"Retouching" defined and Print details
What do we mean when a photograph is ‘edited’ versus ‘retouched’?? Others may use the words interchangeably, but this is what we deliver.
“Edited” means we digitally corrected color, corrected exposure, and cropped images similar to a manual darkroom processing.
“Retouching” means taking that edited image, and processing it further to enhance to another level.
Retouching is skin smoothing, teeth whitening, lint removing, blemish/scar erasing type of work that is based on our best judgment.
It doesn’t mean that you aren’t beautiful just as you are, but we take an extra step to deliver beautifully finished images of you.
Babies and brides alike can benefit from retouching because our skin is translucent, and the camera can identify things our eyes are trained not to see.
Below are five examples: The image on the left is edited, and image on the right is edited+retouched.
Notice how the image on the left is perfectly a good image. But see how retouching adds even more.
On top of the retouching, we add an extra step to make your image ideal for the output media. What we do for an album page is different from a print, versus a canvas wrap.
Once an image has been retouched and processed for the optimum output media, it received one of two things. If it is a canvas print/wrap, it receives my personal signature.
If it is a print, it receives a small digital logo, between 1/2″ an inch to 3/4″ wide in one of the lower corners of the image.
This is not ‘adverstisement’ but a stamp of claim/approval that the artist inspected and approved the product. For my clients who value the extra steps and order their prints through me, it also sets apart the prints that I made versus prints that an automated printer may have handled.
Albums receive a logo at the last page.
For those who wonder why the images I post on Facebook or blog usually has my faint logo mark and the faint floral pattern on it, this is what’s defined as a ‘watermark’ in the visual industry. One purpose is to discourage grabbing a professional work without giving credit to the creator, and two, a reminder that any image that has the ‘watermark’ on it is not fit to be printed, because the resolution is far too low to be printed with integrity. Only my low resolution image get the pattern and watermark below.
Art collectors will tell you, that if you have an original art work without the signature of the artist, the art will not have the investment value, or possibly be quoted ‘worthless.’ For those of us photographers who do sign our work, or logo mark our work, we’d like to mention that if a photographer isn’t proud enough to put their name on their photograph, what sets the professional apart from the hobbyist? The traditional portrait studios did, and stil do mark their prints with a metallic logo embosser. The studios that do not, are often retail chains where the cameras are operated by a student who is working off of a checklist rather than with photography training.
Hope this was helpful! In conclusion, only the retouched, artist approved, ‘finished’ products receive a logo mark/signature.
*
Be a friend of Jules Ko Photography on Facebook | Follow me on Twitter | Subscribe on Google Reader