MARKUS LINKE | PHOTOGRAPHY

I wanted to find out, how beneficial retouching is to my photography. So far I haven’t paid a lot of attention to post-processing, but recently read an article in the New Yorker about Retoucher Pascal Dangin of Box Studios who claimed that many photographer like Annie Leibovitz would hardly ever print a photo without him.

I took this photo:

100% loupe.

Disclaimer: This picture looks worse than it actually is, because it is really the original RAW-file, with no processing whatsoever and even with the wrong colorspace for web-viewing. I know about the weird facial expression and composition imperfection, but I picked this picture because it’s reasonably lit (two studio strobes, with a lighting-ratio of 3:1), was sharp and had a clean background.

What I wanted to do is:
- retouch the image myself
- retouch the image using Photoshop-plugins (I used to use Portraiture and Portrait Professional)
- use a professional retoucher

In terms of professionals I wanted to use Tucia, an offshore retouch company. However, when I got their results I decided to ask a “real” professional and got in contact with Box Studios and Fred NY.

What I wanted to find out was:

- how good is my own work compared with the professionals?
- will it all look fake or will it improve the pictures?
- will it help me with my stock photography?
- how does a $20 retouche compare to a $2000 retouche?
- would offshoring work?
- how does a plugin compare to manual work?

My own attempt:

100% loupe.

I am using photoshop for about 2 years, but I never did retouching before. I read a couple of articles of how to do it, and watched Nick’s tutorial (link). My previous photoshop experience is limited to setting the black/white-points, curve adjustments and various filters and plugins.

Especially after watching Nick’s DVDs I must say I was reasonably happy with the result. It took me like 1-2h and was actually fun. It’s all basic stuff, like brightening the eyes and teeth, smoothen the skin, hide imperfections, etc … Certainly this was “basic” retouching only.

In comparison with the other results I have to admit, that unfortunately the colors are not right. This would need to be corrected in my version.

But how does it compare?

First I’ve uploaded it to Tucia. I’ve send them a straight from camera JPG and provided them with the above RAW file. My instruction to them was “do the best you can, it’s all yours to decide what to do and what to leave as is” and was then, after they asked, more specific requesting for “fashion/glamor”-style.

One thing I would like to note about Tucia is, that they have a great web-frontend and it all looks very professional. They are fast and you always know exactly in which status your project with them is. They also offer unlimited revisions in case you are not happy. And they are cheap. Retouching costs between 1-4 credits, each credit can be purchased at prices between $2.99 and $8. I went for the 4 credit deluxe retouche: “Deluxe Service (4 credits), Image Size Limit: Less than 50 Million Pixels, Max Turnaround: 48 Hours, Designers: Senior Level (top 5%), Examples: illustration; cartooning; high end commercial projects; other sophisticated need”. Sounds like a winner …

The results? Oh dear … Let’s assume that it was my fault. I could have provided them with a reference picture of what I would like them to do or I could just have been more specific in my work order. To me it looked a bit like a cheap photo booth:

100% loupe.

This is the second revision after my comments:

100% loupe.

Bottom line: It’s just not my style. I appreciate their work, but I don’t like it and even the second version did not make a big difference, so I’ve accepted the second try as final and paid. I guess if you are a wedding photographer and have 500 pictures where you need a pimple on the bride’s nose removed it might be reasonable, but for me it didn’t work. (Actually this would probably be too expensive, because if you use a professional DSLR their cheapest offer costs 2 credits).

To be fair I did another 2-credit test with them, asking for “Amy Dresser”-style retouching of my 2-year old son. It was better than my own attempts, but still nothing I would put on a wall. But as said, for 2 credits ($16 max) it was good enough and I accepted this work immediatly.

Another thing I was worried about with Tucia is that they claim to have 7000 retouchers. To me this sounds a bit high, but even with 70 I would be concerned about concistency. Given the two examples above I already think that I was more lucky with the toddler-retoucher than with the “expert”.

Side-note: Tucia is using YouSendIt, which I have never heard before and who provides a great service to send large files. I signed up and definetly like YouSendIt for sending files around!

The Professionals

I was in touch with Box Studios, which probably is THE retouching house in New York. Well … I thought that with a staff of 80+ they always have some retouchers which are bored and might even have some Juniors who could have a look and give it a try. But I couldn’t afford it. Maybe I’ll try later with a different picture which is worth that money, but for this shot it was just too much $$$$ (note the number of $’s).

Next I went to Fred NY and got a very friendly feedback from the owner. His pricing was pretty much the same like Box, but he agreed on a special given that it was personal work for my portfolio and no commercial big-budget shot. I’ve looked at his portfolio and he did covers for Vogue and advertising for big brand names.

Here’s Matt’s (from Fred NY) version after ~5h of work on this image:

100% loupe before.
100% loupe after.

What really impressed me was:

- in every detail you see how well it was crafted, unfortunately the small web images don’t show but even at 100% (200% ,300%, …) it’s just incredibly well done
- he took care of things I have not noticed and improved them
- he even managed to correct the facial expression
- the colors are just right (in comparison mine were wrong, but I only noted this in direct comparison)
- a lot of detail in the skin remained

Plugins

After Matt’s version the plugins look like a joke, so I’m not posting them now but might add them later.

Update 20100220: As requested, here are the plugin versions. The comparison is not entirely fair, because I didn’t tweak the results of the plugins much. It is basically running with defaults:

This is the crop I used as a source:

100% loupe.

This is the portraiture result:

100% loupe.

This is the portrait professional result:

100% loupe.

Conclusion

I do not think offshoring works. One needs to find a retoucher who’s personal style fits to the photographer and the job to be done. Compared with a low-end retouching studio like Tucia it’s probably better to just do it yourself, unless you have many pictures to be retouched in a short timeframe. As for the professionals I definitely do see the point, but it comes with a heavy price-tag, which most likely will be a no-go for many (of my) jobs. For me I’ve decided to stick with Fred NY for my important work and do the small bit’s and pieces myself. Maybe I learn something in the process

In regards to the questions above:

- how good is my own work compared with the professionals?

With a very limited view on exposure, crop, skin, eyes, teeth, etc I think it’s ok and improves the image. If I spend the time it (to me) looks better than those cheap online retouching offers. Unfortunately my work is far away from a professional retouching house, even if I would spend the extra hours.

- will it all look fake or will it improve the pictures?

it’s an improvement

- will it help me with my stock photography?

yes

- how does a $20 retouche compare to a $2000 retouche?

Like a Bentley and a Hyundai.

- would offshoring work?

Not for me.

- how does a plugin compare to manual work?

Portraiture does an ok job on the skin, but looks a bit plastic. Portrait Professional does not compare at all. With all features enabled it is funny, but doesn’t work for me.