by Colleen
The other day I was doing makeup for a shoot and from where I was working I could clearly see the retoucher busy working on a previous photoshoot. A retoucher is a highly skilled person who spends their days photoshopping pictures for clients such as photographers, magazines, catalogues etc. She was working so quickly, clicking here and there all over the photo removing blemishes, wrinkles, adding light, smoothing under the eyes on a zoomed in fashion photo. When she zoomed back out it was …wow! Well there’s a gorgeous picture; that’s not to say it wasn’t gorgeous to start with, but with these subtle enhancements it just gave it that wow factor. And there’s nothing wrong with that. Tweaking the photo after uploading to the computer is part of the art form and pictures coming straight from the camera are in RAW format and need to be processed.
What is wrong with it is that our eyes are USED to seeing images this way; slick and retouched. We believe that the images we are seeing in magazines are how people really look with their hair and makeup done in person. I look back at the images I did as a model ( before photoshop) and I can actually see where it would have been better retouched here and there, but we wore a lot of makeup and everything had to be just perfect before taking the picture. Today makeup applications can be much lighter and you can see the skin shine through because with retouching a few areas the skin can be made to look flawless. In our day either your skin was flawless or you had on a thick layer of foundation and powder.
With today’s trends of #iwokeupthisway makeup and hair and a more relaxed attitude towards perfection, I think it’s ok to see a few flaws, in fact it makes the whole photo feel more real but still beautiful and maybe more relatable.
How do you feel about retouching?
photos: Unseen Vogue – The Secret History of Fashion Photography; Robin Derrick and Robin Muir 2002