To a Degree
May 20, 2008
Along with making photos, I’ve found that a portraitist needs to develop a philosophy of retouching. I prefer to acknowledge that skin has pores. Indeed it can take more time to retouch a portrait that retains skin texture than it takes to blast the skin out with a blur and remove all sense of reality. Here’s an example of my current taste in retouching:
Retouched
Raw (sorry Mel).
The basic rule is to leave a few flaws in so that the picture doesn’t look fake.
I used to be in the digital imaging and retouching business back in the early days of Photoshop — I still have my original v.1.0 floppy — and I did a lot of work using a Mac IIci with 68 mb of RAM (the RAM cost $2400!). Once the business started rolling I hired another artist and we ran Quadras, then 604 towers, along with an Iris Smartjet proofer and a Leaf scanner. It was a real money-maker — until the ad agencies “wised up” and art directors started pretending to know how to use Photoshop. But once that happened I just shifted into doing the next new thing… something called the interweb, webpages, all that. It worked out OK for me. And it gave me pleasure to see my souless arch-rivals, an imaging outfit called Cromogen, go belly-up because they couldn’t adapt.
Karma’s a bitch.
Here’s an interesting article from The New Yorker on noted retoucher Pascal Dangin.
Reader Comments (add yours)
1. Rainer — May 20 2008 04:10 PM
Hi Frank,
I take a look to your site from time to time (got your Graflex with the 135mm about a year ago). I think that your "current retouching taste" is just perfect. It still shows real humans and not these blurred alabaster faces.
BTW: lots of those with Mel are simply gorgeous.
Best, Rainer
2. mel — May 21 2008 03:46 PM
that's quite acceptable frank, i told you you could :)
3. CE Nelson — Jun 3 2008 10:30 AM
Frank - either version would work, but I have to say I personally prefer the untouched version. As I've been working on my portrait series, there have been a handful of subjects--male and female--who wanted to know right off the bat if I intended to clean up their skin in post, worried their blemishes and such would ruin the shot. I could only explain to them that I wouldn't think of removing a hair on their face lest I ruin the reality of the individual sitting before me.
Commercial work would no doubt compel me to rethink my position on zit-nuking, but I've no desire at this time and place to pursue commercial work.
Your retouch looks fine.
C.