ASHLEE GRAY TALKS THROUGH HER
RETOUCHING ON THIS IMAGE“For me, an image has gone too far when you’ve lost natural texture,
dimension and shape,” says Ashlee Gray. “Texture can be lost by a
number of ways, blurring and cloning are probably the top two.
Dimension is often lost by removing natural smile lines completely,
making the whites of the eyes too white, and by removing shadows
under the eyes or lips. Having a basic understanding of anatomy is
really important so that tools like Liquify aren’t abused when trying to
shape parts of the body. In the end if retouching goes too far it looks
cheap and tacky. I suggest keeping it simple by polishing the skin while
keeping some natural elements such as moles or freckles. On the other
hand, those who are learning how to retouch often forget about the
body parts matching the face. The face will look clean and polished but
the arms, hands, and legs will all be a different skin tone. Don’t forget
about the rest of the body!”“The best retouchers have a solid understanding of light, anatomy and composition,”
explains Daniel Meadows. “It’s helpful to study the planes of the face, of the way light and
shadow behave from a traditional art standpoint. Good make-up tutorials that deal with
contouring are also a great source of knowledge and inspiration. There are centuries of
sound advice from before we had Photoshop or even photography – be sure to learn from
them! One of the most important things to learn as a beginner is what a flaw is or isn’t. I
engage online with a lot of beginner retouchers and try to offer advice where I can, and I
know how easy it is to be over-enthusiastic. Lines under the eyes, moles, freckles, beauty
spots, perfectly natural neck creases, I’ve seen them all wiped out. Usually the question
‘why?’ is enough to prompt a eureka moment of ‘you know, I’m really not sure!’ Beauty
retouching isn’t about creating a wax model. You learn as you go that less is often more,
that if it isn’t improving the shot it really isn’t worth doing simply because you have the
tools to do so. Remember that the brand or photographer chose the model for a reason.
Slightly contour an unfortunately squished bit by all means, improve a line a little for
composition, but the small percentage of retouchers whose first instinct is to make
someone thinner need to re-evaluate their methods.”“A good retoucher is someone who will
obviously go above and beyond their client’s
expectations, without being asked,” argues Bedi.
“After all, the final result of the image will also
reflect on their reputation. I generally start by
looking at an image to see what I think has to be
done to it, then send my client back a marked up
version with notes. Normally they will add to the
mark up. If I think too much has been added, I
usually flag it up straight away as I wouldn’t want
to give them back something that may look like
a waxwork, or just overly retouched. I am
strongly against the term ‘it can be fixed in post’.
This screams at me if I am sent an image where
the hair and make-up has not been done
properly, which is where the line is crossed for
too much retouching to be done. I have had to
deal with a few of these in recent times where I
have had to just turn the job down.”- FACE TO THE FORE
- ARTISTIC, NOT ANOREXIC 09. A FACE TOO FAR
- ABOVE AND BEYOND
© Photographer: Charn S. Bedi, make up: Aimee Bassi © Photographer: Sarah Silver
© Photographer: Lara JadeA sharp hairline: Her
hair had some subtle motion and a beautiful
shape so it was pretty minimal work, only
removing cross hairs and a few distracting
flyaways, as well as cleaning up the hairline.Bringing the burn: main focus was bringing The
out her eyes and the gold of the eye shadow. I built
in dimension using dodging and burning and
also put a tone on the background that made it
a little cooler.Horizontal power:all the other vertical shots. This beauty shot allowed us We picked this one to help break up
to get much tighter and really focus on her beauty.Making the cut: The image
was part of an editorial we did for Factice magazine. It
wasn’t part of the original selection; it wasn’t until we
were almost finished with the retouching of the others
that we added this one in, to make the story a little more
well rounded.Clothing concerns:top she had was pretty The
structured and fit her really well, so it only
required a bit of shaping around her
shoulder area.Facial freestyle:don’t know how to tackle When I
tricky things I like to do what I call ‘freestyling’.
It’s basically creating a new layer and telling
myself I’m going to problem solve using any
way I can think of, and if it doesn’t work out I’ll
just delete the layer, grab another coffee and
start all over.PHOTO EDITING