About the role
Chefman | Remote freelance | International applicants welcome
About $25 USD per hour, booked in eight-hour days (about $200 per day)
Make it look real. Make it look amazing.
Can you take a product shot and a bit of AI magic and turn them into a photo nobody can tell wasn't captured in one real moment? We are looking for an experienced freelance retoucher to help finish product and lifestyle images, including images created with AI. You will work on appliances, kitchen scenes, food, drinks, and the occasional hand reaching for the product. Your mission: make every element feel like it belongs in the same photograph.
What you'll do • Work from layered Photoshop files with the project assets, plus reference images and creative direction • Composite product photos and renders into lifestyle scenes and AI-generated backgrounds • Match perspective, scale, color, texture, sharpness, and depth of field • Rebuild or adjust lighting so products and their surroundings look naturally connected • Add or fix contact shadows, cast shadows, highlights, and reflections • Retouch and replace hands (with AI when it makes sense), with believable anatomy, skin texture, grip, scale, and interaction with the product • Spot and fix AI artifacts and routine realism issues without needing every problem marked up • Return organized, editable Photoshop files with clearly named layers, masks, and adjustment layers
What you bring
Strong Photoshop retouching and masking. Precise selections, clean edges, layer masks, adjustment layers, and nondestructive compositing.
A strong understanding of light. You can read a scene or lighting reference and work out where the light comes from, how soft or hard it is, and how it hits each surface. When the information is missing, you can infer it and create believable highlights, reflections, and shadows. Experience with glass, chrome, stainless steel, glossy plastic, and matte surfaces is especially relevant.
Practical AI image skills. You generate and edit realistic image elements with dedicated AI image tools, and your workflow goes beyond a chat window. No particular platform is required. We care about your ability to create useful elements, spot AI mistakes, and finish the result convincingly in Photoshop. Building complete backgrounds from scratch is not the main job.
Exact product preservation. Products keep their original shape, proportions, branding, controls, components, and material colors. If AI recreates a product in a background or element, you replace it with the approved original product asset unless told otherwise. Your lighting work must protect the product's design and identity.
How we work together
We provide creative direction and approve the overall look. You handle routine technical and realism issues on your own, communicate clearly, and move quickly through feedback.
The details • Remote freelance, and international applicants are welcome • About $25 USD per hour, booked in eight-hour days (about $200 per day) • Work comes in as projects arise. Volume varies, with no fixed weekly commitment.
How to apply
Send us: • A portfolio with relevant product retouching and compositing examples • Two or three before-and-after examples, ideally including AI-assisted images • A short note on what you did and which tools you used • Your availability and time zone
Hand-replacement examples are welcome. Please show which parts are your Photoshop work and which are AI-generated.
Shortlisted candidates are invited to a paid practical trial.
No portfolio, no application.
Hourly Pay Range (commensurate with experience)
$24—$25 USD
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