Retouchup Blog

Here are a few tips to help you as we navigate this busy time together:

1. We are here to help you. If you have questions about a service, or whether or not we can perform a certain task, please contact our customer service team for help.
2. Turnaround times may be longer from now until mid-December. We have prepared for this by extending artist hours and adding additional personnel in operations. Please have a little patience with us. We will do everything within our power to get your images to you as quickly as possible and with good quality. 
3. Sports clipping in particular is extremely heavy this year, so bear this in mind as you prepare for finishing work or promise delivery. As a reminder, sports clipping that involves nets (La Crosse, Tennis, Volleyball) are considered complex due to the nets or webbing. If these kinds of clippings are submitted as a 1-2 subject/object clipping, they will be upgraded to the 3+ subject/object clipping charge. The same thing applies to other complex clippings, such as many types of jewelry that have chains or intricate features, plants, chandeliers, etc.    
4. If you have a hard deadline, we advise you to add the RUSH SERVICE option. This will ensure faster delivery.
5. Double check your instructions prior to submitting to make sure they are clear and concise and any necessary guides are included. This will help prevent delays due to the need to contact you for clarification.

All the best,

Your RetouchUp Customer Service Team

It’s time! School, sports, holiday season – it’s all going to be in full swing soon! What can you do to ensure the fastest turnaround time possible? 

• Choose the correct retouching level. For example, if you need glass glare removal and select Complete Retouch, instead of Complete Plus Retouch, this will cause a delay. When this happens, these projects need to be manually reassigned to an artist capable of making the requested edits. 
• Remember to upload reference photos. It happens quite a bit when we receive a request for a head swap or background replacement but no reference photo gets uploaded. Please double check that reference photos have been added to your order as needed. 
• Give clear and complete instructions. PLEASE give specific instructions for the retouching your photos need. Saying “Do your best” or “See sample for what I did” will delay your order as we’ll have to call to clarify what you need. PLEASE do not add text to the markup image, all instructions must be added to the instruction box.

What have we been doing to prepare for this upcoming busy season? 

• Improved turnaround time. Regular internal checks for our artists are used to monitor turnaround time and rework frequency. 
• Artist mentorship program. Artists who have been with us for a decade or more will personally coach a few artists with less “seat time”. This helps us deliver a better product faster. 
• Test orders. They appear like regular orders to our artists and they allow us to check how artists are performing on challenging tasks. The results help us better route orders and apply training when needed. 

As we do our best to give you fast turnaround times, please keep in mind that the Turnaround Time Estimator does not predict how long your order will take to complete. It shows a snapshot of how long it took to complete the same retouching level in the last 24 hours. Larger or more complex orders generally take longer. Turnaround on weekends is typically a bit longer as well. If you have a hard deadline we advise using the RUSH option.

As always, our customer service team is just a phone call or email away! Thank you for working with us and we look forward to having the best busy season yet! 

To RUSH, or not to RUSH? That’s what we made the Delivery Time Estimator for! To help you make informed decisions about when to expect your order and if you should mark it as RUSH.

Once you’ve selected a retouching level, you’ll see a graph similar to the one below (please note that the following graph is for Complete Retouch):

The graph shows how long it took for similar orders to be completed in the past 24 hours. Based on the above graph, most Complete Retouch orders will be done in 19 hours. If RUSH is applied, then the order would be ready in closer to 5 hours. We do our best to predict when your order will be ready, but some factors that can cause delays are:

1. Large or complicated orders.
2. Incomplete or unclear instructions.
3. Missing reference photos.
4. The order was sent at the incorrect retouching level. These must be manually reassigned to an artist who can perform the higher level retouch.

Our team works around the clock and we do try to match our clients’ schedules. Occasionally, unanticipated weekend volume can result in higher weekend turnaround times. If you have a hard deadline it is always advisable to select RUSH. You can also reach out to Customer Service and we will do all we can to help you meet your deadline.

Your RetouchUp Team

Our clipping path service can help you create new products. We extract headshots, products for catalogs, as well as individual pictures of athletes and teams for banners and composites. Our clipping service allows you to send us photos of products or people and we will extract them, leaving a transparent background. This allows you to place the extracted subject on any background you choose.

We have heard from many photographers over the years about how they are successful with shooting a good image for clipping. We’d like to share a few tips we believe will help you get a better end result from your clipped images.

Lighting

In order to get the best image definition and separation from the background, it is best to use a flash when possible. We have also found it very helpful to place your subjects on a non-lighted white background. The unlit white background will give us adequate separation in most cases. In order to get a good clean clipping, it is best to have good tonal separation between the subject and the background. Dark subjects on a dark background, or very light subjects on a light background, will not give us proper visual reference to make a good clipping. Most any background will work for us as long as we have tonal separation.

Aperture

In order to get clean edges for hair and body lines we need a sharp edge line. Use an f/8 aperture as a minimum, especially for head shots where close focus combined with a longer focal length lens will minimize the depth of field. If the hair of a subject is blurry, the clipping will look unnatural. A smaller aperture will also help with groups in defining where to cut the people out.

Instructions

Clipping instructions can be tricky when there are objects you want to keep and/or eliminate. Typically baseballs, footballs, etc., are kept in but not always. Consider saying this if you want to keep an object:

Extract subject, KEEP ball (or object)

The example below shows a girl sitting on a chair. The photographer wanted only the girl extracted and wished to eliminate the chair as she was making a composite and the girl would be placed on a platform. In this case, saying:

Extract girl only, REMOVE CHAIR.

will make it very clear to the artists what you desire.

Saying REMOVE or KEEP helps the artist know what your preference is.

Another thing to be aware of if you photograph groups on bleachers is if you ask us to eliminate the bleachers, you will have gaps in legs where the bleachers covered people. This shows an example of what will occur if we totally remove all bleachers:

If you photograph on bleachers and would like to know what all we can do, please contact our customer service team.

-Your RetouchUp Team