To improve your own retouching work, McLaughlin
advises that you look at other great photography for
inspiration. “Truly awesome images have been
expertly retouched as well as superbly shot, as
what’s left out can be as critical as what’s left in.
Quite often I’ll study an image to get an
understanding of the lighting setups used as much
as the retouching techniques. If the retouching has
been done well, you’ll probably have a hard time
telling what the retoucher has done!
“My own rule of thumb is not to let the viewer see
my lights or modifiers reflected anywhere in the
subject, and definitely no dust left on there. When you
look at even a well-cleaned product straight from“Colour casts and removing unwanted items,
logos, and extending backgrounds and floors are
the most common changes,” says Andy
McLaughlin (http://tcistudio.co.uk). “Often the
trickiest are seemingly the simplest. Extending
areas like floors can be tricky and can require
re-creating your own textures and custom
brushes to match the original textures. Clone
Stamping and Content-Aware Fill may give you a
starting point, but are often affected by light
gradients and vignetting caused by light fall-off.
Clone Stamping these types of surfaces can just
create a blotchy mess. In my own work, the most
common retouching is bleaching backgrounds
and making dark areas clean. I use a lot of
channel masking to create accurate selections
for layer masks and adjustment layers. I retouch
a lot of my own photography and I think that
understanding the image as a photographer
makes me a better retoucher and visa versa.”“Many finished images are what we lovingly refer to
as ‘Frankensteined’,” jokes Nancy Lund Springer
(http://nlsretoucher.com). “It is very common in
product retouching to not receive ‘golden’ samples,
as the product has not been fully developed; but the
packaging, including the images for that packaging,
needs to be developed. You may sometimes get a
crude image of the product in whatever iteration of
production it happens to be in accompanied by a
printed schematic that represents the final size,- PRODUCT PROBLEMS 17. FIND YOUR OWN STYLE
- KEEP THE CLIENT IN MIND
© Andy McLaughlin
© Andy McLaughlinproportion, materials, colours and graphics for that
particular product. A retoucher’s job is to make that
image believably match the schematic. There are
some tricks to this type of retouching that
incorporate a lot of drawing techniques, a good
imagination and a determination to make a
less-than-perfect image look amazing.
“Patience and discipline are important traits for
retouchers, along with speed, and a good eye for
detail. Good retouchers have a passion for their
work. They also must have a good understandingof colour correction, lighting, shadows and
compositing. You have to be willing to ask questions,
step out of your comfort zone and experiment. You
must be willing to accept advice and criticism. You
need to have a solid understanding of your tools and
keyboard shortcuts to access them. The ability to
seamlessly move from one project to another when
priorities change is very important. And it is critical
that you understand your client’s vision to envision
the final results. The most successful retouchers
understand the value of customer service.”camera, there’s loads of fine dust on there; get rid of
it. Create your own set of golden rules regarding
what you always fix or change, or faults to fix every
time. Before you know it, you’ll have your own style.
In my own work I love to explore mixing graphic art,
photography and retouching, I love enhancing my
own product photography with light painting as well
as freezing liquids with flash and incorporating the
results. They are often unexpected and unusual,
especially with liquid.
“I believe that the combination of creative
retouching and the different photography techniques
brings an element of surprise and an unusual twist
to displaying products, and some interesting graphic
arts images.”RETOUCHING TIPS