Last Updated on 01/15/2015 by Chris Gampat
Nigel Barker is an extremely well known portrait and commercial photographer and he recently gave a bit of a rant on the issue about why retouching is such a bad issue. In fact, he makes a lot of great points. While many are against actually retouching in Photoshop, Nigel reasons that the simple act of putting on makeup, changing clothes or brushing hair is retouching. In fact, he says that was done in ancient times when Egyptians used to use lead based makeup and go blind.
However, Nigel also states that retouching should be done within reason instead of majorly changing things like bone structure. He also states that the simple act of using light to change the way that an image can look is retouching–specifically citing how using backlight can change the way that a woman’s curves appear in an image. Beyond that, Nigel references to back in the film days there would be printers who would dodge and burn in order to do an earlier form of retouching that was done back in the film days.
The video is quite interesting and presents a different point of view on the subject that is much more balanced. Check it out after the jump.
#BehindtheGlass | Nigel Barker on Retouching His Photos from a.a. productions on Vimeo.
