Photo retouching mistakes to avoid

There are more than a thousand ways by which results can be obtained when you retouch using Photoshop. This has both advantages and pitfalls. Anyone can experiment his skills in retouching but certain photo retouching mistakes are there that should be avoided. Let’s have a glance on three most common ones.

Photo retouching

Quick skin retouching

The most important quality expected to accomplish professional skin retouching flawlessly is patience. Following internet tutorials to learn things is good but certain bad habits are developed in anyone who relies irrelevant and sources. Every tutorial is keen to make things quicker and easier. If you are looking for perfection, accept the fact with a pinch of salt- certain thing take time and you can’t help it. 

To get great results with skin retouching, hours will be needed; to dodge and burn pixels as well as groups of it, a lot of time is needed but it’s the best way to do it. Certain level of precision is needed for this high end retouching.

Frequency separation is a great technique that can help. Over the years, it has gained popularity. Using this, you can separate colours from a picture’s texture to process them individually. Another way is contouring by which you can use highlights and shadows for reshaping the face.

Retouch whole picture

Don’t concentrate fully on a single area. Most people focus exclusively on the face and it’s a really bad practice that no professional photo retouching company follows. It is important to spend time and eliminate flyaway hairs, background imperfections, and dust spots. However, rest of the skin should not be neglected. You should also work on the cloth part.

It is many times recommended to lessen post processing so as to avoid mistakes. Skin blur techniques fastened with the same type of noise and sharpness level looks horrible and make the photo looks unreal.

Retouching face alone makes the disparity most noticeable and leads to a weird overall look. You should therefore perceive the picture as a whole image. A company offering photo retouching services always keeps this in mind.

Eliminating or retaining character marks

A portrait photography is one that represents and individual, his mood and character. It is quite palpable that before the session, you should make the necessary preparations. Right camera and lens should be there. Lighting must be adequate and clothing should be complementary.

Now it’s the time for photo retouching for photographers. Normally, clients ask to remove mole, freckles, spots and blemishes etc. as they want to appear more beautiful. However, don’t be prejudiced when it comes to portraits. Never remove any natural marks unless demanded by the client. You can remove temporary things like dark circles owing to lack of sleep, razor burns or cuts etc.

Always remember that, client is the right person to seek opinion and he is the one to be pleased. Let the client decide what level of retouching he needs. You should inquire and communicate to him all the options available. This will avoid any issues in future by giving you exact clarity regarding the type and level of image editing service he needs. Also read about the mistakes that make retouched skin look artificial.

You can find a lot of tips and tricks online but still you must possess more than the basic knowledge about different photo editing tools and techniques to achieve perfect results. There are a lot of companies offering post production photography services for photographers. If you have made up your mind to outsource, hire the right one with proven expertise and you will never repent.