PHOTO EDITING AND RETOUCHING
Editing and retouching are two terms that are used interchangeably and are somewhat similar however provide distinctive differences in achieving specific outcomes. Both techniques apply changes to existing images.
Editing usually refers to color and brightness correction, saturation, and cropping. Retouching is more targeted towards specific details and is ever-present in beauty shots where skin blemishes and imperfections are removed, skin is smoothed and other corrections are applied.
In the first example below editing was applied to bring the scene to life and recreate what the photographer saw but the camera didn’t capture. Rocky tones look washed out and flat while in reality colors were much warmer and reddish. Highlights of splashing waves were also recovered.
In the next landscape warmer tones were brought up and some highlights, midtones, and textures recovered. In this particular image, the sky was replaced and matched in warmth. There is a distinctive difference in how editing is applied in photojournalism where images would usually remain very close to the original and in the landscape genre where editing is often applied very heavily.
The creek scene brings a very common issue in landscape and outdoor photography which is uneven lighting. Most of the photo is underexposed with the upper area a bit too light. Fixing this reveals a lot more detail making the photo more balanced and pleasant to look at. Some localized retouchings were also applied.
The image of the dunes was converted to black and white. Removing haze and adding more contrast in the foreground created a much more dramatic image.
This portrait of a teenage girl is a good example of standard retouching. The background was distracting from the subject and, therefore was cleaned up creating a uniform surface. Hair flyaways were removed and the hairline was smoothed as well the skin on the side of the head was covered. Highlights and shadows on the face were corrected to create smoother lighting. Details in eyes were recovered to bring more life.
Similar to the image above, the background was cleaned up to bring more attention to the subject. The boy’s face was very washed out and lacking contrast. The image was brightened and contrast was carefully applied.
