Retouching With Photoshop

Retouching With Photoshop

by William Lulow

Note: I have written a bit about retouching and, of late, I have gotten better at it. In the days of chemicals, you always had to start slowly with smaller brushes and build up density, always keeping an eye out not to do too much. Same caveats go for digital retouching, but the control of pixels is far easier than with continuous tone materials.

Retouching is an art unto itself! There are some great retouchers out there still, who can command high fees for what they do. In the days of film, I was doing some interior shots and inadvertently left a Polaroid print on a table in the shot. Neither I nor my two assistants that day, spotted it. It cost me $650 to have it retouched out of the shot. First, my original 4×5 transparency had to be copied and enlarged to 8×10 so the retoucher could see it better. Then, the actual retouching had to be done with an airbrush and ink. The finished version then had to be copied so that another 4×5 transparency could be made.

These days, a Photoshop artist basically has to do the same thing, except it can all be done at a computer instead of copying, retouching, copying again and remaking an original. I have seen some Photoshop professionals charge the same kinds of fees today for similar work. Even though it may be physically easier with the computer, there’s still a skill that has to be acquired in order to affect changes like this.

When I was learning about retouching (and I am certainly no expert), I found out that one of the secrets is that you need to build up tone slowly, brush stroke by brush stroke. This is no less true with Photoshop. Pixels and whole areas of the canvas need to be added back slowly in order to retain the “look and feel” of the original. I begin with the Healing Brush and sample a little bit of the surrounding pixels. Then, using the brush with a small tip, I begin to add the sampled element. When I’m trying to get the overall tone right, I sometimes use the Paint Brush to get the tone and then use the Healing Brush on top of that to add texture. When working with larger areas, I often begin with the Clone Stamp to see if I can add larger areas. Then I refine those areas by going back to the Healing Brush. With a PC, the “ALT” key will let you sample pixels. Select the brush you want, then hold down the ALT key to pick up a sample. The trick in Photoshop is to build up layers, each with a small bit of the retouch job, and merge them when the task is completed. You’ll need to use several layers so that you can see the job as it progresses using the LAYERS box. If you retouch with layers, you can also delete a layer that isn’t just right and start again.  So, even though the tools may have changed, the technique remains the same.

Here is one of my “amateur retouching” jobs. See if you can find all the changes. Better yet, see if you can still catch the imperfections.

One thing I always do when my clients are in my studio is to bring them up to my office and do my downloading and retouching while they are here. It really ensures that they have input into the kind of changes I make to their images. Here is an example:

In this image, I smoothed out the facial lines and removed any obvious blemishes in the skin. Depending on your subject, you may not want to retouch all lines, but if your subject is with you, they can tell you how much retouching they want.

There are ways that just about any image can be improved. In the days of the great landscape photographers like Ansel Adams, it was often that he would see an image in his mind’s eye, make an initial exposure and then think about how he would process the film and make changes in how he printed the image. He would do all this while actually exposing the film. He knew he was going to have to improve it later in the darkroom.

These days, with the computer and digital imaging, the process is really no different except for the fact that it is all done digitally now instead of in a darkroom. Here’s another example:

If you look closely at this original image, you can see the beginnings of an interesting photograph that just needs a bit of work in order to make it a really outstanding one. I could see that the cloud formations were really strong but just needed to be brought out more. The closed umbrellas told the story of the stormy day as did the waves on the water. There were some extraneous elements also like the extra beach furniture to the right and in the background. So, slowly, I set about trying to make a much for dynamic picture from this “raw material” and this is what I wound up with:

It is often that photographers do this sort of editing and retouching. Many times an image can be improved by some additional cropping and omitting extraneous details that only dilute the message. In this image, it was achieved by first eliminating those elements and then working on the sky to make it more dramatic. The sky was selected with the Quick Selection Tool and then adjusting the tones within the selection itself. This was done several times until I was satisfied that I had achieved the right amount of drama in the sky’s tones. I then selected the beach chairs in the foreground and made them lighter so that they would stand out more. Finally, I adjusted the overall brightness and contrast of the scene so that it would retain a dark, foreboding feel to it.

No matter what kind of scene you are looking at, it can usually be enhanced by working on it further and doing some retouching, color correction, cropping or other changes to make strong images even stronger.