About Julia Kuzmenko McKim, RA Team

RA Founder, Commercial Beauty Photographer & Retoucher, Los Angeles, CA + Dallas, TX. Website: juliakuzmenko.com, Instagram: @juliakuzmenko

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08 Sep
Freelance Business, Industry & Community News, Real World Practices

AI in Vogue: The Pushback

In its August 2025 issue, Vogue featured an AI-generated model in a Guess ad, prompting a wave of subscriber cancellations: Vogue’s AI-Generated Models Spark Reader Fury And Industry Panic, Forbes, July 29, 2025. The reaction from readers and the broader creative...

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18 Jul
Freelance Business, Real World Practices

Industries That Rely on Photo & Video Production in 2025

Obviously, most of us are wondering about the future of freelance photography, video, and post-production as we watch the flood of new Gen AI tools and platforms that can generate highly realistic visuals in seconds continue to accelerate.

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01 Apr
Business & Clients, Freelance Business, Industry & Community News

What is Freelance in the Visual Industry

What is the Visual Industry? The Visual Industry is a broad field of sectors dedicated to producing visual content to communicate messages and shape experiences. Visual Arts are forms of art that are visual in nature, created to be appreciated through...

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27 Sep
Industry & Community News, Real World Practices

Retouching Freelance Market Trends Report (Q3 2024): Key Insights from Our Survey

Written BY JULIA KUZMENKO MCKIM INTRODUCTION In polling and survey methodologies, it is well-known that after reaching a threshold sample size, the results stabilize, and the law of diminishing returns comes into play. The marginal benefit of adding more respondents becomes...

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08 Aug
Beauty Retouching, Video Tutorial

Beauty Retouching: Getting the Best Out of Raw Files Before Retouching

I often get asked about my retouching workflow, and by the way those questions are asked I realize that some photographers and retouchers dismiss the power and potency of their raw files. So today I'd like to share with you...

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09 Apr
Efficiency & Productivity, Industry & Community News, Real World Practices, Stay Inspired

Generative AI for Freelancer: Will You Be a Disruptor or Disrupted?

As I advance in the Applied Generative AI course by MIT, I am completely and irrevocably convinced that the freelance business in the content creation field is experiencing a monumental transformation. The type that will permanently alter its landscape. Like many...

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13 Mar
Creative Retouching, Efficiency & Productivity, Industry & Community News, Stay Inspired

Generative AI for Freelancers

The freelance world is undergoing a seismic shift propelled by Artificial Intelligence (AI), especially Generative AI. In my latest blog post, you will find how I believe this transformative technology is reshaping the industry and can help YOU to recession-proof your freelance...

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25 Apr
Industry & Community News, Real World Practices, Stay Inspired

Guide to the Best Artist Grants and Opportunities for 2023

While retouching artists aren't usually really independent in their work and art (I guess, apart from AI creations now accessible to all, but that's a separate topic altogether), we often form partnerships based on commercial and/or artistic interests with...

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29 Mar
Beauty Retouching, Real World Practices

New Practice Image in the Skin Retouching Course

We've got some exciting news for those of you who are interested in continuous growth and professional development! We've added a new additional image file (.PSD) for the Oily Skin lesson in the Skin Retouching video course for you to...

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15 Mar
Beauty Retouching, Commercial Retouching, Real World Practices, Working With Colors

How Good are Your Color Matching Skills?

As a retouching professional in the beauty industry, you have to hone certain skills to be able to make necessary color adjustments to achieve target (reference) colors provided by the client. These skills include: the ability to discern subtle differences...

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11 Mar
Beauty Retouching, Real World Practices, Software for Retouching, Video Tutorial

Luminosity Masking with the Beauty Retouch Panel

Check out our new video for the Beauty Retouch panel users on how to use the Luminosity Masking buttons.  Our Luminosity Masking scripts create quick selections based on the luminosity values of your image, so you can turn them...

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13 Apr
Industry & Community News, Real World Practices

New Round! Beauty Retouching Challenge #3

Find out the results of the first two rounds here: Challenge #1 Results and Challenge #2 Results Overview with my notes and a timelapse retouching video. NEW ROUND! CHALLENGE #3 📌 RA Beauty Retouching Challenge #3 starts on April 13th, 2020; 📌...

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01 Apr
Industry & Community News, Real World Practices

New Round! Beauty Retouching Challenge #2

CHALLENGE #1 RESULTS Our first Beauty Retouching Challenge went really well and over 200 artists of all skill levels submitted their retouches to the Challenge album. The Challenge #1 winner Axelle Manfrini‎ (laretouchefrancaise.com) now has 10x voting power in the...

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20 Mar
Industry & Community News, Real World Practices

Beauty Retouching Challenge #1: Ready, Set, Go!

Let’s use this downtime as an opportunity to practice, better ourselves, learn something new and have a little fun!✎ Challenge #1 starts on March 20th, 2020; ✎ Retouched Challenge Images are to be submitted by participants directly into a designated...

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14 Nov
Beauty Retouching, Commercial Retouching

Becoming a Professional Beauty Retoucher

The world of professional beauty retouching is very exciting, collaborative and diverse. You never stop learning and growing as a creative professional because every job is a set of new challenges that keep your problem-solving and retouching skills sharp and ever-evolving. 

Read on if you are interested in becoming a Professional Commercial Beauty Retoucher.

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