Short answer: good retouching fixes what is temporary and leaves what is you. A blemish that appeared this morning, gone. The lines that make your face yours, staying. The test I apply to every headshot I deliver in Louisville is simple: if a viewer who knows you would never guess the photo was retouched, the retouching is done. If they would guess, I went too far.
Temporary and distracting things: a breakout, a stray hair crossing the face, a scratch, redness from a cold day, a crumb or lint on a jacket, shine that the lighting turned into glare. Also small color and exposure polish, teeth and eye whites cleaned gently rather than brightened into neon. These are the things you would have fixed yourself with a mirror and two minutes, if a mirror could do it.
Your face. Not the shape of it, not the lines that belong to it, not the features people recognize across a room. Skin keeps its texture, pores included, because skin smoothed into plastic is the first thing that makes a headshot feel fake. Scars and moles that are part of you stay, unless you ask about a specific one. If you are ever unsure where you stand on a particular detail, ask me before the session and we will agree on it together, so there are no surprises in either direction when the gallery arrives. The photo should read as you on a good day, rested and well lit, never as a rendering of a younger relative.
A headshot is a promise. It appears on the website, the proposal and the conference program, and then you walk into the room. When the photo and the person match, trust compounds. When they do not, a small doubt arrives with you. Restraint in retouching is not modesty, it is strategy: the most effective headshot is the one nobody ever thinks about, because it simply looks like you, at your best.
I will not, and you would not thank me if I did. Your headshot has to survive meeting you in person. Gentle cleanup makes you look rested; reshaping makes you look like a rumor. Clients, employers and customers should recognize the person who walks in.
That is exactly what retouching is for. Temporary things, a breakout, a scratch, a dry patch, get cleaned because they will be gone next week anyway. Rescheduling over something this fixable is almost never necessary.
Only your selected favorites get the full hand retouch. The proofing gallery is lightly corrected for color and exposure so you can judge expressions fairly, and the picks you make get the detailed work.
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Read the guide →Tell me what you need photographed and where. I will bring the studio to you and we will make a plan together.
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