Photo Retouching for Photographers

What you can hand over

• Fashion, beauty and commercial retouching.
• Color correction across a series, from different cameras or days.
• High-resolution development from your RAW captures.
• Prepress to a magazine's or printer's specifications.

Keeping your look

Good retouching works toward your picture, not a house style. References help the most: a few finished images from earlier work, with a note on what you like about each. Put how you like skin, contrast and color to feel in your brief, along with what you never want done to your images.

If you've already started on an image, send your own edit as well. It shows the intended look faster than any description.

Before the shoot

If an image is going to need composites, plates or a background extension, it helps to plan for that before the shoot. An extra frame on set usually costs far less than rebuilding something later. One campaign, every format lists what's worth shooting when an image has to run in several sizes.

Sending a job

How to brief a retoucher has a template you can copy, and what files to send a retoucher covers formats, selects and extra frames. If you need a number for a client estimate, what high-end retouching costs explains what moves the price.