portraits

Turning Back The Clock

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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 Clothing

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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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Retouching Business Portraits

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If something doesn’t work as it’s supposed to, you might be able to fix it. But if it’s beyond repair then you’ll have to replace it. (US Library of Congress)

If your business photos don’t function properly, retouching might be able to fix them. Otherwise you’ll have to replace them with better quality images.

Business headshot photography has been part of my business for about 30 years. Over the years, I’ve learned that some companies understand the function of business headshots and some don’t.
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A Close Shave

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Removing a small amount of facial hair is usually easy to do. But realistically removing a beard, moustache or a lot of stubble can be impossible.

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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Retouching Business Headshots and Other Portraits

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Of course I’m going to retouch my own headshot and make myself look as good as possible.

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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Prompt For Business Portraits

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You don’t have to look too closely to notice that there’s something wrong with these business portraits.

Artificial intelligence image generators are so much fun. The above images were created using a simple text prompt of “business portrait of company CEO.” Every time the prompt was run, the Stable Diffusion image generator kept creating very similar looking images of white males.
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Retouching Business Headshots

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Prison mugshots from Kingston Penitentiary in Ontario, 1913. (Library and Archives Canada)

I’ve retouched a lot of business portraits, a few actor headshots and even some family portraits. Common retouching requests include removing stray hairs, brightening eyes and teeth, minimizing facial wrinkles, eliminating double chins, fixing skin issues, and repairing clothing malfunctions.
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