Meet the Jury

How did you find your way into retouching, and what has kept you in it?

It started with a photography class around 2006 - the first time I bought a digital camera and discovered Photoshop. What hooked me wasn't just the retouching itself. It was realising I could build entire worlds within an image, limited only by my skills and imagination. That discovery eventually became a career in key art design, creating work for major brands and networks. And my passion for photography and retouching has only deepened over time - to the point where I now invest in higher-end equipment to shoot my own assets for poster and key art work.

How long have you been working in the industry, and what phase of your career are you in now?

Sixteen years professionally. My career started at Nickelodeon in 2010, which led to work with AKA, Oxygen, WWE, MLB, SYFY, and A+E Networks. Those years gave me the foundation and the confidence to start my own company - Eric Vasquez Design LLC - now in its third year and certified as a minority-owned business in New York City. Since going independent I've worked with HGTV, Dropout TV, Wondery, Columbia University, Johnson & Johnson, and more. It's been a real evolution.

What kinds of projects or environments have shaped your standards the most?

Working in-house at networks on large-scale campaigns. It was at places like Oxygen, WWE, SYFY, and A+E that I learned what pushing creative limits under experienced leadership actually looks like - not just building cohesive campaigns, but presenting the work, selling ideas, art directing shoots, and developing everything from key art concepts to social assets, merchandise, and highway billboards. That environment demands a lot from you. And it gives back just as much.

What made you want to be part of the Retoucher of the Year jury?

Key art is a high-stakes storytelling medium, and retouching is its fundamental DNA. Every key art project I have ever worked on starts with photo selection and retouching - and builds outward from there into compositing, color, typography, and finishing. I wanted to join the jury to help the next generation of artists understand that technical mastery is the floor, not the ceiling. The ceiling is how you use those skills to build a brand's visual identity, to tell a story, to make someone feel something before they have read a single word.

When working on major campaigns compared to smaller projects, what truly changes?

The number of people involved - and everything that comes with that. Major campaigns have more funding, more touchpoints, and significantly more scrutiny. A smaller project might live as a single digital placement. A large campaign has to hold up on television, in print, on social media, and on a hundred-foot billboard at the same time. That difference demands a fundamentally different approach - a visual language that travels coherently across every medium, not just one deliverable that looks good on its own.

When you open a new file, what do you look at first before touching anything?

The quality of the image and the assets I've been given. Size and resolution tell me immediately whether the material can hold up across different formats. Phone screenshots and screen grabs can work for smaller digital placements, and upscaling tools have improved enormously - but my ideal is always assets large and sharp enough to scale up to key art poster size, anywhere from tabloid up to 27 by 40 inches.

When working at scale, how do you make sure nothing is missed?

I start with hair and skin - getting things clean and sharp while keeping natural texture, avoiding that over-smoothed look that gives retouching away. Then I move into broader adjustments: color balance, vibrancy, saturation, contrast. The key discipline is not staying zoomed in or out for too long - switching between views constantly so I can track how the image is progressing as a whole. A final Camera Raw pass at the end catches anything remaining and gives everything that last layer of finish.

Beyond technical ability, what really determines whether someone builds a sustainable career?

The industry is full of people who let the work speak for itself. But a sustainable career is built on advocating for your ideas. Technical skill gets you in the room. Communication and emotional intelligence keep you there. You can be the most talented person at the table - but if you can't talk about your process, your thinking, your reasoning, none of that talent lands the way it should. And if you're difficult to work with, it lands even less. The craft matters. So does the person behind it.

What do you think this industry needs more of right now?

Human creativity - and an honest reckoning with what over-reliance on AI actually costs. I'm watching major companies lean harder on AI while cutting the creative teams who built those brands in the first place. I don't think that holds. The characters, the visuals, the ideas that made entertainment what it is came from human beings making real creative decisions. When everyone starts using the same AI tools in the same ways, the work will start to look the same - and sameness doesn't cut through. When that happens, people will find their way back to what actually makes something stand out.

What is one insight you wish more retouchers understood early in their career?

Work non-destructively from the very start - and build that habit before you ever have a reason to wish you had. Retouching almost always requires more than one pass, and if your layers are flattened and rasterized, going back means starting over. Smart Objects, Smart Filters, Clipping Masks, Adjustment Layers - these are not advanced techniques. They are the basics, and the sooner you treat them that way, the better your files and your workflow will be.

A final note from us

Eric brings to this jury a perspective that is genuinely hard to find elsewhere - someone who has operated at the intersection of retouching, design, and visual storytelling at the highest level of the entertainment industry, and who has built something of his own from that experience. His belief that the human creative instinct will always matter, and his commitment to passing that belief on to the next generation, make him a wonderful addition to this panel.

We are delighted to welcome Eric Vasquez as a member of the jury for Retoucher of the Year.

About Eric Vasquez

Country: United States

Years in the Industry: 16

Primary Specialization: Key Art and Compositing

Main Expertise: Creative Direction, Key Art Design, Photo Compositing, Photo Retouching, Photo Manipulation, Motion Design, Photography

Website: ericvasquez.net

Instagram: @ericvasquez84

YouTube: @EricVasquezDesign

Behance: behance.net/EVasquez84

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/evasquez84