Professional and amateur beauty retouchers
In our company we have professional beauty retouchers of highest level. We perfectly understand that there are many secrets working on portraits. Unfortunately, we face unprofessionally retouched photos every day. That is because of huge amount of amateur beauty retouchers.
So for those who want to improve their portfolio we wrote 5 most common mistakes that beauty retouchers make. This way you could recognise your own mistakes. Or find out what is wrong with your current beauty retouchers.
The first thing to say, is that while retouching it is very important to understand when to stop. Only “well-trained eyes” of professional beauty retouchers can do that. Make sure you choose reliable portrait retoucher. Reliable portrait retoucher is the one who has good taste, knowledge and technique.
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Unnaturally white teeth and white part of the eyes
The eyes for the portrait are a visual center. This is one of the most important parts of the photo. Good portrait retoucher knows that very well. Eyes themselves, their expression can affect the observer’s sensation. If you or you portrait retoucher overdo the retouching, eyes will become distracting or even annoying part of the portrait.
In order for the eyes to look naturaly, it is necessary to pay attention, that the tone of the eyeball wasn’t saturated too much. Look at the colour of the eyes of people around you. In nature, you won’t find bright blue or bright green eyes. You should seek for a beautiful but yet natural result.
Photography (c) Cloee Photography
Now talking about white part of the eye. Clean, pure, without redness eyes are associated with health. But even healthy eyes are not perfectly white. And even more, they do not glow whiteness.
The same applies to teeth. Bright white colour has blue tones, but you don’t want blue tones on your eyes and teeth, aren’t you? Of course, nobody wants to see yellow teeth also! But way too much-bleached teeth lose their naturalness and texture. Good beauty retouchers can make perfect view without making it un-realistic.
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Skin and its texture
As you know, when processing a portrait, skin processing takes most of the time. The main mistake in skin retouching is the disappearance of its texture. This occurs when unprofessionally retouched skin looks unnaturally smooth, similar to plastic.
Word “naturally” is the key to quality skin editing. It is also very important that the texture of the skin in different parts is different. As an example, professional portrait retoucher can detect 3 types of textures only on our foreheads. And therefore, simple copying from one side to another can lead to errors. Also, don’t forget that ageing, slightly enlarged pores are a normal natural factor.
And if you (or your portrait retoucher) retouch a portrait of an elderly woman and you remove all wrinkles, the portrait loses naturalness. The same applies to mimic wrinkles. When a person is smiling, facial expressions appear in the corners of the eyes. Removing them will destroy the emotional component of the portrait. If you are using services of beauty retouchers, make sure they have aesthetically good taste.
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Visual scope of a portrait
The following error occurs frequently after an unprofessionally made skin retouching. If you overdo and over the smooth skin of the model, and especially the texture of your skin, then the portrait becomes flat. And this strongly falls the eyes of the observer. Our face is definitely hard to call flat.
On the face, there are protruding parts, such as a nose, lips, chin, etc. If you overdo it and the image seems flat, then it’s easier to fix it using Dodge & Burn technique. Don’t forget different texture and slightly different colour that face has.
Photography (c) Cloee Photography
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Over-saturation of colours and very strong contrast
This error occurs when retoucher wants to make colours in the photo brighter, more contrasting. It’s very easy to move the Saturation slider from a pleasant saturation to over-saturation. Then the face turns into orange, and the rest of the colours become unrealistic. That kill the whole atmosphere of the portrait.
To avoid very big mistakes, you can try to gently add saturation or use the Vibrance slider instead of the saturation slider. Which adds saturation only to unsaturated colours and produces it very gently. Or contact Studio Impress and leave complicated work to professionals.
The same goes for the wrong contrast. Increasing the contrast, try not to change colours, unless, it’s part of the style of your portrait. But be honest to yourself, if its style or it’s lack of competence.
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Incorrectly selected colouring
This is a mistake that is really hard to explain. Because portrait retoucher feels that intuitively. Colouring is essentially a matter of taste, but nevertheless here retoucher has to be careful too. Even the most fashionable trends of colouring will not fit all the photos.
And incorrectly made colouring can lead to the fact that colours change. Some important details of the image may go to the background. Visual distracting effects may appear or the character and mood will change in the portrait.
It is also important to have a well-trained eye, good taste and aesthetic sensation. That’s why professional beauty retouchers can solve those problems easily. In conclusion, it is very important to understand, that photo post-production is a huge part of photos appeared in general. So pay attention who is retouching your photos and how it affects your success too.
