Editing

[FayetheADHDsquirrel]

While I tend to find that attempts to learn coding are highly stressful, unbearably boring, and even cause a physical sensation of pressure on my head, I actually enjoy editing photos and videos using editing software. I haven't taken classes for most of it. I just figure it out as I go for the most part and seem to figure it out easily. This seems to be backwards from what others here on the forum prefer to do, but it is what it is. Are there jobs that you can obtain by building skills in this area without having to know any programming languages?

 

[Judge]

Are there jobs that you can obtain by building skills in this area without having to know any programming languages?

It may be helpful to first understand that you must consider just how competitive art jobs of all kinds are in the marketplace. That it's quite likely for many employers to expect prospective applicants to have such qualifications, apart from demonstrating above average conventional graphic art/photographic skills through on online portfolio.

It might be possible for some, but I'm assuming they would have to demonstrate superior yet subjective skills as an artist to compensate for a lack of technical skills expected or required in the twenty-first century.

"While programming skills are not strictly required for graphic artists, having coding knowledge can significantly enhance their career prospects and improve collaboration with developers. Many employers value candidates who can integrate design and development skills, making them more versatile in the job market." -Duck Duck Go AI Search Assist

More feedback, which may be plus or minus what you seek:

Does Graphic Design Require Programming

Does Graphic Design Require Coding? - MOCK, the agency

Graphic Designers

https://work.chron.com/basic-coding-skills-graphic-designer-23027.html

Does Graphic Design Need Coding? Debunking the Myths

If I Do Not Like Coding, is a Graphic Design Degree Right for Me? – Graphic Design Degree Hub

https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/finding-a-job/how-to-become-graphic-programmer

 

[FayetheADHDsquirrel]

Are photography, hand written calligraphy, and poetry beneficial? I even have some projects where I have written a poem that describes one of my photographs written below in a hand written calligraphy style. Those particular projects didn't even need editing besides some basic zoom and crop. I was told years ago that I am a natural at photography and I have been developing calligraphy skills ever since I was around 11 years old. I have some poems that people say are pretty good as well. I think the poems come similar as to how my riddles do.

 

[Dagan]

Properly editing simply one frame of footage (4K to 8K of recent) can net you contract work ongoing. Next time you sit through the end credits of a Marvel movie, look how many names are credited for the VFX work and per how many different companies were used. They will seriously farm out jobs to about 24 frames per person. 24 frames per second is film / movie speed, of course. You may get more, maybe less. It may be a quota you have to hit as a team doing the same scene. Overall, it's plentiful work to get, but the pay ranges can be all over the place due to who are paying / budget of the project (even though this work is back end payments). The only issue will be if you can or can't get into one of said companies that do this specifically. If you go it alone doing contract to contract, you will have higher costs for your health insurance and such. Companies (the more people the better) is how insurance premiums / packages get lower rates.

 

[Outdated]

As Judge mentioned, it's always been a highly competitive world and it used to also be a very high money market where talented people could earn a fortune.

I think AI has just turned most of that on it's head.

 

[Judge]

I think AI has just turned most of that on it's head.

Yes.

No telling how some will claim as "their own work" armed with only an ability to master a recent incarnation of Photoshop and its "Generative AI" that creates something from scratch through machine learning models based on user input and other existing image sources.

And then to consider all the potential hazards of litigation and controversy over allegations of intellectual property rights. Ugh...

 

[Judge]

Are photography, hand written calligraphy, and poetry beneficial?

Unfortunately most everything you have brought up that interests you inevitably requires some degree of talent, skill and technical training prior to getting such a job. That as an entry level candidate you must show that you meet such qualifications. Even more so when a prospective employer expects to see a portfolio of your creativity in addition to meeting other requirements.

In essence you must deal with accommodating the demands of the job market rather than explore the possibilities of "exceptions to the rules". I see no ways around them in any competitive job market unless you are truly a creative genius and just haven't been "discovered" yet.

As for poetry, that's no different than being an author.. That the ultimate test of talent is to simply hand over your work to a publisher who is willing to take a look and assess you relative to both raw talent and marketing possibilities.

 

[Outdated]

Unfortunately most everything you have brought up that interests you inevitably requires some degree of talent, skill and technical training prior to getting such a job.

That's true for the most part. The great majority of artists be it in graphic design or creation of cartoons started down that path at about age 10. By the time they finish high school their career path is obvious to them, that same as it is for professional sports people.

There are the odd few that break that pattern but only due to extraordinary talent and perseverance.

One of my favourite authors, Raymond Feist started writing just out of the blue and his first book was a best seller that now has around 30 novels in the series. That's another myth about authors, they don't make millions from writing one book, they continue to write and write for their whole lives.

Quote from Raymond Feist:

"In late 1977 I decided to try my hand at writing, part-time, while I was an employee of the University of California, San Diego. It is now some fifteen years later, and I have been a full-time writer for the last fourteen years, successful in this craft beyond my wildest dreams. Magician, the first novel in what became known as. The Riftwar Saga, was a book that quickly took on a life of its own. I hesitate to admit this publicly, but the truth is that part of the success of the book was my ignorance of what makes a commercially successful novel. My willingness to plunge blindly forward into a tale spanning two dissimilar worlds, covering twelve years in the lives of several major and dozens of minor characters, breaking numerous rules of plotting along the way, seemed to find kindred souls among readers the world over. After a decade in print, my best judgment is that the appeal of the book is based upon its being what was known once as a “ripping yarn.” I had little ambition beyond spinning a good story, one that satisfied my sense of wonder, adventure, and whimsy. It turned out that several million readers—many of whom read translations in languages I can’t even begin to comprehend—found it one that satisfied their tastes for such a yarn as well."

 

[FayetheADHDsquirrel]

I started calligraphy at about 11 and have been told that I have a natural eye for photography. I'm not sure when the poetry first started, but it just starts popping into my head when I'm swinging on a swing or walking outside or something. My poems are based more on rhyme and meter and actual descriptions for the most part with only occasional metaphor so it admittedly wouldn't fit the preferences of those who prefer highly metaphorical works.

 

[Judge]

I started calligraphy at about 11 and have been told that I have a natural eye for photography.

The thing is, commercial photography encompasses a great deal of technical skills besides a sense of composition. Posing, lighting, shutter speeds versus lens apertures, proper film developing in a lab versus digital manipulation of images and an ability to use different cameras for different reasons. Then again if you have all of those skill sets, it might be something to consider.

All things one can learn on a technical basis vocationally, which can be validated by a potential employer as opposed to claiming you have a "natural eye" for photography. IMO to be a successful amateur breaking into professional level work takes a lot.

Calligraphy seems like an interesting pastime, but doesn't seem to reflect being a lucrative occupation limited primarily to "special occasions". Where opportunities are sporadic, and clients are more temperamental than usual. Small wonder it is considered a "lost art".

Reminding me as well of a friend who loved doing part-time videography, but lost a considerable investment along with his sanity doing wedding and special occasion videos. Yet I thought his work was rather good, myself. Not a lost art per se, but the stress of dealing with endlessly stressed clients over such videos was not a good thing for him personally, apart from enhanced "collection" issues.

"Calligraphy is often considered a lost art in the U.S. due to the rise of digital communication, but there is a growing interest among younger generations who see it as a form of self-expression and creativity. While its prevalence has declined, calligraphy still holds value for personal and professional communication, especially in special occasions like weddings." -Duck Duck Go AI Search Assist

In essence, to land most any "skill-based job" requires a comprehensive understanding and ability to perform such a task and be able to convey it to a prospective employer. That it takes more than just "dabbling" in something to get a serious possibility of being hired. Unless of course you consider attempting such a thing as an independent contractor, and running your own business. Which inherently carries even more necessary skills as a self-employed entrepreneur with a great deal of risk.

 

[Crabcore]

This seems to be backwards from what others here on the forum prefer to do, but it is what it is. Are there jobs that you can obtain by building skills in this area without having to know any programming languages?

I don't know if it matters, but I learned graphic design / photo editing stuff way before I got into coding. Most people just choose one over another, but there are some disciplines that marry the two like creative coding, graphics / shader programming and things like that.

I'm not sure what the job market is like, but photography can be an awesome hobby to pursue in conjunction with image editing and retouching, which all sort of fall under the 'photographer' umbrella. I will say though, that being able to program your own image filters from scratch is a lot of fun, so I wouldn't totally rule that out!

attempts to learn coding are highly stressful, unbearably boring, and even cause a physical sensation of pressure on my head

That's 100% normal at first, just in case anyone else is wondering or feeling discouraged. Learning something that you have no idea about is extremely draining at first, and for most of us, that was like the first 6 months to a year of learning just the bare essentials of OOP.

Most people don't push past it, and that's pretty much why. Photoshop and other programs are extremely easy to learn in comparison, so they don't make you feel like you're losing your mind when you're first getting started.

 

[Crabcore]

Properly editing simply one frame of footage (4K to 8K of recent) can net you contract work ongoing. Next time you sit through the end credits of a Marvel movie, look how many names are credited for the VFX work and per how many different companies were used. They will seriously farm out jobs to about 24 frames per person. 24 frames per second is film / movie speed, of course. You may get more, maybe less. It may be a quota you have to hit as a team doing the same scene. Overall, it's plentiful work to get, but the pay ranges can be all over the place due to who are paying / budget of the project (even though this work is back end payments). The only issue will be if you can or can't get into one of said companies that do this specifically. If you go it alone doing contract to contract, you will have higher costs for your health insurance and such. Companies (the more people the better) is how insurance premiums / packages get lower rates.

This is actually super eye-opening for someone who wouldn't even have considered it otherwise. I wonder how people aiming for a more 'indie' market fare (as a more realistic job opportunity) rather than, say, blockbuster hits. Sometimes when you see really cheesy CGI on a less-than-stellar budget, you have to wonder how much those people got paid per frame, for example.

 

[Dagan]

I can partially answer you. My local film crew friends have a 36 minute "maxi-short" film that is "done" and hitting the festival circuit, finally. We seriously started the thing during Covid lockdown per pre-production / set building. Anyway, we did a lot of green screen for what was to be the last 20 minutes of the film and ultimately show our big, bad, Lovecraftian beast. Our CGI friends over in the Ukraine (yeah, you can already predict where this is going) were on retainer to animate / bring to life said beast. Well, sure enough when the film is done per all the other that's required...our CGI folks were hard to even get a hold of, and first and foremost, they are alive...that's most important...we were way more worried about that. Still, uprooted completely and without any of their equipment or means to replace it at all, we had to make the hard decision to cut most of the beast shots and rely on that you do see / know via bits and pieces that something massive and horrible is right there (coming through the veil / ripping through into our world). It's rather psychological more so, now, but it does still work quite well.

Long story short --- we looked at what AI options allow us at our self-financed level of making this film. There do seem to be some ways that we could do it ourselves, but it's going to take basically still becoming CGI / visual FX artists overall because there's a lot of understanding for coding, CAD, etc. that will be needed. My practical FX capabilities could possibly help by doing everything in miniature and then layering it into the finished film footage, but that's not a full on guarantee, plus it would still cost quite more and take more time and basically keep pushing back the film from getting seen.....especially when the primary point of this "short" film is to hopefully find funding for completing what we have as a longer, full-length film.

On our level / the micro-indie-level, I do think that AI can be of great help, but there's going to be the realization of that old phrase, "one way or another, you pay for your education." Much time and finances and effort will cost you, and more than anything, it's going to require folks to know / decide on what you want your CGI beast/action/concept/visuals absolutely are and exactly what they are doing...in full. Because it's still so hard to get exactly what you want as the finished product, you need to figure all of it out, first, lock in on the visuals as finished and what's 100% going to be there...and then finish out your shots with live action around it all. For me, someone who always writes / composes projects (especially screenplays / prose) backwards, this won't be as hard to do. I think it might give most folks real fits, though.

I do see that of late, you can generate just one AI image and then allow (sometimes the same) AI to animate it for up to 8 seconds in supposedly exactly as you tell it to - even camera panning and such. I'm not up to speed on the quality, but it's interesting because it could make all of the previous backwards talk I mentioned become not the case at all. The technology is certainly making strides. None of it is free, though. You can make a few free mid-res pics here and there, but solid, hi-res and film quality pics and definitely any animated video use are going to cost you a decent monthly subscription fee. If you have the budget, cool. I'm not sure everyone will. It looks to be akin to basically taking on a small car note for the full quality and no limitations for use.

Dang. I guess that actually became long story longer, haha. Oops.

 

[Judge]

No question that personally I prefer photo and image editing to any coding.

Though I respect the need for perseverance when doing monotonous editing with repetitive cutting and pasting. A "necessary evil" I've been doing thousands of times in having to reedit text data (metadata) pertinent to MP3 music files and their individual tracks. Though editing the music itself can be interesting as well. I use "Audacity" freeware for that.

Still, the difference is actually enjoying the editing of images on a graphic level versus much of anything on a text level. Where repetitive functions can drive you bonkers when done hours on end. That much is true, at least for me and apparently the OP. But I still have the discipline to tolerate getting through those monotonous times of mindless keystrokes, cutting and pasting.

Though in working in such a capacity in web design and IT, I never encountered anyone who was doing work that didn't at some point involve coding apart from image manipulation. And regardless of what your strong points were, you still had to deliver the goods in a timely manner. Which on occasion turned out to be the most arduous of functions within my job title.