If you're a
senior in the Reno/ Sparks area, you've probably heard of us, and may
even
have received our post
cards in the past. Our goal each
year is to do only about 25-30
senior sessions over the six months from May through October, so we're a somewhat
small player in the local
senior photography market.
When
first starting this business over
twenty years ago, our
goal was to keep things at a level where the emphasis on
quality would not be compromised by the demands of higher
production. It's what's known in the industry as a "botique studio",
and concentrating on service and quality instead of volume has proven a
worthwhile pursuit.The advantage
for our clients of remaining small is that we have much more project
time for each client we
photograph. For
example, a senior session lasts around 2-3 hours, and another 10-12
hours go
into prepping the images for your viewing session before you see them.
(Why so
much prep time? Because when
you see
your images
for the first time, we want you to see their full potential, just how
they will look
when you receive your order.) Lastly, we prep
your chosen images for printing,
and send
them off to the lab.
It's that additional time we can spend on each senior's project that
allows us to
do things a little differently than higher volume studios. And one
thing we do differently is image retouching and enhancement. Ask one of our past seniors about their
experience with Hildebrand Studio, and why they chose us.
When we ourselves ask, it's not unusal to
hear they
thought our work "looked more natural". To
get that natural look, it's often
the time-intensive but subtle
work done in retouching, and our philosophy of how we approach that
retouching,
that makes the difference. A studio that processes a lot of work simply
cannot budget the same time and care on each senior.
But back to the details of good retouching. Good
retouching brings forward the best
features of the person (and other aspects of the image as
well), and eliminates or minimizes problem areas. And it does
this
without calling attention to what's been done. Retouching should never be
rushed—it's actually a creative process—and for most images,
reaching the
correct level of retouching is often a matter of evaluation and
re-evaluation of the image all throughout that process. Here's the image of Laura,
from above, as it came directly from the camera:
Yes, this is the same
photograph! While the difference between the look of the image here and
how it looks at the top of the page is a little more
extreme than usual due to the overall warming of the colors, it makes
the point well that the finished image can
look
quite different from the raw image straight from the camera, and
demonstrates why we spend time prepping images before you view
them. (And also why we never release images without retouching and
enhancement.)
Now, Laura herself actually required very little work except to
brighten her a bit against the darker background, and of course, "warm"
her up to bring out the yellows and golds as we did in the rest of the
image. We were lucky here, as the lighting on Laura was just about
perfect, and didn't cast shadows under her eyes that would need to be
removed, or give us other small but noticeable issues that would
require correction, as it might have if the lighting had been less
favorable.
Unfortunately,
it’s
becoming more and more common now
to use a dedicated, automated retouching program or filter as
the primary retouching
tool, since it saves a vast amount of time over manual
retouching. But that's not how it's done at Hildebrand Studio.
No
matter the style of a photograph, if you really want that refined yet
very natural appearance,
retouching should be done manually, not by automated
software.
We do most of our retouching using
the suite of individual tools
provided in Photoshop, not an automated program. This method does take time—much more
time than the few seconds a retouching program requires doing its job.
And certainly no automated program could do what we did with Laura's
image. Even
the most advanced, most intelligent retouching
software
still can’t match manual retouching for naturalness, as their results
tend to give that
over-retouched, “plastic” look to the skin that you've undoubtedly
seen.
Avoiding that look is precisely why we do our
primary retouching manually.
But retouching programs can have their
place, and we certainly do use them here at Hildebrand Studio—just
very judiciously,
and very lightly. Mostly, we find
them
ideal when used very mildly as the last step
to lightly blend skin tones after all manual retouching has been
completed. So
for us, retouching software remains only a small part of
achieving the
overall finished look of our photography.
And there's more!
Quite often,
retouching can
involve more than the usual eye enhancement, blemish removal, and stray
hair-taming.
Many times we straighten—almost imperceptibly—a crooked
smile, soften deep
smile lines, remove a bump on the side of a nose, or correct other
things that
are distracting and noticeable in a photograph, but are subtle enough
to not
normally be seen when simply talking to or interacting with someone in
person. None of this
can be done with an automated program, only manually in
Photoshop.
Have you heard the phrase, “ the camera adds five
pounds”?
That’s
long
been said, but the reasoning behind it is seldom explained. Actually,
tthe illusion referred to
doesn't always seem to add five pounds; it just appears to add a little
extra. Simply, the effect is the result of the camera's tendency to
flatten the appearance of
three-dimensional objects under some lighting conditions. It's
the loss of
that third dimension when moving from real life to a two-dimensional
print or computer screen that appears to add more
mass to something—that is, it can make something appear wider or larger
than
it actually is.
Round
or cylindrical objects with no clearly defined transitions from front
to side, which is enhanced by very flat, shadowless lighting, are the
most affected. Arms, legs, waists, torsos and faces
are typical examples. We don't see this when actually
standing in
front of someone, because our two eyes—seeing
in
3D—ensure
that we don’t see things the same way a camera sees them in 2D.
Much of
the
time, we can counter
this effect with lighting that adds either shading or highlights to
tell the eye there is a third dimension in play. But in some location
situations we don't have the
control over lighting that we'd like, or would take up a lot of our
shooting time if we tried to modify the lighting (remember, we're
usually in a race with the eventually setting sun). So at times we'll
rework small
sections of an image in Photoshop to thin an arm
or
pinch a waist. This is always a time intensive-process to do
effectively, because we're
altering
not just that arm or waist, but the background behind it (or even more
difficult—not altering the background while altering what’s in front),
and it takes a number of individual steps to make a natural
adjustment. (But
don’t worry, we are the essence of discretion, and never
tell, even if it is just an illusion we're correcting!)
So now you know why our seniors have that natural, unretouched
look! Questions? Give us a call!
