Retouching

I wanted to take a few minutes and post a retouching before and after. This is my pal, Kace. Kace started getting a little restless during our shoot and needed to stop for a cookie break. And since he's two, he's not the cleanest cookie eater on the planet.



Once he was done we continued to take a few more pictures before cleaning his face. The before is pretty much straight from my camera with only minor level adjustments. Aside from the obvious brightening of the photograph and saturation boosting, there are a few other things going on here. You can see from the first picture that there is some cookie slime below his mouth and also an unpleasant shadow. You can also see a couple of little red dots, probably old mosquito bites on his face. In the after his mouth is cleaned up and the dots are gone. I also sharpened and brightened his eyes a little.

This is an example of some standard retouching that I do to every photograph. I clean up skin blemishes, reduce lines and wrinkles, smooth skin, whiten teeth, and brighten eyes for all client photos. I do it all in a natural way so you still look like you just maybe a little fresher. I've even cleaned up some yucky toddler noses....just think of it as digital kleenex. All of my digital editing is done with Adobe Photoshop CS3.

So if you're planning on doing senior pictures and you've got a nasty zit that you just can't get rid of, don't give it another thought. It won't be there in your pictures.