We all do it...take a portrait and work on it, trying to achieve some degree of perfection. But how much is our collective desire for perfection too much? I'm particularly speaking about the way we as photographers edit eyes, skin, and hair. Here is a shot from the other day. I deliberately left a bunch of loose hair, didn't lighten the eyes, though I did remove a couple of blood vessels and touched up the skin with the healing brush. Would you have done more or less?
I like the mood. If this was my photo, I might have lightened up the dark circles under her eyes a little, and I would have evened out her skin tone - there's a lot of different color variations going on, especially in her chest and armpit and neck - and maybe just smoothed the light/dark transitions on her forehead a little bit. But all of these adjustments would be subtle. The only other thing I would maybe consider is burning down the part of the backdrop that's behind her head in the upper left corner. Always good to practice the art of Less is More! :)
And that was exactly my point. Do the dark circles add or detract from the image? Do those slightly dark areas under her eyes say something about her? As for the skin tone variations, why would you wish to even them out? What does that achieve in terms of the aesthetic of the image?
The background is another issue, it’s something I dropped in, a curtain from a castle in Scotland topped off with shadows from an old window....and I take your point.
The dark circles could be part of the story you're trying to tell, but the variations in saturation and color in her skin do detract from the image to me. Her shoulders, arms and chest look a bit gray and magenta, while her armpit looks bright yellow/orange, so my eye zooms straight there instead of her face. I suppose this could also be an editorial aspect of the image but I'm not sure what the idea would be.
Unfortunately, cameras in general and ESPECIALLY our current crop of high resolution machines are really unforgiving as far as skin goes (obviously depends on many factors including lighting). So, they are picking up and often over-emphasizing things that we wouldn't necessarily notice in person when talking directly to someone. If I was sitting there in front of her, even in that lighting and distance, I wouldn't notice that her armpit looks totally different from the rest of her skin or that there's a bright shadow on the underside of her jaw - because bodies move around, as does our eye, and nothing is static. But in an image, you're taking a 3D movable object and turning it into a 2D flat surface. So the eye lingers on things that it wouldn't otherwise. This is my philosophy when I'm doing portrait retouching (my beauty work is different from my portraits).
Hope this explains my perspective more.
You make some very good points particularly concerning the resolution of the kit. This was shot on a Sony A7R3 and indeed there were skin flaws I didn’t pick up on the day. The question still stands which is, how much manipulation should one do and where do you draw the line? Does it really matter about skin tone variation? If so why?
It’s interesting that some think because it’s a woman in the picture then more needs to be done.
Some outspoken women are making it a requirement that no editing other than basic exposure etc are carried out on their images. This is a reaction against the over processed images that have been appearing in popular magazines. As photographers how much should we take these views into account when producing our work?
It's not only women who are "making it a requirement", it's kind of an industry-wide thing driven by a great many factors, not a gender issue. Plenty of photographers including me photograph men and retouch their skin as well. But if we as an industry are going to take to heart the "no editing ever" philosophy (spoiler alert: I don't see this happening entirely), what that ultimately means is that it's up to us as photographers to do a better job in camera - making sure there are as few color cast / lighting and saturation issues / texture issues as possible, rather than taking a picture that has deficiencies in these areas and then throwing up the hands and saying "welp, sorry, I can't fix it in post because The Laydeez say editing is bad mmkay".
Ultimately all of this is completely subjective. The amount of editing people do to photos of their clients is now and will always be entirely individual, although taking into account current trends in taste and style isn't a bad idea. Things come and go and I'd argue that right now, given the current state of mobile phone photography and the appetite for apps that do things like a "high end retouch in under 1 minute" for selfies, editing photos isn't going to become taboo any time soon. That said even as a beauty photographer I appreciate that there is less overall fake perfection, and a lot more diversity, in ad campaigns. What the photographer in me notices however is that even taking this into account, a lot of work has gone into pre-production to make sure that they don't HAVE to do a lot of editing. So it's really a give and take.
Great thoughtful response. Why don’t you write a piece on this very subject as I’m sure a lot of photographers would love to hear what you have to say.
Lol thanks! And that's debatable but maybe :)
You strike me you know what you’re talking about and are a working photographer. I love and live photography but am retired so have no first hand experience of the current situation but would love to hear about it.
I'm in agreement with Sennia. The only thing I'd add is add some blacks back.
My responses to your questions:
1. Yes, dark circles detract from the image, especially for women. It's just not flattering. It makes them look old and tired.
2. As for skin tone variations, too much variations just looks messy. Not aesthetic. In this case:
---(a) she has green around her mouth, chin, and jaw. Makes it look like recently shaved beard.
---(b) arms, chest, and neck have a desaturated blue(ish) look. Reminds me of alien skin like. Often, you could just warm up the white balance (and maybe adjust the tint) in these areas.
If you like, I could do a quick 4 minute edit just to demo the difference it would make.
For me it boils down to your end goal - too much is reaching your goal for the image but pushing beyond that to the detriment of what you are aiming to achieve. If I were to comment on this image I would be adopting a view on what I want to achieve and putting my perspective on it may bring an alternate set of touches. Personally, I like the image - perhaps a bit lighter overall but if you altered the attire slightly this image could be anywhere and anytime. Natural reflection of the true person is beauty in itself "warts and all".