Independent Contractor Remote Photo Retoucher Jobs

Photo Producer

Creative Post-Production • Retouching, CGI & Gen AI

Position Title: Photo Producer

Department: Creative Post-Production

Reports To: Sr. Manager, Creative Post-Production

Location: New York, NY HYBRID Mon/Fri remote Tues-Thurs onsite.

Employment Type: Contract

Position Summary: The Photo Producer partners with the Sr. Manager of Creative Post-Production to drive retouching projects from handoff through final release. This role owns day-to-day workflow, quality control, review coordination, and delivery across multiple brands and vendors simultaneously - ensuring every asset meets our creative, technical, and color standards before it reaches clients and the AEM Brand Portal. The ideal candidate is highly organized, technically fluent, and comfortable operating across traditional retouching as well as emerging CGI and Gen AI production pipelines.

Key Responsibilities:

• Manage Retouching Project Workflow (w/ Sr. Manager):
• Review rounds and final retouched images from external vendors for accuracy, consistency, and adherence to project guidelines.
• Review creative/client feedback before sending to vendors to ensure clarity and accuracy of references.
• Track project timelines, budgets, and specific data points for multiple projects simultaneously.
• Organize and maintain digital files, ensuring proper version control and archiving.
• Coordinate Reviews (w/ Sr. Manager, Creative & Marketing):
• Ensure delivery of prints to creative teams.
• Schedule and run point on print reviews with stakeholders.
• Perform live adjustments during print reviews for feedback clarity.
• Release Final Files to Clients (w/ Sr. Manager & Vendors):
• Ensure final images are prepared and formatted correctly for delivery based on distribution channel.
• Process final files for upload to the AEM Brand Portal, adhering to our asset management upload process.
• Record final file numbers after release.

CGI & Gen AI Pipeline (Preferred): As our content supply chain expands beyond traditional capture, experience producing across CGI and Gen AI workflows is a strong advantage. Familiarity with the following is preferred:

• Digital twin & CGI production - coordinating digital twin, packshot, and still-life work with CGI vendors, and reviewing renders across the phased pipeline (digital twins? composition/style frames ? finishing).
• Gen AI asset generation - understanding how AI-generated backgrounds, textures, and creative variations are produced and integrated, while ensuring final creative and technical decisions remain in post-production.
• Asset re-use & governance - helping build assets once and leverage them across stills and video deliverables to avoid duplication.
• Pipeline tooling - working knowledge of CGI/3D and Gen AI tools (e.g., Substance Painter, Cinema 4D/Blender, USD asset packaging, and AI image/texture generators) to communicate effectively with vendors and QC deliverables.
• Color-managed rendering - awareness of scene-referred, wide-gamut workflows and output targets so CGI/Gen AI assets match photographic content.

Technical Skills & Color Management:

• Fluent in retouching QC: layer/group conventions, compositing, grain matching, extensions, etc.
• Strong color management across print and digital - comfortable working to defined output profiles (e.g., GRACoL2013 CMYK and Adobe RGB 1998) and evaluating match prints in layout.
• Print production literacy: DPI/resolution for sizing, match print standards, and packaging/print-ready delivery.
• Proficient with Adobe Creative Cloud (Photoshop), Dropbox-based handoffs, and DAM upload workflows (AEM Brand Portal).
• Organized in file structure, naming conventions, version control, and archiving across concurrent projects.

Qualifications:

• 3+ years in post-production, retouching production, or creative project management (beauty, fashion, or CPG a plus).
• Proven ability to manage multiple projects, timelines, and budgets simultaneously with meticulous attention to detail.
• Excellent communication skills for coordinating across creative, marketing, external vendors, and stakeholders.
• Experience running live print reviews and translating stakeholder feedback into clear, actionable vendor notes.
• Comfortable operating in evolving, technically complex workflows and adopting new tools quickly.