Retouchup Blog

Every type of photography has its challenges to get that “just right” photograph.  Real Estate and Architectural photographers can face a number of variables on a location assignment. From lighting, time of day, atmospheric conditions, location and temperature, there is always a challenge ahead. 

Fortunately we have a dedicated and talented staff of artists that can make all those challenges look like they were never an issue.   

In photo 1 there was a sudden change of staff right after the photo session. NO PROBLEM. This was completed for a mere $10.00 as a Special Services request. Since our pricing is all inclusive, you can also request facial retouching, glasses glare, distracting items removed, etc. (see our post from Dec. 9 on simple pricing) 

There are no hidden charges or surprises for you.  The ability to add or remove people from staff photographs saves your client from having to assemble everyone together again.  Downtime is costly.

There are so many details that can easily be overlooked when setting up for an exterior shoot. Fire hydrants than cannot be moved, stop signs and the inevitable window reflections. We can easily make all that disappear. Photo 2 shows several changes we made to make a big improvement in this office personnel photo.   How many changes do you see? 

It seems that more photographers are beginning to realize the many uses for clipped photographs. Clipping has been widely used for sports photos and products, now we are seeing a variety of uses for clipped photos. For those who have never had the need for a clipped photo here is a brief description of the product, process and uses. 

Any photo that has a distinct subject and a plain or non-cluttered background could be a candidate for clipping. The main image is kept intact while the background is removed leaving a transparent background. The resulting image saved as a .png can be manipulated in Photoshop onto any other backdrop for digital sports posters, banners etc. Product shots can be placed or composited onto virtually any background and changed very easily. While it is a relatively straight forward process there are many things to consider when shooting an image for clipping.

Anyone who takes professional photographs will most likely need those images retouched to satisfy their client’s needs. Whether you photograph commercial products, sports teams or portraits you probably will have an ongoing need for retouching services.

There are various solutions available for retouching such as doing it all yourself, having in-house staff and of course, outsourcing. There will be advantages and disadvantages to each of these but we will not explore those in this article. If you are reading this, most likely your desire is to outsource as much retouching as seems feasible for your situation so that is what we will focus on. 

A major challenge whether you have in-house staff or you choose to outsource is going to be accurate communication of your expectations. We have several tools programmed into our system that make accurate communication very easy to achieve with minimal effort on your part. We would like to offer a few suggestions that should help you see better results from using our service for your retouching. 

Basic Information

We offer three levels of retouching and have most of the basic tasks we perform at each level indicated on our home page.  We often receive orders that simply say “RETOUCH” or “DO YOUR BEST”.  The artist will attempt to give you his or her impression of what they think is a good retouch but it does help us a to have a basic understanding of your expectations.  

RetouchUp’s new photo restoration & digital oil painting video time-lapse add-on helps make marketing photo restoration easier for you! We give you the option to have us create a neat 2-4 minute summary of the entire restoration process, complete with before and after images. While sped up, you’ll be able to see all of the corrections we make, from fixing scratches and spots, to restoring tears and water marks, to fixing the color, and more!

Posting these short videos to your social media is easy, and it visually shows your clients the value of restoring their old and damaged photos. This photo restoration video could even be something you offer as a product to your clients. Along with the keepsake of a restored family photo, it’s really unique for them to see all of the work that went into restoring their photo!

Here’s an example of what it would look like: