My first ever job for crypto! And a behind the scenes look at what I did...
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A couple of months ago, I posted an ad in r/jobs4bitcoins on reddit offering retouching services. Out of the blue, I was contacted by Ric, who had some images he needed retouching. After haggling around and figuring out a price [I gave him a reallllly good deal] we settled and I began my foray into the crypto professional world.
As you can imagine, since finishing the gig, the original killer deal turned out to be quite profitable for me. I won’t be cashing the coins out - I’m in this long-term, but either way, it shows the importance of being flexible when it comes to crypto.
Now, on to the images. You can see Ric’s newly opened site at [url=http://www.openrigs.com]OpenRigs.com[/url] and all of the rig images are ones I’ve worked on. But I wanted to show you guys the process a little bit, since this was quite an interesting challenge for me as a retoucher. Ric’s original images were taken in his garage, on a background of sheets, and lit very poorly. I wanted to give him something awesome and professional looking - and also test myself since the images presented some issues I hadn’t dealt with before.
So, here’s a little condensed overview:
[img]http://i.imgur.com/l4hY7g4.jpg[/img]
This is what I got from Ric. First thought was - that’s a lot of colour gradients happening, and an even bigger amount of close-cutting [the process of “cutting” images out from the background]. Thankfully, the shapes were pretty straightforward and there was no hair involved [a retouchers worst nightmare].
[img]http://i.imgur.com/59Ocxvj.jpg[/img]
After close-cutting, I did perspective tweaks. There’s a limit to how much you can do before you enter Escher territory, so I wanted to give it a straighter more easy to look at composition without going too crazy. Close-cutting accounted for about 70% of the time spent by the way!
[img]http://i.imgur.com/15u4JHX.jpg[/img]
Shadows added! I also cleaned some things up which are hard to tell in the picture. There’s a bit of work going into sharpening and enhancing some parts here and there. Nicks are taken out, things are straightened. I finally got the courage to deal with the air exhaust grates on all the GPU’s [Jesus lord murphy!]. The image is almost ready for a final colour gradation…
[img]http://i.imgur.com/2chhB9x.jpg[/img]
Final result. With even more tweaking. I was able to fix the multiple colour temperature issue by desaturating the metal. I spiffed it up a bit too with contrast where I had the data. Finally, I laid in a slight gradient background. It looks almost like it was shot in a studio.
THE BEST PART OF THE EXPERIENCE:
After sending Ric the images, while I was uploading the high res ones onto WeTransfer Ric sent the payment out. I got paid for my first crypto job in minutes. Without losing any fees as I would when dealing with someone in another part of the world. And I think it might have been on a Saturday! No bank can give me that.
Now I’m going to email this to Ric and ask him to jump on the forum and join in, and most importantly, to accept FTC for the rigs!
Thanks for reading!
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Congrats!
Best part: Paid within minutes, no fees on a Saturday! :)
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Genius!
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That’s fantastic work. If I ever need this kind of thing I know who to come to!
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[s]It looks very well, but how do you fix MB?[/s]
I see it now on project page pictures…
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My turn to tell my side of the story:)
Honestly, the most difficult part was settling on a price. I’m used to negotiating in real life, face to face, over a conference table. Negotiating over IRC in an ad-hoc channel on Freenode was…interesting. Because I’ve been a developer when I was younger, I know that I wouldn’t budge on my hourly rate (unless the job was sufficiently large), so it’s REALLY difficult to lowball. Thankfully, mnstrcck really came to the party, and although he scored long-term by holding the coins, at the rate at the time I got an AMAZING price.
To give you some background: I was trying to avoid paying a photographer to setup a shoot (would’ve been a LOT more than I paid), and I also didn’t want to wait till December when a photographer friend of mine is visiting us for a week and would’ve shot it for free. Doing my own crummy shoot with my wife’s crisp white sheets and my iPhone was a compromise, but the result was less-than-ideal. I decided I needed retouching, and I checked the jobs4bitcoin sub-reddit first to see if there was anyone there, and stumbled across mnstrcck’s post. He was professional, qualified, and the conversation just gave me good vibes, even if he lived on the other end of the planet so I couldn’t physically go to his house and harass him if he scammed me (hah hah;)
Needless to say, my crummy photos were turned into masterpieces, and I was happy to pay and had no reason to withhold the funds owed. Most importantly, because we’d established a good working relationship, I knew that he’d make any small tweaks necessary, and wouldn’t just disappear because he’d received his money. All in, a great experience, and one I hope to repeat!
PS. You should totally look at the [url=https://openrigs.com]OpenRigs.com[/url] products if you’re a miner, and buy so I can recoup the funds I spent on photo retouching:-P
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[quote name=“fluffypony” post=“36918” timestamp=“1385577348”]
PS. You should totally look at the [url=https://openrigs.com]OpenRigs.com[/url] products if you’re a miner, and buy so I can recoup the funds I spent on photo retouching:-P
[/quote]If I move from where my stuff is being hosted right now to a hackerspace, I’ll seriously consider it. -
[quote name=“fluffypony” post=“36918” timestamp=“1385577348”]
PS. You should totally look at the [url=https://openrigs.com]OpenRigs.com[/url] products if you’re a miner, and buy so I can recoup the funds I spent on photo retouching:-P
[/quote]This is EXACTLY what I’ve been looking for. I’ll be purchasing one soon! Thank you!
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After building mine and having issues with daisychaining the pcie risers how could you get the risers to reach that wide?
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Hey the pics and website are awesome! Just sold my rig though >:( might have appeased my girlfriend better if it was on such a nice frame.
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Silk purse and sow’s ear springs to mind. :)
Damn good touch up considering the original. 8) -
[quote name=“kris_davison” post=“36968” timestamp=“1385586222”]
After building mine and having issues with daisychaining the pcie risers how could you get the risers to reach that wide?
[/quote]I haven’t had any daisy-chaining issues going unpowered 1x->1x and then daisy chaining a powered 1x->16x to that, but nowadays I don’t even need to daisy-chain. I buy XL risers from our US partner, [url=http://buyahash.com]Buy-A-Hash[/url].
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Amazing job on the re-touching… The shadows are so incredibly well done!
I can’t get over the difference… Absolutely wow!
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Thanks guys! And thanks to Ric for chiming in!
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I like it , Crazy Miner :D
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Really nice picture. Just ordered a rig. Let’s see how long delivery will take.
Perfect job :-)
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[quote name=“sradics” post=“37409” timestamp=“1385707073”]
Really nice picture. Just ordered a rig. Let’s see how long delivery will take.Perfect job :-)
[/quote]Same. Thanks OP for posting this.
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Also thanks! i will be ordering 1 or 2 myself.
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Bought two just now. Hoping it doesnt take forever. Also BUMP this is great stuff.
