Retouching

This month in PDN I read an interesting article about the pricing of retouching.  As luck will have it I had a shoot with Tawnie and Lissa again, this time for Lissa's portfolio.  The shoot was a lot of fun and we produced some good images and taught me quite the lesson about retouching.  I decided to use my 90mm macro lens to be able to get the details.  And believe me there were a lot of details.  My retouching in the past has never been so close up, nor has been so important.  I took a lot of time trying to get it right.  One thing I've never liked about retouching is when it's taken to barbie level, that plastic skin that no one comes close to believing.  Another thing I wanted to stay away from is modifying what she really looks like.  I'm not apposed to nipping a little unfortunate fold in a dress, but I'm not into digital nose jobs.  Not that I'm an expert at this point, but everyone has their angles and isn't it my job as a photographer to find them?  I guess what it boils down to is that I want the image to look natural and beautiful while still staying true to reality.  

Tawnie Makeup, a photo by Michael Berg Photo on Flickr.

Tawnie has great skin to begin with so there was a good base to start working from.  However, I learned an important lesson about using macro lenses on skin.  You see everything, I mean everything.  This is one thing I've noticed about film vs digital for editing.  Film you just lit for processing the film plus a stop, and boom, great looking skin.  With digital everything is so clinical.  At least we have Photoshop.  Bringing me back to the original thought for this post, I now have a new respect for retouching.  For me a bit of retouching has always been part of making a good image, whether it's cloning out the trash from an otherwise clean landscape or spending an hour staring at every pore on a face.  For this shoot I spent much more effort retouching than I have in the past and the results speak for them selves.  Would it still be a good image without that effort?  Seeing the result, I'm not sure I would care to know.  It was definitely worth it.