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Bad Retouching Techniques (Examples Included)


Brian Soto

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This won't be news to a lot of you, but it may be eye opening for some. Sometimes to get a better idea of what direction to go in, it helps to know what not to do. I thought I'd take a minute to celebrate (lament) the garish eyesores that some "experts" recommend others produce when retouching.

While there is subjectivity in art, a retoucher's job is more constrained, and there is a standard as it applies to commercial work. I'm getting a handle on those standards myself reading books and watching tutorials by people like Scott Kelby, Matt Kloskowski, Julia Kuzmenko McKim, and Michael Woloszynowicz. My background as an Illustration major turned Graphic Designer helped me have an idea, but photography has its own standards. If you're retouching or compositing for someone other than yourself, they generally need you to enhance their work, not leave signs of your influence there. There's a reason only a handful of people are entrusted to do retouch jobs that many photographers don't have the time for. Subtlety is key, and non-destructive workflow is essential. Now stepping off my soapbox, on with the show.

This visual belly flop, while obviously not commercial, was used to advertise someone's custom brushes at DeviantArt, and meant to imply the good effects of their use.


Hair_Brushes_by_BBs_Brushes2.jpg


I'm reminded of that armchair Rembrandt who showcased her skills on that Ecce Homo fresco when I look at this. The hair detail was crudely smudged into oblivion with indelicate childlike strokes, and the white point clipping quickly got rid of any evidence there was human skin .This is stating the obvious to anyone with a cursory understanding of image treatment standards, but rarely is using the contrast slider considered a job well done. Even in the most liberal definition of artistic license, deliberately overexposing an image in post, and blowing out the details with white isn't a good idea. I'm afraid of hue and contrast that isn't used minimally, and most people should be. It's a highly destructive way of retouching, as you're generally adding information that isn't there, or taking away information that is, but to an extreme degree. This may look good to someone whose life entails solely playing RPG games, but not in the commercial world.

This next one hurts me even more, because it was used in a tutorial. The thought that it may contribute to an army of people who think they're helping the world by doing things the wrong way makes my last meal move north. I won't name names (fortunately it wasn't here) but this image was supposed to demonstrae techniques for how to make skin look better in Photoshop.

Untitled6.png

This is what happens when you try to retouch someone's face without using frequency separation layers. It's also what happens when you look at someone while under the influence of mushrooms, but that's anther topic. Making someone look like they needed a skin retoucher so bad that they got a t-shirt airbrusher from the mall to render them inhuman isn't saying the best about your skills. I've seen countless variations of similar tutorials on Photoshop, often to high praise from an unwitting audience. But listening to professional retouchers, photographers and digital artists, they seem to be painfully aware of this phenomenon, and the bad habits it cultivates. If this area is of interest to you, I highly recommend looking up frequency adjustment+skin tutorials, preferably with "high-end" or "professional" somewhere in the title.

This last one is just redundant, but I thought I would include it to show just how pervasive bad Photoshop tips are, as this was on a quasi-professional site, titled to demonstrate skin retouching techniques.

diffusion.jpg

This is bad for all of the aforementioned reasons, but I just hope the follow up tutorial is about how to find clues as to what exactly is in the images that have undergone these techniques. Now if you'll all excuse me, I have to go get some sunglasses. There's a lot of tutorials out here.
 
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Paul

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Have you been in touch with the creator of these tuts by any chance?
I don't think it is for a PSG member to be slating off site work either, whether it is correct or not.
 

Brian Soto

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Have you been in touch with the creator of these tuts by any chance?
I don't think it is for a PSG member to be slating off site work either, whether it is correct or not.

I haven't been in touch with them, no. It never occurred to me. Why would I do that? Similar work was used to demonstrate bad technique in a class I had on pre-flight and color correction.

I didn't know having an opinion was so heavily regulated here. I must have missed that in the TOS. Could you point me to it?
 
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Paul

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Not regulated just making an observation, just seemed a bit harsh especially now since you haven't said anything to the op.
We can all make critiques but not really worth much when the person being critiqued cannot reply or counter the others argument/opinion.
 

Brian Soto

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Not regulated just making an observation, just seemed a bit harsh especially now since you haven't said anything to the op.
We can all make critiques but not really worth much when the person being critiqued cannot reply or counter the others argument/opinion.

I guess I don't understand the point of that. This is objectively bad work, whether or not they like hearing that, or can rationalize it in words. At the end of whatever they had to say, it would still be bad work. I think being able to point at the wrong way of image editing is important, and should be something we care about at a place touting our abilities to create them.

I think we probably 'do' agree that anonymity should be protected, which is why I was careful not to mention names. Further, I've now removed the username graphic attached to the first image.

Cheers.
 

Paul

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Any work is 'objectively' bad, it's based on opinions.
 

Brian Soto

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Any work is 'objectively' bad, it's based on opinions.

I think you mean subjectively. Every piece of art is appraised subjectively. But there are objective truths about the fundamentals in all of them. E.g. We can dance around the issue of Rebecca Black's music being a matter of taste, and pretend no authority can be used to judge it. Beauty in the eye of the beholder and what not. But there's a reason why she's critically panned by both mainstream and Indie critics and outlets, and why she's not on a major label. Most people can say with confidence that she blows harder than colons after Thanksgiving. Subjective refinement becomes objective standard.
 
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Paul

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Like i said pop up some of your work you are 'happy' with instead of posting eight hours worth of grainy at best imagery please.
Let's see what you can do, talk and all that:mrgreen:
 

Tom Mann

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IMO, Paul, Brian's comments are both technically and pedagogically right on the mark. Many aspects of photography / retouching / color reproduction are indeed objective, not subjective. Others aspects are a mix of both, and some of the visual arts are completely subjective to the point that well known pieces have been considered outlandish / garish / etc by most observers. I don't know of anyone who has worked in this field who would dream of disagreeing with that.

However, as Brian correctly pointed out, fundamentals concepts, standards, techniques, etc. DO exist, and people just starting out need to see both good and bad examples. If you can't draw a cat with two circles and two triangles when you want to, it's pretty unlikely you are going to produce the next Dali melting clock painting, or anythng else that you might envision. You won't be able to get off of first base. If you can't produce a normally exposed, color balanced photo when you want to, you certainly won't be called to be the still photographer for the next Harry Potter movie or asked to do highly consistent color grading on it.

BTW, it's considered both inappropriate and completely missing the point to ask an art critic to post examples of their own art, or a highly esteemed (US) football coach to show us how he would run a touchdown in a real game. It's called attacking the messenger, not the message. This thread has run its course. I'm closing it. If you feel differently, we can discuss it in the staff room.


T
 
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Paul

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Friend of yours, say no more shall we:mrgreen:
 

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