Ready to dive into the world of high-end fashion retouching services? Professional photo retouching is an acquired skill that takes time, patience, and practice. Learning the basics isn’t always easy. Even if you’re an amateur photographer with general photo retouching knowledge, you might feel lost about where to start. If you want to become a pro and offer photo retouching services, it’s essential to keep in mind 5 main things.
Remove creases and wrinkles on clothes
High-end fashion photos should not feature wrinkly or bulging clothes, especially if the clothes are the product being advertised! To edit these out, use Frequency Separation. This is a great non-destructive method for softening bunchy clothes, producing a much cleaner silhouette. Frequency Separation is often used to soften skin, but it can be just as effective on clothing, too!
Get rid of flyaway hairs
This might seem obvious but many amateurs forget about flyaway hairs when they start out. For some photos, flyaway hairs are appropriate and look natural. For high-end fashion retouching, however, you’ll want to edit them away for a sleek, refined look. It’s impossible to avoid disobedient hairs during a photoshoot, no matter how much hairspray you use! That’s why learning a good technique for flyaway hair removal is paramount. This involves the Selection Edge tool, making use of the contrast and feathering sliders. After attaining your desired selection, go to the healing brush for the rest of your flyaway hair edits.
Clean up the background
The background should be smooth, clean, and non-distracting. In order to achieve this, tools like the healing brush and dodge and burn are useful. If you want to change the texture of your background without altering the tone, then use the healing brush. Dodge and burn is great for evening out your backdrop; use two layers of curve adjustments to alter the brightness then switch to the brush tool for applying to the areas where you want to use dodge and burn.
Don’t overdo the skin
Keep edits to the skin as natural-looking as possible, you don’t want a plastic effect. Spend just enough time without overdoing your edits – taking hours and hours to retouch the skin is the easiest way to make it look fake! Any specialist in photo retouching services will ensure that a fashion photo is well-styled without being over the top. Sometimes, less is more!
Use adjustment layers
When making edits to your photos, never modify directly on the background layer! It may seem like a nuisance to keep adding new layers when you want to alter something, but it will be well worth it in the long run. Especially if you change your mind about some of your edits! Adjustment layers are especially great for tweaking the brightness and contrast. Achieving the right lighting style for your photo will make all the difference! Use new layers for color correction, as well.
These 5 tips are a great way to get started, but there is so much more to learn about fashion retouching services. Don’t limit yourself! Once you get the hang of the basics, challenge yourself by retouching more complex photos. You’ll be a pro in no time!
