The 4 Things to Always Retouch in Your Pictures

The notion that retouching is just for portraits is a myth. Retouching is used in landscape photography, macro photography, and other photographic disciplines as well. In short—knowing how to correct minor defects in a picture will always come in handy. So learn to work with retouching tools.

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AuthorMajo Elias

I’ve been taking pictures since 2004. When I was starting out, I photographed almost everything. Later my style solidified and I began photographing people almost exclusively. At the moment my main genres are fashion and advertising.

Comments (4)

  1. Good article on basic edits. I’m a little surprised you didn’t mention sharpening, which is often considered essential. After brightening the eyes, for instance, a subtle touch of sharpening will help them to stand out. And most photos will benefit with a bit of over-all sharpening after all other edits are done.

    1. Hi Dan, thanks for your comment! If we are talking about retouching in sense of reducing or removing some imperfections, then sharpening is a different kind of edit. But you are right, sharpening will help any portrait. There’s an article about sharpening through High Pass: https://learn.zoner.com/high-pass-master-contrast-and-sharpness/ and there will be soon an article about sharpening in general and different kinds of sharpening.

  2. Thank you for the information. One thing that would have helped we newbies is to give a reason that the first photo was damaged by retouching. Perhaps it is my monitor or my inexperience however I cant pick out what is damaged.

    thank you non the less for the tutorial. It is appreciated.

    1. Thank you Andrew for your feedback. Skin of the girl on the first photo is too smooth. The skin has no texture, so it looks quite unnatural.

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