Photo Retouching - 

In our daily lives, with the exception of editorial photos (newspaper), practically all photos we encounter are retouched.  Photos of your favorite celebs, all advertising photos and most magazine shots have some, and often a lot, of retouching.  Celebrities’ PR firms typically have the last call on images of their clients before they can be published in a magazine.  

So are all those folks attractive?  Yes, many are.  But are they as perfect as they look in the magazines?  No.  

So what are you to do when you want your wedding photos, headshots or family photos to look as good as the photos you see every day?  Make sure your photographer not only uses Photoshop, but is very proficient in it and understands it’s value to you as a client.

Don’t, by the way, confuse retouching with basic post processing.  Any good photographer should post process every image they deliver.  When shooting with a digital camera, even a pro one, you get what’s called digital fog or haze.  You might not even notice it by itself, but once the post processing is done, you see how the photo pops.  See the examples below:

Before Basic Post Processing

After Basic Post Processing

I don’t know any photographer who is going to retouch every image they deliver.  For a typical wedding, I usually edit my shoot down to 500 – 700 images.  To retouch every image would take me weeks, which is not feasible for a busy photographer.  But I do retouch around 30 – 40 per wedding of my favorite images, around 20 of every engagement session and around 10 for every headshot and family protrait.  In addition, every image that goes into your album and every image you order will get the same treatment.  That insures the images you like best will have a bit of retouching.

When I retouch an image, I smooth the skin, brighten the eyes, brighten the teeth and remove any visible blemishes.  I also take out those pesky circles that have been known to creep under your eyes when you haven’t had enough sleep (lots and lots of brides don’t get enough sleep the night before the wedding!).  I’ve even been known to take out a vehicle in the background, if I think it ruins an otherwise good shot.  But I’ve been using Photoshop for over 10 years now and am pretty good at it.  Most photographers won’t go that far and you shouldn’t expect it.  It’s harder than it looks to remove a person or object, so be gentle in your requests.  Here are a couple of before and afters.  

Before retouching

After retouching

This is a lovely bride, both before and after retouching, but you can see the difference just a bit of Photoshopping does for even an already pretty woman.