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SERVING
RENO, SPARKS, CARSON CITY AND SURROUNDING NORTHERN NEVADA LOCATIONS
WITH PREMIUM SENIOR PORTRAIT PHOTOGRAPHY
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So...what is it that gives Hildebrand
Studio's senior portraits a more natural look?
Besides
what
we do behind the
camera, there is its essential counterpart performed behind the scenes,
at the
computer. We’ve
actually had clients tell us they liked our senior portraits because
"they
look more natural". It’s often the time-intensive work done in
retouching, and our philosophy of how we retouch, that is simply
different from what others do, and accounts for that more natural look
they've noticed.
Good
retouching brings forward the best
features of
an image and the person in that image, and it eliminates or minimizes
the weaker aspects. And it does this
without calling attention to what's been done. So it should never be overlooked or
even hurried. Unfortunately,
it’s
becoming more and more common these days
to use a dedicated, automated retouching software program or filter as
the primary image
retouching
tool, since it saves a vast amount of time over manual
retouching, and so costs considerably less to do.
No
matter the style of a photograph, if you value a natural look,
retouching should be done manually in Photoshop, not by an automated
software program.
We do most of our retouching using
the suite of individual tools
provided in Photoshop, not an automated retouching program. This
takes time—much more
time than the few seconds a retouching program requires doing its job.
Unfortunately, even the most advanced, most intelligent retouching
software
still can’t match manual retouching for naturalness, as their results
tend to give that
over-retouched, “plastic” look to the skin that you may have noticed
while looking around. Avoiding that look is precisely why we do our
primary retouching manually.
But retouching programs can have their
place, and we certainly do use them here at Hildebrand Studio—just
very judiciously,
and possibly a little differently than intended. Mostly, we find
them
ideal as the very last step
to lightly blend skin tones after all manual retouching has been
completed. So
for us, retouching software remains only a small part of
achieving the
overall finished look of our photography.
And there's more!
Quite often,
retouching can
involve more than the usual eye enhancement, blemish removal, and stray
hair-taming.
Many times we straighten—almost imperceptibly—a crooked
smile, soften deep
smile lines, remove a bump on the side of a nose, or correct other
things that
are distracting and noticeable in a photograph, but are subtle enough
to not
normally be seen when simply talking to or interacting with someone in
person. None of this
can ever be done with an automated program, only manually in
Photoshop.
Have you ever heard the phrase, “ the camera adds five
pounds”?
That’s
long
been stated, but seldom explained. First off, the illusion referred to
doesn't always seem to add five pounds; it just appears to add a little
extra. Simply, this means the camera tends to flatten the appearance of
three-dimensional objects to some degree under some conditions,
when placing them into a two-dimensional photograph. It's the loss of
that third dimension that can make something appear to have more
mass—that is, appear wider or larger than
it actually is.
Round
or cylindrical objects with no clearly defined transitions from front
to side
(such as arms, legs, waists and torsos, faces—you get the idea) are
affected
the most. We don't see this when actually standing in
front of someone because our two eyes, seeing in
3-D, ensure
that we don’t see things the same way a camera sees them.
Much of
the
time, we can counter
this effect with lighting that adds either shading or highlights to
tell the eye there is a third dimension in play—but
in some situations we don't have the
control over lighting that we'd like. So at times we'll rework small
sections of an image in Photoshop to thin an arm
or
pinch a waist. This is always a time intensive-process, because we're
altering
not just that arm or waist, but the background behind it (or even more
difficult—not altering the background while altering what’s in front),
and it takes a number of individual steps to make a natural
adjustment. (But
don’t worry, we are the essence of discretion, and never
tell, even if it is just an illusion we're correcting!)
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