How to find your retouching style

This article will answer the questions: what is a retouching style? What does it depend on? What types / directions in retouching exist? How to find your style in retouching? Tips and tricks on how to find yourself in retouching

When you see the work of top photographers and retouchers on the Internet, you can't help but notice that their work stands out from the rest of the masses - this is called style. Style in retouching is regular features, distinguishing features, an individual approach to design, which can be traced in all or most of the works of the retoucher.

1. What does style depend on?

The style depends entirely on the individual preferences of the retoucher, his taste, favorite shades, wishes in combinations. Someone likes natural beauty, where skin irregularities and any roughness are considered a special highlight. Someone prefers completely ideal images, striving for absolute perfection in everything. There are fans of cool shades from the world of fashion, where the whole picture is in the spotlight. And many more other areas.

2. Which style is the best?

Both a beginner in retouching and an experienced retoucher often face the question: “How to retouch correctly? How to retouch for everyone to like? Some clients may say that “retouching is not enough”, but what about naturalness? Other clients may say that retouching is a lot, but how do you achieve the ideal? There is no "best style". Each direction has its fans, its audience, its customers. It is impossible to please everyone, but the retoucher can choose those directions to which his soul lies, and then people with common views will be drawn to him.

3. How can I find my style?

First of all, I want to say that style is not so much about how photos look, but why do you want to make them that way? What are you striving for and how do you want to see the result? Do you want to emphasize the naturalness of the whole picture, or do you want to focus on the eyes or maybe on the make-up? Do you want to express the depth of the shot by emphasizing the volume, or do you want to draw attention to something specific? What mood do you want to set for the photo? The mood of a professional fashion shoot with an unusual color? Mood of joy in warm colors? The mood of hot curves and shapes? Maybe a bold combination of color harmonies? The way you will embody your vision of photography will be your style.

4. How do I know if I have a style?

Each retoucher has his own style from the very beginning, since he does his work himself and no one will repeat the same result identically to him, even if he does everything exactly according to the video lesson. A retoucher hones his skills only with experience in order to come up with a retouching option that will be ideal in his opinion at a particular point in time. Therefore, even if now you do not feel your style, do not worry, its features will be gained by experience. The more you retouch, the more you will begin to understand what you would like to do for the photo so that the photo looks the best - and this will distinguish you from others, this will be your style.

5. Can everything be called style?

Let's take a look at the artists. For example, is it considered the author's style to want to draw a person consisting of geometric shapes, and not according to anatomical standards? Not? Then look at the work of Pablo Picasso or Salvador Dali. Here, the main question is in what direction the author creates his creation, and whether he was able to comply with all the canons of this direction. Therefore, if you set the artist the task of "painting a picture in a realistic style", then the geometric shapes will not correspond to the task. But if you give free rein to the creative wave, then any series of works can become the personal style of the artist.

Returning to retouching, if you set the retoucher the task of “retouching a photo in a realistic style”, then any deviations from the task are already errors. Therefore, if you make a bad retouch, spoiling the anatomical forms of the model, then the phrase “this is my style” will not help at all, since the canons of “realistic style” have not been observed.

“What if I lighten the pupil of the eye to a very bright color in every retouching job, for example? This is my style, I see it like that!”. Yes, this may well be your style, your chip. But then an important question arises: how many fans will this style attract? Will it be possible thanks to such a "trick" to gather an audience of admirers or find customers? If you are retouching in your “own style”, it is important to make sure that this is what the client wants. But if the client asks for a specific style / direction, then it is important to follow the canons of this particular style.

6. Everyone wants absolutely different, how to be?

No matter how many times the retoucher processes the photo according to the style “like someone else’s”, he will still return to what he considers to be an aesthetically correct solution. In this matter, you can choose one of two things: go in the direction of “retouch imitation” (a style whose main goal is to repeat the reference as closely as possible, recreate an example) or go along the path of honing your skills in order to work with clients who just like personal style.

7. What styles of retouching are there in general?

There are a lot of them. They differ in types of photography, retouching tasks, color combinations and other features. For more information about this topic, see the article:

"What types of retouching are there and their characteristics."

8. I can't select style/direction in retouch

To understand if you like something, you need to try it. You should not focus on the popularity of destinations, because for everyone there is an admirer. Try retouching one photo for each style. This will help you understand if you like working with such photos, plus the portfolio will be replenished with variety. Here is the list:

• beauty (face close-up);

• fashion (fashion image);

• nature (photo retouching for skin care);

• product (retouching any product);

• jewelery (ring, earrings, jewelry, any piece of jewelry);

• high-end (idealization, striving for an elite glossy look);

• hair (complex hairstyle or flowing chic curls);

• studio (studio portrait or full length);

• street (photo retouching with natural light in the street, nature);

• artistic (working in a fabulous style);

• digital, caricature (creating art from a photo);

• collage, compositing (combining several elements into one photo or creating a full-fledged new image, poster);

• other.

Tips for Finding Your Style for a Retoucher

• Time: if you don't feel your style or don't see how you want your work to be, then don't worry about it. Retouching is a creative profession and finding yourself is normal, it is an obligatory stage in the path of every retoucher. Everything will come with time;

• Experience: the more you retouch and experiment, the more you hone your skills and style;

• Knowledge: constantly learn something new. Use free learning channels or choose paid courses from professionals whose work you like. Invest in the profession now, take your time and money. If retouching is your thing, then this knowledge will pay off more than once;

• Multitasking: try yourself at least once in each of the existing areas of retouching. This experience will allow you to understand what you like the most;

• References: create a folder on your computer and save your favorite works of other retouchers, photographers, take screenshots. You can categorize the content as "white background", "color background", "beauty", "fashion", "creative retouching", creativity". And in the future, if you don’t know what to do with the photo, you can always see what solutions other retouchers have found and try to embody something similar;

• Seeing: analyze your work, analyze the work of colleagues, participate in challenges to see dozens of retouching options for one photo. This will help to work on the mistakes and understand in which direction to move on;

• Inspirers: choose for yourself role models among photographers and retouchers, watch their work, analyze, draw inspiration.

Final words

Whatever stage of your creative journey you are at right now, remember that you are not alone, you can always find support in the retouching community. Absolutely every retoucher, artist, make-up artist, photographer, and any other representative of the creative profession has gone through, is going through and will go through the same stage of finding himself and defining himself in his profession, just like you. The only key here is time. Allow yourself to learn, try, fail, rest and try again! Only the one who does not give up always comes to the desired goal!