For Customers

Retouching Business Portraits

The original photo isn’t usable for a business portrait. The dark eyes, the reflections in the eyeglasses, the odd skin colour, the sour facial expression, and all the distractions in the background make this photo very weak.

The retouched photo still isn’t the best business headshot, but all the flaws are fixed and the photo is very presentable.

Business headshot photography has been part of my business for about 30 years. I’ve learned that some companies understand the purpose of business headshots and some don’t.
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Cheap Is Not A Bargain

If you wear eyeglasses, this is how your business portrait should look. No reflections on the lenses, no greenish tint from the anti-glare coating, 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.

The Peril of Cheap Photography

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.

Removing Facial Hair

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 that matches the person’s face. 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.
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Why Professional Portraits Need Retouching

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

Almost all professional portraits and business headshots require retouching. Photographers typically do this to correct technical mistakes or fix overlooked details like a crooked tie.

Retouching your business headshot isn’t about vanity. It’s smart business marketing.

When a photo shows even skin tones, a genuine smile, and sparkling eyes, it makes you look healthier and more attractive. This, in turn, makes you appear friendlier and more trustworthy. This is the exact impression you want to convey in a professional setting.
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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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Prompt For Business Portraits

You don’t have to look too closely to notice that there’s something wrong with these business portraits.

Artificial intelligence image generators are so much fun. The above images were created using a simple text prompt of “business portrait of company CEO.” Every time the prompt was run, the Stable Diffusion image generator kept creating very similar looking images of white males.
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Photo Retouching Makes You Look Good

Here’s a vinyl banner on the side of a large van belonging to a company that makes and installs glass shower enclosures. The centre photo shows a shower stall with blue masking tape from the installation. The shower on the right has reflections of a nearby window. All three photos are crooked and distorted.

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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