Let me explain why.
The majority of studio’s don’t retouch their proofs at all. They just send them thru with some sort of action and off to print, just like the shot above.
The second shot took me less than a minute to retouch, and look at the difference. I may not have done a lot, but what I did do visually looks like a lot.
We regularly use the fact that even our proofs are retouched as a selling point to out do our competition. We tell them to ask the other photographers if they retouch their proofs (because we already know the answer). Most of the photographer don’t even have their shots on their own website retouched! I can’t tell you how many times we have had clients come back and book with us just because we retouch everything.
You can also charge more as now you offer a premium product that no one else has. I also add textures to a few images to add that little extra to a pile of proofs. The shot above is nice, but by adding a very light texture, I just made that shot shine.
You need to remember that every single image that goes out of your studio has your name on it. Even your online proofing. Do you really want someone judging you on your un-retouched work?
I want you to know that when I first started this process it would take me days and sometimes weeks to retouch all of my images. That’s why we designed Touchflow (http://www.fochtcreative.com) to speed up the workflow and make it a simpler process. We use interns at our studio and I wanted a way to easily teach them how to retouch, we can do that with our retouching palette. I can teach an intern ( and Fundy too) how to retouch images in about 15 minutes. What used to take hours takes just minutes, and when they are done you have full size and 4×6 size images. It’s all about speeding up the process, because time is money.
For more tips and a FREE 14 day trial of the Touchflow retouching palette check out FochtCreative.com
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9 Comments at "Why We Retouch"
I would have removed the thing that appears to be sticking out of her head in the last pic. If you are going to retouch might as well go all the way. lol The trick is to know when to stop.
Gotta admit I like the original better. The retouched skin just looks way too plastic to me. Plus there’s the whole argument of spending labor $$ tweaking images that are never gonna make it further than the proof stage…and this is coming from someone who corrects/retouches for a living
Why not get it right the first time…in the camera?
Fill light, proper exposure for that image. I do like the retouching on the last one though, but it could have been done in camera.
Frank,
We intentionally “Get it wrong” in the camera the first time so we can develop our PS skills.
I do love the hidden message in this post:
“you should retouch every single image. By our product!”
Sorry, i’m a cynic.
ummm… i meant buy.
Looks like this post is to advertise your super-duper product to soccer mom photographers. Any pro will tell you that your retouching sucks – skin looks like plastic, no texture at all, and if you get your WB right in camera you don’t have to “retouch” it later (the last image). Oh yeah, and those chopped off fingers…
Tim, That’s funny!
Very plastic look to those skin tones.
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