Retouching & ethics.

RDKirk said:

Habemus_Canon said:

Have you seen this?

http://homepage.mac.com/gapodaca/digital/blonde/blonde1.html

He explains what he did to improve the image and change the model's
looks.

Click to expand...

Did you read the text? He was meeting the requirements of the art
director.

Click to expand...

Yes. Of course. I was using it to illustrate how far one should go.
He goes farther than most people unfamiliar with the industry
think retouchers go, but it is industry standard practice to do so.
Blemishes, wrinkle lines, flab, and so forth are removed all the time
with nary a blink.

You might want to post this in the "Retouching" Forum for a broader view.

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/forum.asp?forum=1006

Great! Didn't even know there was a retouching forum. Guess the alphabatization engine is broken.

--
Jay
http://www.jpwphoto.com

I try to use minimal retouching. Acne may be one thing but moles are part of a person's identity, IMHO. However, I've found a great little program called "Clean Skin FX" that does a great job with wrinkles, blemishes, etc. Check it out at http://www.mediachance.com also, it was free for a while, it may still be free.

Regards,
Ken

Habemus_Canon said:

Yes. Of course. I was using it to illustrate how far one should go.
He goes farther than most people unfamiliar with the industry
think retouchers go, but it is industry standard practice to do so.
Blemishes, wrinkle lines, flab, and so forth are removed all the time
with nary a blink.

Click to expand...

The OP said: "My concern is how she will be looked upon when an agent (or whoever) sees her portfolio and sees that she actually has some small moles but that they aren't on her skin in her portfolio photos."

Purpose, as I said above, matters. I can guarantee you that a casting director doesn't want that kind of surprise.

--
RDKirk
'TANSTAAFL: The only unbreakable rule in photography.'

Wow! That's a great illustration of the power of retouching. I'm just starting to do some of this myself (inspired by the chapter in Scott Kelby's PE3 book), and I'm becoming sensitized to seeing just how much retouching is present in virtually all photos of celebrities in magazines. It also seems to me that actors' headshots these days involve more retouching than in the film days. To a large extent, people are starting to expect this in publicity photos, so you're not surprised that the person doesn't look as good in real life.

Bob