Nipples

jocose · Mar 17, 2006

hehe...I said nipples...

OK, seriously, and I am serious that I'm being serious.

As some of you know, I took a ton of piccies at my sister's wedding. Well, I have a few that didn't make it to the final display. One of them (and not for this reason, but it got me thinking) is a not so flattering pic of a cousin. In it, she is wearing a rather thin top, and you can clearly see the effects of the cold tempreture (God, I hope that that is why and not for other reasons as she is an old woman *shudders at that thought*).

OK, so the question is, you photogs who take wedding and portrait pics...do you go in and adjust these types of pics? However it's done in the darkroom or with the clone or whatever feature in PS? Or do you just let the picture be? I know that in the advertising world, they remove any hint that women have nipples at all.

Anyway, just wondering.

Thanks.

Christie Photo · Mar 17, 2006

jocose said:
OK, so the question is, you photogs who take wedding and portrait pics...do you go in and adjust these types of pics?

Sure! When photographing people, either portraits or events like weddings, our job it to make them look thier best. Not many of us have completely camera-friendly faces. It's absolutely fine to retouch these imagaes... everything from blemishes to... ehh... nipples. In fact, I believe it's expected.

Good luck!

Pete

jocose · Mar 17, 2006

Christie Photo said:
Sure! When photographing people, either portraits or events like weddings, our job it to make them look thier best. Not many of us have completely camera-friendly faces. It's absolutely fine to retouch these imagaes... everything from blemishes to... ehh... nipples. In fact, I believe it's expected.

Good luck!

Pete

Funny, my question was really specific to nipples, but your right...I did touch up some faces..removed a scar on my nose and some moles on my sister's face and arms. You know, it's funny, I know that the face looks better without the blemish on her chin, but at the same time, I feel like it's not really her anymore since that mark is part of her face...does that make sense? same thing with the mole on her neck...she probably doesn't even notice it, but it made her face and neck run smoothly to her dress line, so I removed it...but like I said, it seems cheating reality somehow...eh.

Thanks for the response.

Christie Photo · Mar 17, 2006

jocose said:
...it's funny, I know that the face looks better without the blemish on her chin, but at the same time, I feel like it's not really her anymore since that mark is part of her face...does that make sense?

Absolutely. I wouldn't retouch permanent blemishes like moles and such. I might subdue them a bit, but I think you're right about changing who the person is.

Remember.... retouching portraits is not cheating... just part of the job.

Pete

Big Mike · Mar 17, 2006

I think that flattening a nipple or somehow drawing attention away from it, is acceptable. But I've found that touching up people in general is a slippery slope.

I had some shots of my wife, mother-in-law and sister-in-law, that I took at a wedding. I had to swap out my S.I.L.'s eyes from one photo to the other (she's a blinker). After that I went to town, practicing my Photoshop techniques. I slimmed & trimmed, erased wrinkles and spots etc. After working on it for so long, I was quite pleased and made a print. It didn't go over well with the wife...

I guess it's different if the subject is not your wife or close family but here's something I've learned. When you retouch a photo of someone you know....be very careful about telling them or showing them the original.

Christie Photo · Mar 17, 2006

Big Mike said:
...I went to town, practicing my Photoshop techniques. I slimmed & trimmed...

Yikes! You've got some big ones, Mike. I was speaking of GENERAL RETOUCHING. You're lucky you didn't marry into MY wifes family... you'd be limping, I'm sure.

Pete

photogoddess · Mar 17, 2006

Christie Photo said:
Yikes! You've got some big ones, Mike. I was speaking of GENERAL RETOUCHING. You're lucky you didn't marry into MY wifes family... you'd be limping, I'm sure.

Pete

Well, he is Big Mike. :lmao:

Big Mike · Mar 17, 2006

I hear ya!

The point I was trying to make is that it's quite easy to get carried away. You are already retouching...and it's so easy to just make another tweak, and another one.

The weird part is that a lot of people (women mostly) don't like they way they appear in photos...they immediately pick out their physical flaws. But they would be offended if you 'fixed' those flaws. Of course, they mostly see people's snapshots and not proper portraits...which should make people look better by emphasizing their stronger attributes, while downplaying the flaws. But that's part of being a good portrait photographer.

jocose · Mar 17, 2006

Christie Photo said:
Absolutely. I wouldn't retouch permanent blemishes like moles and such. I might subdue them a bit, but I think you're right about changing who the person is.

Remember.... retouching portraits is not cheating... just part of the job.

Pete

Yea, I'm talking about a thing on her chin that always looks like she has a zit...I mean if it was a Cindy Crawford mole, I wouldn't touch it

The scar I removed from my face is actually where a mole was removed 2 years ago, and let me tell you...I would have fell in love with the photographer if he or she had removed in PS...would have cost me less too!! :lmao:

JohnMF · Mar 17, 2006

i had a similar problem a few years ago at work. I work for a newspaper and we have "Happy Birthday" adverts section. Some proud parents had sent in a photograph of their daughter to be included in this section, She was about 11 or 12 years old and very pretty. the thing was her ears, they were massive, almost as big as her head!

I had to crop the photo so that it would fit in it's allocated space in the paper, and i didn't know wether to crop the ears off or leave them in. in the end i decided to leave them in the frame.

further down the production line somebody else had seen the photograph and obviously had the same thoughts as me about the ears but took it upon themselves to make them smaller in photoshop, which they did, rather crudely.

You can imagine the horror of the poor parents when they check the paper and see someone has deemed their little girl not pretty enough for the public to see, and decided to "fix" them.

diGIgirl · Mar 23, 2006

Half my job is retouching people for hours and hours and hours.... I have definitely retouched some seriously funny and unpleasant stuff!

My fav's have to be kids snotty running noses! ewwww

but ya, as long as you keep your retouching to a minimum I cant imagine anyone ever complaining! Little things like whitening teeth, losing skin imperfections and softening wrinkles. I think the secret is to make it look like it was never retouched!

Subtle.

n---->

cbay · Mar 23, 2006

That is why they created photoshop to make a crap/dodgy picture into a masterpiece by a few clicks

ksmattfish · Mar 23, 2006

When all I shot was all film the only portrait editing I was prepared to do was what could be accomplished with burning, dodging, and spotting. That's about as tricky as I get in the darkroom, and I've never been very interested in printing from scans of the neg.

With digital portraits I don't edit much without being directed to. If it was good shot, and I though that the subject would be embarassed (nipples, sweat stains, the really odd wrinkle that came out of nowhere...), and the edit was easy to do I'll probably do it. If the subject asks me to do a simple edit (hickey, mosquito bite, bruise, acne...) I'll do it. I agree with Big Mike, I'm not going to make any assumptions about a person's features: that mole might be their favorite mole, that scar has a story...

Looking through my portfolio a person would see wrinkles, dirt, awkward smiles, bulging middrifts, bloodshot eyes, bad fashion choices, and so on. I assume they understand I take take photos of normal folks in all their normal glory, and that they are at least somewhat willing to face the truth of their own normal glory.

If they'd rather have the complete digital make-over there are photographers who offer that.

Christie Photo · Mar 24, 2006

ksmattfish said:
With digital portraits I don't edit much without being directed to.

I insisit on being "director" when I work.... start to finish.

ksmattfish said:
Looking through my portfolio a person would see wrinkles, dirt, awkward smiles, bulging middrifts, bloodshot eyes, bad fashion choices, and so on.

This sounds more like my family album.

ksmattfish said:
I take photos of normal folks in all their normal glory,... If they'd rather have the complete digital make-over there are photographers who offer that.

I really believe our job more than merely to take photos. Aren't we expected to make portaits? There's quite a bit of area between the "naked truth" and a "complete digital make-over." Negative retouching was around LONG before any computer.

Just one more thought... If we worked in a different medium, say... oil on canvas... Would you feel compelled to paint in elements on a formal portrait that you wish were not part of reality? Even worse, what about including any shortcomings that we create by placing the sitter in less than flattering light?

I'm certain we should be doing something more than Sear's.

Pete