Jaackil Loc: Massachusetts

I did a search and also manually scrolled through 8 pages of this section and did not find any discussion on using a retouching service.
My question is are any members using a retouching service for their professional portrait work? If so which ones? Why? How does it fit into your work flow? Do you do any adjustments before you send them out? Do you wait until they come back and do adjustments then? I have been looking at a few different ones. I can do the retouching myself with lightroom and photoshop but it seems faster and more efficient to hand it off and let someone else do it. I found one that is $2.50 and image for basic retouching, which includes removal of facial shine stray hairs blemishes, whiten teeth and eyes. With a turn around time of 24 hours. What are others thoughts? Opinions? Thank you.

E.L.. Shapiro Loc: Ottawa, Ontario Canada

Good question! And- you are right the is little discussion, on this forum, about portrait retouching.

Part of my studio business has always been in the field of portraiture and portrait photography was my entry-level and kinda "first love" over 55 years ago. When I started out in the business, most traditional portrait studios employed a resident, in house, retouching specialist. Many of us learned to retouch in school and in the beginning, did our own retouching, but in most busy studios, retouching, darkroom work (film processing and proofing) and finished printing were handled by employees with those specific jobs and the appropriate skills. Business-wise, most owners/photographers found that the time warm more profitable spent shooting, selling and promoting and managing the business. In my own subsequent business and presently, this is the business model I still maintain.

When I first started out and did my own MANUAL retouching, most of the work was done on large format negative film and the large "head sizes" were easier to manage and less serious to the eyes. When the industry went mainly to medium format and more and more color photography, the task of manual negative retouching became more tedious and required a more expert hand. The procedure was to work with dyes to neutralize blemishes and add density to correct harsh lines and wrinkles. The finishing touches were filled in on the prints with dyes, colored pencils, and other mediums. There was a lot of lacquer spraying of he prints to give tooth to the print surface and lock in the positive retouching and provide a decorative surface to display prints. Nowadays, of course, much of this corrective work is handled in the post-processing of our RAW or JPEG files.

To answer your question specifically, I would have to know what kind of volume you are doing or contemplating, what is the level of your retouching skills lie in terms of aesthetics and speed, and if you have time to shoot, post-process, undertake to retouch AND manage and promote your business. Of course, your time is valuable and if you hire am in-house operator or outsourced your retouching requirements those cost shave to factor into your pricing and profit margins. If you outsource your retouching, that too will require management and time in sending and receive files and designing and putting in place a workflow system to accommodate those tasks.

Personally, I have to admit that I am not a great retoucher and I prefer to have a specialist look after the bulk of my portrait work. I have always considered GOOD retouching an art form and skill set in and of itself. I know what I want to accomplish on any given retouching job but I don't have the dexterity and patience to meet my own standards. A good retoucher is very familiar with facial structure and aesthetics and know WHAT to retouch, in term of blemishes and unwanted lines and wrinkles and other issues knows what NOT to retouch so the image does not become totally unnatural, and WHEN to STOP retouching and send the file to the next stage for printing or final display or publication disposition.

At my shop, our t retoucher uses several post-processing methods including frequency separation. For high volume production, we also use a few preset programs like Portrait Pro which also can be fine-tuned by a skilled operator. You might want to consider that option as well.

In my own portrait work, I firmly believe in what I call per-retouching, that is using lighting, posing and camera angle techniques as well as sometimes soft -focus and diffusion (in camera) to do as much flattery and correction in the shooting as I can so hopefully, the retouching will be minimal in most cases. In the olden days of film, the photograph had to make the images easier to retouch by providing ample head sizes, a lighting ratio that was manageable and a negative of proper density and contrast. It was a team effort between the shooter. the darkroom crew and the retouching department. To a degree it is still the same relationship so whether you retouching is done in-house or outsourced, you will have to develop a good working relationship with your retouchers.

As far as outsourcing you retouching to a service, only you will be able to determine if the work of that person or service meets your standards and requirements. If you don't have the time or the patience to do it all yourself and there is no local talent pool in your geographic location, an outside service may work out well for you.

If you wish, you can post a few before and after examples of your work or that of you outsource and I will be pleased to give you my opinion of the retouching.

I hope this helps!

Ed

Jaackil Loc: Massachusetts

Ed
Thank you for the thoughtful reply. I pretty much came to the same conclusion with a less in depth analysis. I figure if the retouching is as good as mine or better and I can realistically retouch 10 images an hour at $2.50 an image my time is certainly worth more than $25 an hour. If I could do 20 images an hour which I doubt I could and do justice to them, my time is still worth much more than $50 an hour. As you stated well, as a photographer I get paid really to shoot, market and relate to clients. Activities like retouching are a cost factor not really a profit center. Another way I look at it is assume you give an itemized break down of a shoot to a client. If you say to a client my hourly rate for shooting is say $150 an hour (what ever that number is) They would understand that. But say to them retouching is also $150 an hour that might be difficult to swallow. On the other hand if you say retouching is say $5 or $10 an image that’s a 100%or 200% markup on my cost, that still sounds very reasonable to a client.
I don’t know that local talent is that important in today’s digital age. Assume for a second there is local talent. I would have a couple of options. First hire them full or part time to work in my studio. I would still have to invest in the hardware and software and manage the process. The second is hire a free lancer. Which I most likely would have to deliver the images to them. That being the case it really dosent matter with the internet whether I am delivering images next door or half way around the world. Turn around time of 24 hours is usually good enough. That allows me to shoot today deliver images Tommorow. The other nice thing about the service I am trying out is reworks are free. So they will work an image until it is the way I want it. And I can request the same artist to handle my work. So once I get an artist who understands the look I like I can have them handle my work exclusively.
It is an interesting process. I wonder why there has not been more discussion about it. Is it because Photographers feel having someone else doing their retouching cheapens their art philosophically? There has to be a lot of photographers using retouching services because doing a google search lists an endless amount of Services. I recently watched a Peter Hurley video, like him or hate him, he is a pretty well known portrait photographer and he talks about his process. He shoots and reviews the images with the client at the shoot then he sends the images the client picks right to a retouching service and he is on to the next shoot.
It is an interesting topic for discussion from not only a business standpoint but also an artistic stand point.

PaulG Loc: Western Australia

I always do my own. As the photographer I would never allow a third party to attempt work on any of my images as the unknowns are too many. Only I know exactly the desired effect and to hand that control to another (for me) is inviting potential problems. Of course you would need the appropriate software, which can be costly. And then there is the learning curve, which in some cases can be steep. It might depend on whether your work is professional or enthusiast. A professional would usually incorporate that into their business versus the enthusiast who might well be advised to seek the services of a "professional" retoucher.

Jaackil Loc: Massachusetts

Paul I suspect some will agree with you. I took a look at your portfolio which is amazing btw. But your work seems to be more artistic so I can see why another pair of hands would not work for your finishing. However I would disagree that retouching services lend themselves more to enthusiasts than proffesionals. I think it is just the opposite. Someone making money at portrait specifically head shot photography should see the value in different levels of work. I am looking at it from the point of view of what do I get paid to do. What I get paid for is finding clients and taking their pictures. My greatest value is behind the camera and if I can make $150, $200, $250 an hour what ever that number is behind the camera and I can can hire someone to do retouching for $25 or $50 an hour does it make sense for me to do the retouching?
There are many examples of proffesionals that do not do their own retouching. I mentioned Peter Hurley who is a well known photographer but also all the sports photographers you see on the sidelines at any professional sporting event. None of them do their own retouching. They submit their images to magazines or services which have in house retouchers that finish the images and get them ready for publication. I can’t imagine a photographer shooting and NFL game or in your case the AFL shooting 1000 images at a single game then going through them culling and refinishing them. On the other hand why would an enthusiast who most likely is not going to make money from their images pay someone to refinish their work for them? So I guess it really depends. If I am shooting landscapes or street photography I am doing my own retouching certainly because no one else is going to have the same artistic vision I have for that image however if I am shooting business head shots, I get it in camera and someone else can certainly soften skin remove blemishes remove fly away hair etc for a lower hourly rate than I am worth.