Recently I was working on an image for a client. I was doing my normal everyday skin work to some models who had devastating skin. As I was working, a question that a attendee to my Las Vegas retouching class asked popped into my mind.

How do you know when to much has been done? Is there ever a clear way to know when to stop retouching an image?

Its a great question and one that a lot of retouchers ponder over probably daily. It is also a question that has no easy answer.

Some Photographers like freckles and some don't. Is the mole on the check supposed to be there? Is it the Models trademark? Does smooth skin mean NO texture or pores? It is also not necessary to remove ALL the hair on a face in hi-end retouching. As long as it is just light peach fuzz though!

First thing that comes to mind is that you do whatever the Photographer wants. He does after all have creative control over the image. Sometimes along with a creative director. Either way, the RETOUCHER has little to say in the matter unfortunately.

Unless the Retoucher has a long standing relationship with the Photographer or Creative Director, the retoucher needs to just do what is asked and try to get a feel over time for what the final goal is. This can take quite a while, sometimes a couple of years, very rarely in a couple of months. At that point the retoucher can voice thoughts over artistic direction and they might be listened to.

One thing that surprises me a lot, even after all my years in the business, is that sometimes the Photographer (rarely) and often a Creative Director gets so used to "crappy" retouching that when they get good retouching they don't know what to do. All of a sudden they are seeing on FIRST show what they usually see after the THIRD or FOURTH show. And this throws them for a loop because they FEEL THAT THEY NEED to mark something up. They will study the image for a while, and finally mark up something that is not really wrong with the image but starts to lean the picture back towards what they were so used to getting. And didn't really like, hence the use of a new retoucher. Call it their normal comfort zone.

So now an image that looks good and needs minor work has headed down the road to looking way over retouched. Something that is different than the original intention.

This has happened to me to many times over the years and has lead to some images that I am not so proud of. But it is a reality in the industry. It has also lead me to make sure that I get as much information about what needs to be done ahead of time. Lack of direction and wrong assumptions are very bad practices in Retouching.