have to I don't have to complete my entire life's journey at 25. So.

01:31:37.84
davemaze
Yeah, yeah.

01:31:43.92
davemaze
Her.

01:31:50.10
Errick Jackson
Um, just taking it in stride you know.

01:31:50.50
davemaze
100% I think that's some real maturity and I think as ah as an old 31 year old talking to you I've noticed that I've also begun to realize that I'm still. Also at the beginning of this even though it's it's felt like forever because I've started I started doing this when I was 17 so it has been a lot of my life. So but that being said, you know there's no rush here like I've been trying my best to to stop my work at four thirty every day

01:32:10.63
Errick Jackson
Yeah, oh Wow yeah.

01:32:24.59
davemaze
And like in the past I used to kind of be like well I'm not done with this project yet I'm going to make sure that I just sit here until it's done and it's like well I could do that or I could stop and pick up tomorrow in the morning you know and that's been a real challenge but a good discipline to to practice because.

01:32:35.72
Errick Jackson
Yeah.

01:32:44.20
davemaze
Um, if you just keep working working working every single day you're going to burn out eventually. You got to take breaks. It's important. So hopefully you're taking breaks as well I don't know if if you've had that.

01:32:52.10
Errick Jackson
Well, yeah I I had the Burnout period kind of early for me because I was I was having that time period where I was just like I'm gonna do it all I'll pull all the all nighters I need to like whatever and I got to a point where quite. Literally my body physically stopped letting me do all nighters. Um, yeah and I was just like my like my but I would just I would fall asleep at the desk like and it took 2 or 3 times of that and I was like okay I can't do this anymore and it kind of taught me one to start tempering the expectations of my clients.

01:33:10.59
davemaze
Oh no, yeah. Wow.

01:33:27.93
Errick Jackson
But also to kind of let myself have a ah healthy work life balance. Um, so it's not something that I do very well still but certainly something I'm working towards constantly because ah.

01:33:40.85
davemaze
Yeah.

01:33:43.31
Errick Jackson
Ultimately I I kind of you know I have a pretty long-term perspective of I like to look at life as how do I want this to feel when I'm like 50 or sixty like do I Still want to be pushing this hard at that age. Well I have the patience for that. And if I won't then what is it exactly that I need to set up as a structure for my life that allows me to still be. You know, fruitful and still be creating the way that I want to but not be hating the process of doing so because I've driven myself into this kind of box of just constantly working.

01:34:11.90
davemaze
Yeah.

01:34:23.00
Errick Jackson
So balance is really everything you know.

01:34:26.71
davemaze
That's very wise. Yeah I I don't know if you have listened to this show. But I've interviewed my dad a couple times and he's a filmmaker and also a music producer and he is 63 I think and he's still just as creative and just as hardworking as ever. He. Edited and directed an entire movie last year that went to theaters and he's working on another movie right now and like I'm very inspired by that because he's been able to have that balance that I want but then he also still has that same zest and energy and passion for creative work even in his his 60 s.

01:34:49.56
Errick Jackson
That's incredible.

01:35:03.63
davemaze
And he he does tell me he's like I'm very passionate and motivated right now because I know I only got another like 10 years left before I'm just gonna be too tired but I doubt that honestly he's so creative and so awesome. Like I mean I tell him all the time like Ridley Scott is still making movies and he's like in his ninety s I think so.

01:35:12.10
Errick Jackson
It did.

01:35:19.68
Errick Jackson
Yeah, Scorsese like Scorsese made the irishman a few years ago and I'm just like how do you you you you implemented some completely new technologies while you were doing it and that that man is.

01:35:21.87
davemaze
Is on. Yeah, so.

01:35:32.64
davemaze
Ah.

01:35:36.62
Errick Jackson
He's still kicking around. That's the dream for me is like I still want to have the drive to do that stuff when I'm older and I was seeing back then that I was quickly driving myself to like hating what I was doing and that's just not where you want to be. They're there are more important things than just you know accolades of a career.

01:35:57.73
davemaze
Absolutely well. That's a great way to kind of close our conversation today I really enjoyed this Eric and I think a lot of our listeners also will There's so many topics that we covered that have never been talked about on this podcast. So thank you so much for bringing up. Um, all these interesting and amazing topics with retouching with photography and even with a work life balance there so that's super awesome. Dude thank you so much.

01:36:24.25
Errick Jackson
Thank you so much for inviting me. This is a riveting conversation and I love having these conversations as you can probably tell so anytime you're willing to have me back I'm happy to to jump back in another one.

01:36:32.93
davemaze
A hundred percent

01:36:39.31
davemaze
Absolutely I would love to have you back and why do you think I do this podcast I get to talk to people once a week it's amazing ah it's a gift.

01:36:46.74
Errick Jackson
Yeah, no, it's that's an incredible. That's an incredible job I don't know how you balance though. All the things that you do because I mean I see you run the Youtube channel if I understand correctly you run several is that right or have several.

01:37:00.87
davemaze
Ah, no, no I've hosted several so I I started one and then another company called Indiemoul hired me in La and then I quit and I moved here and so really, the only.

01:37:06.27
Errick Jackson
Got you.

01:37:16.84
davemaze
Things I got going on right now is my my Youtube channel on Dave Mays and then the the podcast but with that you know I'm I'm I'm shooting a course currently so I just I finish that today. So I mean anyways I have help my buddy Connor helps me edit and shoot and you know if you just schedule yourself.

01:37:21.35
Errick Jackson
Course.

01:37:35.90
davemaze
I've learned as I've matured like I really do need to have a schedule or I just can't pull it off as much as I hate it as a creative person you know like I kind of fight that I'm like oh I'm not finished yet or I want to stay up late. You know it's like I find that when I do stay up late and then I'm tired the next day I can't get anything.

01:37:43.59
Errick Jackson
Yeah, yeah.

01:37:54.83
davemaze
Anything done the next day cause I'm too tired so it's just like I need to just simply be rigorous with my routine. You know as far as that is to say but anyways.

01:38:00.68
Errick Jackson
Yeah.

01:38:06.85
davemaze
Thank you so much Eric I can't wait to hopefully see you in Nashville so definitely hit me up when you come out here. We'll get some get some food some tasty Nashville hot chicken I highly recommend it. Ah, awesome. All right everybody go follow. Follow Eric on Twitter and Instagram it's at e.

01:38:08.98
Errick Jackson
Yes. Oh I'm excited I'm excited.

01:38:25.11
davemaze
Jackson is that right.

01:38:27.40
Errick Jackson
Yep E Jackson without a k there's a story there but maybe for another time.

01:38:29.84
davemaze
Ah, okay, you've intrigued me What's what's the story.

01:38:33.50
Errick Jackson
Ah, okay, so when I first got an email address. My mom made me an email address and it was my first letter first initial middle initial and then Jackson without a k because that's how she did it and that's how my dad did it. And so yeah, then when I started making like handles for Instagram and stuff and eventually my company name I was like you know what Jackson without a k is kind of cool and I kept it and that's that's what it is.

01:39:00.50
davemaze
It is cool even though so on your actual driver's license. It's E Two r's.

01:39:09.83
Errick Jackson
it's yeah it's Jackson yes so my first name is e r r I c k which is not how anyone spells it? Um, but that is how I spell it and um, yeah, it's Jackson with a k but every yeah my my.

01:39:13.54
davemaze
Ah, ah, it's awesome though.

01:39:27.45
Errick Jackson
Business name is Jackson still technically Jackson Photography without a KEJackson on Instagram E Jackson 21 on Twitter. Um, yeah I go e Jackson wherever I can.

01:39:35.45
davemaze
Love it. That's the best when you find a ah username that's available everywhere I'm still trying to get the clean Dave Mays on Instagram it's really frustrating but but.

01:39:51.13
Errick Jackson
We'll we'll petition them in the Dms.

01:39:53.82
davemaze
That'd be great I don't use it enough for them to notice. That's the problem I don't use Instagram as much as I use Twitter so they're probably like screw you Dave we don't want to give it to you. You don't even use our app which I'm okay with because Instagram is slimy. ah ah sometimes

01:40:06.64
Errick Jackson
Yeah, it's it's it's it could be so much better.

01:40:13.29
davemaze
Um, my friend. Thank you again for coming on. Can't wait to see you in person here in Nashville talk soon all right there we go dude that was killer here. Let me you know.

01:40:16.84
Errick Jackson
Thank you Man talk soon sweet.