Retouching, Then and Now (Patreon)

As promised, I made 2 examples of skin retouching and color processing (might as well) showing you, in this order, the RAW shot, the final shot back then and the final photo I would produce now.

Example 1:

RAW

THEN

NOW

Basically in both examples I brought up the exposure a stop or two to light up the scene and bring out her face more. In the NOW edit I brought the shadows up more and toned down the contrast. Back then I was using VSCO presets in Lightroom a lot as you can see here. These can give you unnatural colours real fast because it sometimes gives you weird contrasts in your images and destroys your skin tones. To me that orange skin is just not natural. I was also strong with the dodge and burn, which I almost never use anymore, just very subtly when I do use it. It also gives gimmicky looks that won't win the test of time. That's probably why I keep it simple and subtle these days, keep it classic and classy. Its also because of how I feel in this point in time, these days I tent to go more faded instead of high contrast for color photography. You can see a little retouching also under her eyes, toned down the lines around her mouth and brighten up her eyes a little. I also warmed up the image a little. And before I forget, yes I add grain in LR, some would say that's a no go, why try to emulate film if this is digital. I like grain so I'm adding some, that's how I feel about it. I try to keep it constant in my work. That said, that is my take on it, you can do whatever you like to your photos, it's your prerogative, if you like my THEN more well you are untitled to. I just want to show you my though process and evolution here. 

Example 2:

RAW

THEN

NOW

It's pretty much the same situation here. Going for a more natural look. Not trying to pimp her up like a superstar but make her look slightly better without the extra touch up with the skin highlights and the added beauty stuff. In reality her hair is lighter than what you see in the THEN, I also tend to underexpose my portraits with digital. That green cast is not doing it for me now. However as I am writing this I feel like what I just did is maybe too neutral haha, you see I'm never satisfied, couple years from now I will say; yuck that sucks. Things change and we are influenced by trends and moods. I also left some of that crazy hair in the NOW, back then I was cleaning those up like there were the plague. 

In other words, find your style and run with it. Know how to break those rules but keep a solid good base. It's always great when someone ends up on a photo and can tell it's one of yours without seeing the credits first. 

If you want to shoot straight jpegs, do it, it's the end results that count. 

I hope you guys like this post, if you would like to see more of this kind of content please let me know by liking and commenting, let me know what you think so I'm not doing this for nothing :)

Thank you!