People sometimes confuse photo retouching with the generic term “airbrushing.” A person will often ask that their picture be airbrushed when they really mean they want technical errors fixed (e.g. too light, too dark, bad colour, etc.), distractions removed, the background changed, a building straightened, etc.
Today’s digital photo retouching might use a digital airbrush for certain effects but there are many other tools more commonly used for retouching. Digital airbrushing is only a tiny part of retouching.
Photo retouching isn’t just for business portraits. Real estate pictures always need retouching to fix exposure and colour and to straighten walls. Product photos usually need to remove dust, fingerprints and reflections. Retouching can be used to add an image to a TV screen or computer display. Business conference photography and factory photography usually need some retouching.
Most business photos can benefit from some level of retouching because professionally retouched photos make your business look good.