Creative Retouching
In the early years of the 20th century, commercial studios began modifying photographs, adding people who weren’t in the original image, or eliminating physical flaws.
Many photographers found their own innovative ways of editing or retouching photos and demand for such services grew exponentially, alongside the appetite for colour images.
In 1987, Adobe Photoshop was released, tools enabling digital photography manipulation and the global industry that exists today.
At ec2i, we’re proud to be part of this thriving sector, offering a range of production services, including creative retouching.
What is creative retouching?
Photographers try to tell a visual story of your brand, but it isn’t always possible to capture every nuance in a single image. Creative retouching is a way to edit images to achieve an even better result for a marketing campaign or advertisement.
This might involve ‘comping’ several products together to create a dramatic effect or add a ‘wow’ factor. But there are many techniques that can be used to transform an image.
Creative retouching is an art, a skill that requires years of practice, concentration and dedication to enable a retoucher to accurately portray a brand vision and values.
The real magic is in making images in a campaign portfolio look and feel as natural as possible, with no evidence of any extra work having been done.
Image editing
We should explain that retouching can be confused with image editing from time to time, but in reality, the two are very different.
Image editing focuses more on cropping or straightening an image, balancing light, or adjusting the exposure, rather than altering the components within the shot.
High-end retouching
This service involves a great deal of analysis, contouring, erasing of defects and smoothing of textures for advertising photos.
It can involve eliminating skin blemishes, marks or imperfections and stray hairs, or adding detail and depth to a complex room set.
High-end retouching is most often used on a larger-scale project, such as advertising billboards. It always seeks to enhance the beauty of images to increase product sales and best-seller performance.
Our creative professionals
The award-winning creative retouching professionals at ec2i can handle everything from furnishings and gadgets to the complexities of clothing and jewellery.
Using the Adobe Creative Suite, including Photoshop and Illustrator, our retouchers can manipulate photography images that otherwise may need to be reshot.
They can remove or replace an object featured in an expensive location shot, edit or extend backgrounds, completely recolour a wall, or add sunshine where winter shots were taken.
Our clients have access to our online proofing and workflow tools that keep them informed at every stage of the process, eliminating any worry and enabling them to quickly approve projects.
All these skills and essential services save time and money, and can help a product to be brought to market more efficiently.
The importance of lighting
A photographer, especially when in different locations across the world, doesn’t always get the best light for some projects. That’s where our experienced team steps in.
Whether a dull part of an image needs enhancing without oversaturating the whole shot, light that is too harsh needs softening, or edit the colour temperature of a photo, they can do it all, and more.
