Retouching

Lately I have been thinking a lot about retouching on photographs and trying to figure out when it has gone to far. I do realize that there are personal tastes and for many it will be different but when does it cross over from being a photograph to being something completely different. I retouch all of my shots in some way. I do work on the skin and brighten the eyes and attempt to make the model look great without looking fake. The camera captures everything; every bad poor, every line, every wrinkle, everything. My outlook on retouching is to make the image as close to real life as possible. You can be with a model for 3 hours and shoot and not notice something on her face but as soon as you start to edit the image everything is magnified and stands out. To be clear, I am not referring to magazine covers of celebrities and images like that. That is on another level and is debated enough as it is. I am referring to what I see on photographers websites or Model Mayhem or on their Facebook pages. If the photo is supposed to be unrealistic or "dreamy" then that is fine and I say go nuts. But if you are doing beauty shots or glamour portraits there should be a realness to the skin. Please also note that I have seen retouching done on beauty images that I absolutely love but it has still gone over the top because no one could ever look the way the way these retouchers have made them look. Then I see the photographers who go way over the top with the liquify tool and the blurring and now you have a girl who has completely unrealistic proportions and blurred skin to where she looks like an oil painting. I personally do not get it and I also don't get why the girls are OK with it. It's not a realistic interpretation of them and anyone doing a casting or looking through a models book would see that in an instant and probably not look any further. I have shot a few girls who have had the over the top retouching done and there is a huge difference between what I have shot and what they have done. A lot of the times I think the shots are good but the retouching ruins it and makes it unbelievable. Many times I have told the models as well. They might not like it but they understand and also see the difference. Again, everyone will have their opinions and that is fine. This is my opinion and I wanted to get it off my chest as I feel that it cheapens the whole genre. There are a ton of great photographers out there doing amazing work and I hope that everyone keeps up the great work. All I am asking is that you pull back a little on the skin smoothing.....  JMP