Today it's easy to confuse a photographer with a retoucher. After all, photographers retouch images to suite their client's needs. So what's the difference between a professional retoucher and a professional photographer? After taking the pictures it is the photographer's job to enter into post production. This is where they perform general adjustments on the images such as brightening shadows, toning down highlights, adjusting colors, straightening, cropping, and various other techniques to get the image in the ballpark of acceptable quality before delivering the photo to their client.
After general adjustments the photographer might bring the image into Photoshop to make pixel-level adjustments. These types of adjustments usually consist of cloning out objects, adding effects to certain areas, selective sharpening, and other final touches to make the image final.
A professional retoucher picks up what the photographer can't handle in Photoshop when necessary. Advanced Photoshop edits is what a retoucher is hired to do. In this case I used a retoucher to finish some images for a client that needed to emphasize the floors of a warehouse. My client is an inustrial flooring finishes company. The job here was to photograph the floors in a warehouse setting.
The before images have forklift tracks on the floor that distract the viewer from seeing the floors. The warehouse looks empty but I was constantly dodging automated robotic forklifts and waiting for them to move out of the picture to get the right shots.
You can see the retoucher did a fantastic job at keeping the floors looking natural while minimizing the forklift tracks. This level of editing and adjustments is beyond my expertise in Photoshop. I'm pleased to share the retoucher's information here. He did a great job and I would recommend him for any project that needs advanced edits.
Retoucher
Alex Hart
alex@360start.com
