Retouching exposed: beneath the surface of Blue – Page 0

November 8, 2011

Retouching exposed: beneath the surface of Blue

Retouching exposed: beneath the surface of Blue – Page 1

November 8, 2011

Retouching is such a peculiar profession; essentially, we spend countless hours working on the minor details of an image, in order to make the image look as close to ‘in-camera’ perfect as possible. It’s like some sort of tireless and bizarre quest for an unnatural natural perfection. Of course, some retouchers prefer to leave a much more overstated impact on the final image; but really, only other retouch nerds are going to be able to spot these flourishes. When the general image viewing public consumes these images, they’re much more likely to comment on the incredible photography, rather than the outstanding retouching, on display.

I recently started to receive a small amount of traffic from the Retouch Pro forums, an excellent resource for the enquiring retoucher, where I was led to a thread that revolved around analysing Blue, a shoot I worked on for Hannah Khymych some months ago. It’s always nice to get some attention for work you’ve done, and it is, in turn, always interesting to see other peers discussing their interpretation of the techniques used to achieve a certain look. I was, however, disheartened to see the conversation focus on the retouching techniques used to achieve the final results, as though it were an automatic assumption that everything that remained in the final frame was a result of (unneccessarily overcomplicated) post-processing.

Retouching exposed: beneath the surface of Blue – Page 2

November 8, 2011

We sort of exist in a photographic world now where revealing unretouched images is almost unheard of. When I received the raw files for this story, I was blown away by the phenomenal level of skill present in Hannah’s lighting, direction and composition, not to mention the amazing work by the hair and make up artists (Nicole Obert and Nina Park respectively) and of course, Karlina herself. They were, essentially, close to perfect files, at least for my sensibilities. I’d say the impact the retouching has on the final files is minimal; I walked in after the entire shoot had taken place, and tried to make the overall aesthetic consistent in all the images. It’s all I ever seek to do. I wanted the finish to compliment the incredible work done by the amazing team and didn’t want to distract from Hannah’s exceptional technical work and overall vision for the shoot.

To that end, and with Hannah’s permission, I’m posting a single raw file from the shoot and comparing it, side-by-side, with the final retouched image. Unfortunately, it’s quite rare that we are able to make these sorts of informed evaluations on what’s actually been done to an image in Photoshop post-capture; in order to promote the ideals of a more transparent form of retouching, it’s so refreshing to be able to freely show a before and after and inform people precisely what has been edited.

Retouching exposed: beneath the surface of Blue – Image 1

November 7, 2011

Retouching exposed: beneath the surface of Blue – Image 2

November 7, 2011