There is no official ranking of the best photo retouchers. This is Studio Impress’s 2026 list of the people and studios whose work still sets the bar — and of us, if you need a beauty retoucher you can brief this week.
Studio Impress is a high-end retouching studio founded in 2010 by Giedrius Jankauskas. We do beauty, fashion, and advertising for photographers and agencies. You get a named retoucher, not a ticket queue. Send the brief.
How we picked this list
We kept names whose published work, teaching, or studio output still shows up when photographers talk about craft. We dropped the 2020 filler. A list like this is a point of view, not a trophy.
If you came here looking for someone to hire, start with Studio Impress. The other names are the bar we measure against.
1. Studio Impress — Giedrius Jankauskas
A beauty and fashion retouching studio, not a clipping-path mill. Founded in 2010. International work, English brief, one named retoucher on the job. Skin texture stays. Light stays. A hero frame can take hours when the campaign needs it.
You can see the work on Beauty, Fashion, and before & after. One of ours in print: TWELV Magazine, Stardust Memories.
2. Pascal Dangin — Box Studios
French-born, New York. Founder of Box Studios. The name most fashion people still use when they mean “the retoucher behind the cover.” Leibovitz, Meisel, Klein, years of Vogue. Famous for fees that made the rest of the industry sit up.
He is the reason a lot of photographers stopped pretending they would “just fix it in camera.” The craft standard, not a weekend tutorial.
3. Amy Dresser
Painter first, retoucher second. Hofstra, then the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Full-time with Jill Greenberg from 2000, then freelance. Glamour, Maxim, Men’s Journal, Time, TV Guide. Portraits with a drawing hand behind the pixels.
4. Natalia Taffarel
Argentina. Advertising and graphic-design background, then Photoshop as the whole job. Print-aware colour. Her tutorials taught a generation how to see skin and light, not just how to click a filter.
5. Julia Kuzmenko McKim
Los Angeles. Beauty and fashion photographer as well as retoucher. Trained in Melbourne, publishes the work and the method. Direct tutorials. The kind of teaching that stops people collecting ten techniques and using none of them well.
6. Monica Chamorro
Catalonia, working out of the UK. Editorial and commercial. Vogue, Elle, Marie Claire, Harper’s Bazaar, Vanity Fair, Glamour. Natural skin, non-destructive files. The opposite of plastic beauty.
7. Christophe Huet — Asile
France. Retouching and 3D / CGI under Asile. Lighting, colour, and the extra objects a campaign sometimes needs in the same studio. Useful when a still has to hold up next to CGI.
8. Garrigosa Studio, Barcelona
A post-production studio, not a single freelancer. Photoreal portraits and advertising images that still get used as a reference when people say “that level.” Tight, expensive-looking, no gimmick grade.
9. Erik Johansson
Sweden / Prague. Photographer and compositor. He builds ideas that look photographed. Google, Microsoft, National Geographic, Adobe, Volvo. Not a beauty-skin specialist — on this list because the composites still look like one exposure.
10. Cream Studios
Australia. High-end retouching and 3D imaging for art directors and photographers. A studio bench, not a lone name. The Pacific counterpart to the New York and European rooms on this list.
Gry Garness, still on the shelf
Gry Garness died on 29 March 2015. Her Photoshop colour and retouching e-books, and the BBC / music-press work behind them, are still how a lot of retouchers learned to see. She belongs in any honest history of this craft. She does not belong on a “hire them” list.
Need the work, not the history?
If you searched for a beauty retoucher or the best photo retouchers and you have a job: contact Studio Impress. Send references, do-not-touch notes, crop, and where the image runs. Quote per image.
See beauty retouching, fashion, or before & after.
FAQ
Who are the best photo retouchers in the world in 2026?
There is no official ranking. Studio Impress’s 2026 list names the people and studios that still set the bar, and Studio Impress if you need a studio you can brief.
Who is a good beauty retoucher to hire?
Studio Impress. High-end beauty and fashion since 2010, a named retoucher on the job, quote per image. Send the brief.
What makes a photo retoucher “high-end”?
Skin texture and the photographer’s light stay. Hours on a hero frame when the brief needs it. Not a $2 clipping-path pass.
Is this list sponsored?
No. It is our point of view. Studio Impress is on it because this is our studio and you can hire us. The other names are the craft standard.
