Just curious if any of you do a lot of retouching.  I have a few examples online...
Before
After
Some interactive samples. Let the main image load and then roll your mouse over it to load the second image. You can roll on and off to see the changes. Then click to view the next before/after.
Link

I am sitting at the wrong computer to show examples, but...Yes, a lot!

Most of my editing is color correction, contrast and balance. Then add some glow to the skin.

I do a lot of commercial stuff, so yeah. A lot of post production work. contrast saturation, blemishes, blah, blah, blah. I need an intern or an apprentice as slave for this stuff.

SHORT ANSWER...YES. long answer...bill hours doing them.

YES! Color correcting, Blemish removal. Tweeking for web viewing.

My pictures are always perfect-so i never touch them..lol

Hey that was great examples of why retouching is so cool. I do for models all thew time and they get worried because they do not look like that in person. That was very cool.
Thanks

I should have specified more I guess. Do any of you do "extensive" retouching? Like 2 hours or more on each photo?  This post was spawned by the recent thread on TFP and TFCD and how models don't realize the time involved after the shoot. I just thought it would be nice to see some examples of how drastic some of the retouching can be.

Hugh, you crack me up... YES we have to do touch-up... I also include degraining to get skin to be more even toned.

Brian D
© iYi

Like most photogs, I am doing post production right now, hence the reason I'm always on the computer. For every hour of shooting I do, it seems like I have 3 hours of post production...download, convert from raw, save as tiff, contrast, color, blemish, resize, save...repeat, yadda, yadda, yadda, wash, rinse, repeat...burn, backup, upload, make sure the staff has clean newspapers and enough food and water, send love letters to the accountant so maybe the bills will magically disappear and leave a burnt offering for the secretary, for she is truly the office goddess and keeper of all things organized.

I retouch every image that goes to a model as a final non-proof image, but I try to keep the retouching to a minimum, spending no more than 5-10 minutes on each print (colour adjustment, blemish removal, airbrushing).  I do spend more time if I pick one of the prints for selective colour treatment (B&W image with selected elements of colour). 

Retouching is built into my rates, except for extensive retouching.  Sometimes I will throw in a selective colour image if it's something I want to do for myself.

Quote: I should have specified more I guess. Do any of you do "extensive" retouching? Like 2 hours or more on each photo?

2 hours? Ee gads I spend a whole day sometimes compositing my work. Not the stuff I have posted here mind you only paid work but in certain cases I do spend a great deal of time masaging the image. Most of my stuff has a predestined home that must fit a Quark doc or another specific application so its all part of my process. The model stuff i just do for fun and its limited at that but I do work them for color and blems but just enoguh to clean them up and not change the feel.

  I did one shoot that had over 70 layers! I had radiation poisoning when I was done. Lol

When ever my girlfriend comes home from a shoot with a cd we always go through the pictures and i touch up the ones we both like for her web site. sometimes i spend a few hours on a single image but rarely, im pretty quick and direct with my PShop work.

I usually fix blemishes and color correcting as well as adjusting contrast.

Sometimes, mainly on my shoots of myself...lol... I will spend days retouching. do a couple hours at a time. come back the next day.

i do the basic editing but that is only because i am clueless when it comes to photo shop.  i pretty much wing it and have no idea what i am doing

There are images that I can spend maybe 20-30 minutes on.. But they are the best of the best...

I post about 30-40 pics to my site every week and work a full time job so I dont have time to spend on pics.  In general, I can knock out a 30-40 image set in 2 hours meaning 3-4 minutes or less per image.

Here's what I do (valid as of today, will change as I learn more tomrrow):


Select Images and Crop (though for crop I use a free ware called JPEGCrops- so dang quick)

In Photoshop:
1> Clean blemishes using clone stamp tool (just the big ones that are gonna be visible on a scaled down web size image)

2) Use magic wand tool to select skin areas (9 on face and 12 on body- am trying to just select skin, here) and use gaus blur of usually about 3.0- I hate overly blurry pics and Im usually playing with a big file from an 8MP cam.

3) use blur tool to round out any harsh pixels (mostly around face)

4) If needed, whiten eye whites and teeth

5) adjust brightness and contrast

DONE.

On pics with solid backgrounds I will select the background color and lightern or darken.  On white backgrounds I will add a step to create a curves layer and deselect the model and reverse the curve so the white is whiter and the model is still normal looking.

Rarely play with colors as Im not too into the fantasy extreme color looks.

Hope that helps,
-Jose