Photography Retoucher

Below are samples of my photography retouching work. Before training as a photographer I had already spent many years in reprographics, splitting my work between desktop publishing and high-end retouching.

In the past I have worked for clients such as Adidas, Jaguar, Rolls Royce, JCB and Marks and Spencer on photography retouching projects. I have experience of colour matching, colour correcting, masking and compositing and since my transition into fashion photography I act as image editor for all of my own editorial and advertising photography so I have great experience in skin retouching, hair retouching and general image and clothing clean up.

The image opposite was a little bit of an extra I did after a recent professional photoshoot. The studio photography photoshoot was for female led brand Simply Be, for plus their sized clothing. The photoshoot was cast with different models of different sizes, races and looks to create an inclusive message, and the commitment of Simply Be to that philosophy.

One of the models has a beautiful face that’s heavily freckled, these freckles give Sophia a unique looks and identity which she embraces and make her stand out from the crowd. Although I love her looks I wanted to test myself and see how difficult it would be to remove most or all of the freckles. I definitely prefer Sophia with freckles but enjoyed the challenge of removing them while keeping a natural look and not blurring skin texture, these are the type of booking you really enjoy as a photography retoucher.

I Photographed the model on the left and when I looked through the images I liked the pose of one image and the facial expression of another image, the lingerie model had moved quite a lot between poses so there wan’t any similar images to choose from and I decided it would be a challenge, and good example, to do a head swap.

I took the face from the one image and replaced it on the image where I liked the pose and hey presto.

The image here was a beauty shot of a commercial model shot in natural light, the camera used was high megapixel and the lens was very high quality so at that crop any blemish was very obvious.

The retouch makes a drastic difference but still a natural looking result.

Highlighting my skillset as a Photography retoucher. The image on the left shows a sample photoshop retouch from a model portfolio shoot. On photoshoots like these there is no photo editing brief per se, other than to just make the fashion model or subject look better. Generally I make sure the skin is free of blemishes, if there’s signs of age I diminish it a little and other than that just a good old clean up.

On this particular image I cleaned up the skin and colour graded and improved the skin tone.

Colour matching and colour correction are very much a part of photography retouching but go under the radar as people often think retouching is all about ‘airbrushing’. The example shown here was a test I did on an image from a model portfolio shoot (Manchester model test).

The colour change was achieved with no masks, just adjustment layers and manipulations using colour modes. If the job had have been for a commercial client I would have also refined the slight pink contamination at the hair edges.

Photoshop Gets a Bad Rap

I am #teamphotoshop, in recent years something being ‘photoshopped’ is seen as a derogatory term, whereas in reality it’s an essential tool that when used sparingly is just a necessary part of the process.

Brief: Retouch/remove current ‘Team Sky’ branding and replace with new Team INEOS branding from flat logo’s supplied. Also change blue colour with magenta, retain realism and texture as though the riders are wearing the new kit. 30 Riders in total to be consistent with each other for colour and logo positioning.

This recent photography retouching commission was to alter the rider kit from the old Team SKY branding for their relaunch under the sponsorship of INEOS, due to the cyclists schedules they were unable to photograph the team in time for the launch.