The Retouch Challenge...I Accepted!!

I was recently challenged by a master photographer (and mentor) to retouch a photo he had recently taken of a model. Keep in mind, this was all in FUN and keeping me up on my toes! I deemed this as an honor and accepted the challenge. Not only did I do "a" retouch, I did "3 different" ways that I could have retouched this image...OK, so I was just showing off a bit...lol! Again, this was all in fun!

Below you will see a model with lots of freckles, so the challenge was to retouch her image and keep it looking natural... below are the results. I have my personal pick , but you decide which retouch image you like the best and let me know. Here is my email address: chrisjamesphotography@comcast.net Please tell me why you picked the photo you like the most.

OK, let me handle some business right quick... If you are a photographer who needs service in the retouching department, because you don't do retouching, or just don't have time, email me and I will provide you fast and professional services (not FREE) that you will be proud to show to your clients. All I need for you to do- is email me the high resolution image and I'll take it from there. Here is my email address: chrisjamesphotography@comcast.net

Click on the image below for a larger view.

Photo Shoot

Hello everybody! Last week I had the chance to do a photo shoot w/a very beautiful model and just wanted to share w/you a couple of shots. Enjoy!

As always, I am available for: weddings, professional headshots, corporate events coverage, private events, family portraits, group/team photos, and casual photos. If you want to get in touch/book me for an event, just click here: chrisjamesphotography@comcast.net Thanks and enjoy the blog!

Chris

Click on the images for a bigger view.

The Beauty of Photo retouching Pt.2

Hello everybody. As I mentioned in my last post about retouching photos (please read post below), the secret is to keep the talent looking as natural as possible. News FLASH!!! Most of the people who you see on the cover of magazines DO NOT have flawless skin. There are several people who put in a lot of work into giving this "flawless" appearance. In my previous post on retouching, with the permission of the model herself, I took the low resolution image (72 ppi) from online and did a very basic digital retouch. It was a very good job and the retouch was nice and subtle.

For this example, I am going to show you how different the look can be when doing a digital retouch using a high resolution photo of 300 ppi or better will come out. This is an actual photo that I took myself about a week or two ago. Here is the hypothetical situation we are going to use.

Let's say I was hired to do a cover shoot for a company and after the shoot was over, I got with the client and we narrowed all of the hundreds of beautiful shots down to this one for the magazine cover. Once again, without any retouching the model is absolutely beautiful. As I mentioned in the previous article, there is difference of depth (technique) I would do when retouching for a magazine cover that I would do vs having a generic picture for inside of the magazine. Both will look nice, but the cover photo needs to look exceptional!

Below is the example of the BEFORE and AFTER digital retouch. Notice how "Flawless"and smooth the skin looks after the retouch. Drift away into her beautiful sparkling eyes. And most importantly, notice how natural the model looks. It simply looks like the model put on her make up "Flawlessly" but she looks very natural.

Click on the image below to enlarge the picture.





Chris