retouching

Cheap Is Not A Bargain

If you wear eyeglasses, this is how your business portrait should look. No reflections on the lenses, no greenish blotches from the anti-glare coating on the lenses, no lens refraction on the sides of the face, minimal shadows caused by the frames, both eyes fully visible, the whites of the eyes are white, good colour in both irises, and nice catchlights in both eyes.

Many professional photographers know how to achieve results like this and it isn’t difficult. If your business headshot with eyeglasses doesn’t look like this then your photographer failed.

A company this week asked to have its business headshots retouched. The photos were shot by a cheap photographer.
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A Close Shave

Removing a small amount of facial hair is usually easy to do. But realistically removing a beard, moustache or a lot of stubble can be impossible.

One of the more difficult, if not impossible, retouching tasks is removing facial hair. Removing a beard or moustache can be impossible to do because the facial hair has to be replaced by realistic-looking skin. This skin usually has to be copied from another similar photo if available. Also the photo retoucher has no idea what the person’s jaw and mouth look like under the facial hair. The retoucher can only guess and the results will never be accurate.
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Retouching Business Headshots and Other Portraits

Of course I’m going to retouch my own headshot and make myself look as good as possible.

Almost all business headshots and other portraits need to be retouched. This is often done to fix mistakes the photographer made or to repair something that was overlooked such as a crooked tie. Being neatly groomed will make you appear more competent.
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Retouching Business Conference Photos

Most business conference photos need editing to fix at least the colour and contrast. Hotel conference rooms with a mix of room lights, spotlights, and accent lights, can have an odd colour cast. There’s also too much contrast between the dark conference room and the stage lights and bright screens.

Photo retouching isn’t just for portraits. Retouching is almost always necessary for any picture that’s going to be used in a newsletter, an annual report, or any similar business publication, in print or online. Properly edited pictures always make your project look more professional.
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Photo Retouching Makes You Look Good

A vinyl banner on the side of a van. The centre photo has a shower with blue masking tape left over from the installation. The shower on the right has window reflections. All three showers are crooked and curved. The crookedness is emphasized by the way the outer pictures lean into the centre photo.

Today I saw a big, shiny van belonging to a company that makes and installs glass showers. The sides of the van had large photos of glass-enclosed showers. But apparently no one bothered to look at the pictures before they were printed on vinyl and attached to the sides of the vehicle.
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Retouching Business Headshots

Prison mugshots from Kingston Penitentiary in Ontario, 1913. (Library and Archives Canada)

I’ve retouched a lot of business portraits, a few actor headshots and even some family portraits. Common retouching requests include removing stray hairs, brightening eyes and teeth, minimizing facial wrinkles, eliminating double chins, fixing skin issues, and repairing clothing malfunctions.
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Photo Retouching Using Human Intelligence

A recent example of my retouching. The photo is by Vancouver photographer Mark Gibbon. A public affairs agency requested the retouching.

Artificial intelligence (AI) may some day make photo retouching as simple as a few clicks. But the technology isn’t there yet. Current AI software is only for retouching human portraits.
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