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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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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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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Congratulations, you finally got a new business headshot done. Good for you and good for your business.

But is the photo ready to be displayed on your web site?
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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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