Skin Retouching: BCI’s Philosopy

So…..we had a conversation with a student regarding how much skin retouching is enough, so we thought we’d share our thoughts on the subject.  Commonly, you find photographers very heavy handed in their application of skin smoothing.  Often so much so that the person no longer even appears human…or certainly not anything close to realistic.  That’s fine, but totally not the look we are trying to achieve.  We advocate, teach, and provide a much more deftly wielded approach to photo retouching.  It is our belief that you shouldn’t really be able to immediately tell anything has been done.  Below you will see examples of what we mean.  While both have been touched up, either would appear “untouched” were the original not be shown adjacent to it.  That…is the idea.  Help, but don’t overwhelm.  Same with any digital techniques really…its simply too easy to go too far and lose the whole intent.

Obviously these two girls didnt reatlly need any “help” whatsoever, but I think both would prefer the after version, don’t you?  Both final results  look natural.