…about the ‘ethics’ of retouching a picture. I have had discussions in the past with people who think it has nothing to do with photography. Obviously,by definition, a retouched image is embellished in some way compared with the original from the camera, but what constitutes retouching? Is it removing dust and processing marks, for example, which are also nothing to do with the photography. What about stuff that you couldn’t change at the time, but never intended to have in your picture, such as a small blemish on a models face, or some unreachable piece of litter in a landscape? Surely colour corrections, shading, contrast control and anything else that might once have been performed in a darkroom, but these days more often than not, are carried out with the computer, are fine? My view is that all of this and more is not only acceptable, but desirable, so long as the end justifies the means.
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I agree with most of your writing on the subject of retouching. But I have to say, after looking at the before/after page.
Very many of the things you changed could (and should) have been done before you took the photo.
I’m not a photographer as a profession.
I’m an art director. I deal with stylists and models from time to time. If I had to do this much work on very many of the photos I direct for clients. The budgets and timing would be lost. As would my job I guess.
But I’ll say this - you sure did a really nice job on the retouching. Top shelf work!
Did you take the new jacket sleeve pattern from the jacket lapel?
Posted 07 Apr 2007 at 9:17 pm ¶Don, yes of course you re correct, it’s stuff that could and should, have been changed beforehand. But of course, time and money are always constraints, and not enough of each were available in this instance. Sometimes you just have to work with what you have, so I had to consider what I was able to change afterwards. Also, I have posted a highly changed example, to illustrate the point.
Posted 08 Apr 2007 at 6:28 am ¶Cheers
Dave.