A customer had commissioned a small caricature of themselves and they wanted to print and frame it. But the caricature was drawn on an iPad and was relatively low resolution. The drawing looked great when viewed on a small computer screen but the low resolution only allowed it to print at the size of a playing card. The customer wanted a 12″x16″ print.
Simply enlarging the image made it look worse because it was a bitmap, not a vector image. Enlarging a bitmap image causes it to appear out of focus, with jagged edges.
So, I “retouched” the caricature by enlarging it 1,000% and then redrawing all the edges to smooth out the jaggedness. I corrected the blacks and whites to ensure they would print true to colour. Finally, I sharpened the image so the lines would print crisply.
Retouching a digital drawing without altering the original look can be tricky. It’s necessary to match the digital brush strokes, texture, colours and shading. The success of retouching depends on the drawing’s complexity.
My background is in photography not illustration. Retouching a photo is about pixels; retouching a drawing is about lines. Photo retouching should preserve the realism of the image. Retouching a drawing should preserve the artist’s style and expression.