portraits

Deciding whether or not to retouch your portrait depends on the purpose of the image and your personal preferences. Here are a few things to consider:

Purpose of the Portrait

If your portrait is going to be used for professional use (e.g., on a business website or a LinkedIn profile) then a polished image is essential to help convey professionalism. Some level of retouching is a common practice such as skin smoothing, removing blemishes, and brightening the eyes. Just to be clear, “skin smoothing” is not a glamour glow or a soft-focus effect. Skin smoothing evens colour and luminance tones.

For personal-use portraits, you most likely don’t need retouching. The exception is if you want to add a creative effect, a dramatic look, or a style that you like.
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Young people, particularly teenagers, often want to look older, while as adults, many wish to appear younger.

This paradox of age and appearance has been explored in literature, notably by F. Scott Fitzgerald in 1922 with The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. In this tale, a man ages in reverse, born looking like an old man, he becomes progressively younger until his death as an infant. A 2008 film starring Brad Pitt loosely adapted this story.

Time, however, only flows in one direction. Any attempts to reclaim youth are fleeting and superficial.
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Photo retouching of business portraits isn’t just about the person’s face. Retouching can also fix clothing mishaps such as a crooked tie, a loose collar, wrinkled clothing, a missing button, an open zipper, a twisted pocket flap, etc.

Clothing mishaps aren’t a big deal in personal photos but they shouldn’t be ignored in a business headshot. If it looks like the person doesn’t care about their appearance, then how much do they care about their job?
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One of the more difficult, if not impossible, retouching tasks is removing facial hair. Removing a beard or moustache can be impossible to do because the facial hair has to be replaced by realistic-looking skin that matches the person’s face. Also, the photo retoucher has no idea what the person’s jaw and mouth look like under the facial hair. The retoucher can only guess and the results will not be accurate.
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Almost all business headshots and other portraits need to be retouched. This is often done to fix mistakes the photographer made or to repair something that was overlooked such as a crooked tie. Being neatly groomed will make you appear more competent.
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