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A recent Spanish study, published November 2024, confirmed once again that people whose portraits are perceived as attractive are also seen as more intelligent and trustworthy.

The study used 462 pairs of portraits, each showing a person before and after a beauty filter was applied. The photos were rated by 2,748 participants, aged 18 to 88, with an equal number of males and females from the UK, US, and Canada. The participants were shown random subsets of the portraits, but never both versions of the same photo.

The results were clear: portraits with the beauty filter consistently received higher ratings for traits like intelligence, trustworthiness, and sociability.
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Here are eight reasons why you should consider retouching for your family photos:

1. Enhance Image Quality

Professional retouching can correct issues such as poor lighting, shadows, or dull colours, and bring out the true beauty of your photo. This will help the image look vibrant and sharp, especially when printed.

2. Eliminate Imperfections

Everyone has minor imperfections, whether it’s blemishes, stray hairs, or other distractions. Retouching can smooth skin, remove small imperfections, and refine details to ensure that everyone looks their best.
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Here are a few reasons why you should have your business headshot or other professional portrait retouched:

Correct lighting, colour and contrast:   Retouching can correct uneven lighting, minimize unwanted shadows, and adjust the colour balance, contrast and saturation. This will create a more visually appealing portrait that will draw more attention.

Enhance colour:   This is more than correcting the colour. Colour correction means whites are white, greys are neutral grey, and blacks are black. Colour balance, also called colour grading, is adjusting the hue of each colour. Should your skin be a warm tone or a cooler tone? A warm tone suggests friendliness but a cool tone implies authority and strength. What shade of blue works best for your blue shirt: navy blue, cobalt blue, a warm blue, a cold blue? Colour affects our emotion which then affects our perception.
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There’s no need to read this post because it’s only meant to publish two links for search engine use. I want to see how long it takes search engines to pick up the links.

I’m doing more photo retouching than photography. A big reason is that photo retouching doesn’t require any driving. Traffic in Toronto has been terrible for at least 20 years and it keeps getting worse each year. I could do a long blog post about bad traffic and stupid drivers, but not today.

Photo retouching is always done calmly and quietly which is something I can’t say about all photography jobs. On the other hand, photography is more exciting and you meet new people all the time.

Over the years, I’ve worked out of three studios. Shooting in a studio was nice because there was no driving, (except driving to the studio), and equipment didn’t have to be transported around town. But a studio is expensive and, because most of my photography was done on location, a studio was superfluous.

I now specialize in portrait retouching. Family portraits, business headshots and wedding photos are the kinds of images I work with. But remember that retouching isn’t limited to just improving people’s faces. Retouching is also used to correct and enhance real estate photos, pictures of offices and buildings, product photos and any other image that needs to look better.

My retouching customers have told me that they want their photos retouched locally rather than by a business in a faraway country. It’s a good thing to shop locally and there’s more accountability with a local business.

If you’re looking for photo retouching in Canada or, more specifically, photo retouching in Toronto, please take a look at my main website for more information and samples of my retouching.

A recent customer didn’t like the retouching I did on his business headshot. But he also admitted that the retouching was exactly what he had asked for. When compared to the original picture, shot by another photographer, he thought the retouched proof photo made him look too good!

He paid $100 for the original photo and believed, for that price, it couldn’t be improved that much.

When I asked him to look only at the retouched proof, he admitted it looked realistic and natural. I asked if the retouched proof made him look his best. He laughed and said it made him look his best but only on a good day. Despite this, he chose to cancel the retouching.
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