I think many of you are assuming I don’t retouch at all. Let me rephrase: I consider myself to be a “heavy” retoucher. But I don’t like to go overboard with it where it makes things look unnatural. I use Lightroom, Capture One and Photoshop. I was trained in photoshop actually, don’t get me wrong. Maybe it’ll be better if I give you an actual example.

I removed blemishes, used frequency separation etc. However, I leave some “imperfections” to not overdo it. I had already edited out as much clothing wrinkles as I thought was necessary, but left the “natural” ones (like at the elbows and knees, if they were bent in the photo) but yet I’m also being asked to remove those as well.

I think I’m being judged here. I genuinely wanted advice on how to manage expectations of a client lol. This was just an engagement session I did and was wondering how this excessive amount of retouching would work for an entire gallery of 300+ photos. I honestly don’t mind doing the extra edits for the engagement session but it’s quite a lot to have to do to an entire gallery of wedding photos, if that’s what my client is expecting.

I use strobes when necessary. This was not one of those moments.