Pratik Naik
All through his life, Pratik has a background in drawing and painting. Combining that with his further experience in photography, these skills have helped in his approach to becoming a refined retoucher.
"Being able to understand retouching from a photographic standpoint has really given me an added advantage in retouching. Also, regularly being on set as an assistant or helping with the lighting setup gives me a direct understanding of what looks realistic and what doesn't when I take the file into post production. Combining that with an artistic background allows me to make changes realistically without leaving a noticeable trace."
"Being able to produce work that is submitted to the best editorials or working on personal projects for some of the most refined photographers requires a skill set that is equally important and studying the craft from all angles is important."
With a keen sense of color and detail, Pratik ultimately trusts X-Rite in ensuring color accuracy is important.
"I love both the i1Pro, and ColorMunki in knowing what I'm seeing is accurate. There's nothing worse than retouching an image on a screen that isn't consistent with the final output."
Aside from retouching, Pratik travels worldwide for workshops, has his online education platform "The Retouching Series", and created the color grading tool Infinite Color Panel to help other creatives with their color grading.