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 not be accurate.
It’s important for men, and some women, to pay attention to their facial hair before they have a portrait done. It’s much easier, faster and cheaper to trim or remove facial hair before the photography is done. If you rely on retouching to remove facial hair, you may be disappointed.
Other impossible retouching tasks include removing sunglasses from someone’s face, removing a hat from someone’s head, and removing anything in front of a complicated background. When something is removed from a photo, it has to be replaced by something else. You can’t leave a blank spot in the photograph.
If sunglasses are removed, you have to guess what the person’s eyes look like. If a hat is removed, you have to guess what the person’s head and hair look like. Even artificially intelligent photo software has trouble guessing because it can’t realistically remove facial hair, sunglasses, hats, or anything in front of a complicated background.
