Graphic artists and digital image experts abound. Their work is important. Did you ever wonder why? In the age of Instagram and an endless list of online digital editing software, each made so easy, even grandma can snap a photo and render it in a Seventies style faded wet chemistry developed photo. But the importance of digital retouching for important images, like headshots, fashion, wedding, and portraits, never diminishes. And I’m not talking about the a-la-carte software that makes your skin looks like a super model. I’m talking about the importance of selecting wedding photographers, for example, that not only make the best image in-camera, but also understand the physics of light, and knows how to manipulate it in post-production. Does the wedding photographer know how to remove blotches and freckles off your face in an important wedding image? Does the photographer know how to perform color correction, frequency separation, and skin tonal adjustment to satisfy the most critical eye?
At Trans4mation Photography (me!), your Annapolis, Maryland-based premier wedding and professional photographer, I am passionate about retouching images to enhance them, but never to make them look fake or too perfect. Quality requires time and attention to detail. I am trained and experienced in Photoshop CS6 and Lightroom 4, as well as other digital image, video, and audio software that will help you make sure you get the best quality image you expect. As I write this blog, I took a random image in my library of images, and performed the following enhancements: color correction (notice the red blotches and freckles are mostly gone), tonal adjustments to smoothen the skin and reduce the wrinkles. See the BEFORE and AFTER images below. Notice in the second pair (close-up detail of the first pair) you’ll see the the skin retained its texture and detail (see the thin hairs around the edge of the lips) after corrections were done. Unfortunately, some wedding photographers simply “paint over” any flaws – something you can no longer do with high-resolution images because you would still want to see skin look like skin!
