Image retoucher

Image retoucher Kerry McElroy can make anyone or anything look good, but one of her most recent “makeovers” was an exception – he looked worse.

“He’s the English guy featured in the Tooheys Supercold beer ad,” she explains. “You can see it on buses and at bus stops.”

The ad, which claims that Tooheys’ Supercold brand is “cold enough to scare a Pom”, features an overweight man sporting a too-tight Union Jack T-shirt standing on top of a bar stool. His lily-white legs are stuffed into socks and sandals, and he is clasping his hands to his head in shock as he is confronted with an ice-cold beer.

“I made him look as if he had got straight off the plane, got sunburnt, then walked into a pub for a warm pint, only to be confronted with the Pommies’ worst nightmare a super cold beer.”

Kerry, who works for top advertising company Saatchi & Saatchi in Sydney, retouches “above-the-line” advertising that includes newspapers, magazines and billboards aimed at large audiences.

“Below-the-line advertising”, she explains, “is aimed more at individuals and involves direct marketing like mail outs.”

With 12 years’ experience in the advertising industry, nine spent as a retoucher, Kerry can turn her hand to almost anything.

“I actually started on cars,” she admits, referring back to when she first landed a job with Saatchi & Saatchi as a web designer straight out of TAFE armed with a diploma of graphic design.

“My boss asked me to have a go at putting in the shadow under a car. Anyway, I had a feel for it and it soon became a habit I was always asked to put the shadows in.”

“I then started smoothing out bumps and lumps and, little by little, built up my experience and learnt the technology,” she said.

Kerry credits a talent for freehand drawing for her success and advises anyone keen to pursue a similar career path as a retoucher to maintain this skill.

“If you don’t use the skill continuously, it can fall by the wayside. For me, drawing is a passion and something that I get to use every day, so hopefully it’s only getting better.”

CareerOne.com.au