Posts

Why Your Skin Retouching Looks Plastic (And the Frequency Separation Fix That Changed How I Work)
Retouching Techniques

Why Your Skin Retouching Looks Plastic (And the Frequency Separation Fix That Changed How I Work)

The first time a client told me my retouching looked plastic, I didn’t know what to say. I had spent two hours on that image. The skin was smooth, the tones were even, the blemishes were gone. It looked, to my eye at the time, professional. She was polite about it, but the word landed hard: plastic. I went home, pulled up the file, and really looked at it. She was right.

Why Eyes Fall Flat in Portraits (And the Exact Workflow I Use to Fix Them)
Retouching Techniques

Why Eyes Fall Flat in Portraits (And the Exact Workflow I Use to Fix Them)

A few years into my retouching work, a client sent me an email I still think about. She said the eyes in her campaign images looked “glassy, like a doll.” She wasn’t wrong. I’d brightened the irises, added a catch light, sharpened the lashes, and somehow made a real person look less alive than when I started. That email taught me something I now open every workshop with: eyes don’t need to be brighter.

Saying Goodbye to Aperty: What Portrait Editors Need to Know
News

Saying Goodbye to Aperty: What Portrait Editors Need to Know

A Beloved Portrait Tool Is Saying Farewell I’m sharing some news that might affect your editing toolkit. Skylum has announced that Aperty, their dedicated portrait editor, will be discontinued as of November 4th. If you’ve been using this software, now’s the time to plan your next steps. What Made Aperty Special When we first explored Aperty earlier this year, we found ourselves impressed by its thoughtful approach to portrait work. The software struck a nice balance between traditional editing controls—those familiar development sliders we all rely on—and modern AI-assisted features.

Why Your Headshots Look Over-Edited (And the Frequency Separation Fix That Actually Works)
Retouching Techniques

Why Your Headshots Look Over-Edited (And the Frequency Separation Fix That Actually Works)

A client once told me my edits looked “like a wax museum.” She wasn’t wrong. I had smoothed every pore, blurred every shadow, and delivered what I genuinely thought was polished, professional work. I still have that file. I keep it in a folder called “Before I Knew Better,” and I open it maybe once a year just to feel something. That was the edit that sent me down a year-long obsession with frequency separation, and it fundamentally changed how I approach headshot work.

Why Your Portraits Still Look Flat (And How Dodge and Burn Fixes It at the Source)
Retouching Techniques

Why Your Portraits Still Look Flat (And How Dodge and Burn Fixes It at the Source)

There’s a before-and-after I still think about. Early in my retouching career, I handed off a set of portraits to a client and felt genuinely proud of the work. Smooth skin, clean tones, everything looking polished. She emailed back the next morning and said the images looked “a little plastic, like a video game character.” I wanted to disappear into my standing desk. What I had done was chase imperfections surface by surface, smoothing and blurring, without ever asking myself why the skin looked off in the first place.

Why Your Headshots Look Retouched (And How to Fix That Before You Deliver)
Portrait Retouching

Why Your Headshots Look Retouched (And How to Fix That Before You Deliver)

The first time a client told me my retouching looked “plastic,” I had no idea what she meant. I’d smoothed her skin, brightened her eyes, removed a few stray hairs. It looked clean to me. Professional, even. She sent back a side-by-side comparison of her face before and after, and I saw it immediately: I had obliterated every pore, every shadow, every tiny variation that made her face look like a face.

The 4-Layer Method I Use to Make Eyes Look Alive Without Looking Retouched
Retouching Techniques

The 4-Layer Method I Use to Make Eyes Look Alive Without Looking Retouched

A few years back, a client sent me a revision note that stopped me cold. She’d hired me to retouch headshots for her acting portfolio, and her feedback on the eye work was: “They look like doll eyes. Can you make me look like a person again?” She was right. I’d gone in hard with a Hue/Saturation layer, cranked the blue channel on her irises, and added a specular highlight so bright it looked like a flashlight was aimed directly at her face.

Why Desert Landscapes Demand Better Skin Retouching: A Beauty Editor's Take
News

Why Desert Landscapes Demand Better Skin Retouching: A Beauty Editor's Take

Why Desert Landscapes Demand Better Skin Retouching: A Beauty Editor’s Take I’ve been noticing a trend in my retouching inbox lately—more photographers are bringing their portrait work to desert locations, and honestly, they’re discovering what we beauty editors have known for years: these stunning landscapes require a completely different approach to skin editing than traditional studio work. The Desert Light Challenge When we’re working with portraits shot in desert environments, we’re contending with intense, unforgiving sunlight that creates harsh shadows and blown-out highlights across the face.

Why Your Portrait Colors Look Off (And the Correction Workflow That Actually Fixes Them)
Color Correction

Why Your Portrait Colors Look Off (And the Correction Workflow That Actually Fixes Them)

The Greenish Skin Problem Nobody Warns You About A few years back, I delivered a full gallery to a cosmetics client, feeling pretty good about the work. The art director called me within the hour. The model’s skin looked green. Not dramatically green, but enough that the lipstick, which was supposed to read as a warm coral, looked muddy and wrong against it. I had corrected exposure, cleaned up the skin, and completely missed a cyan-green color cast baked into the shadows from a nearby white wall that had been painted with a slight sage tint.

Storage Costs Keep Climbing: What Portrait Retouchers Need to Know
News

Storage Costs Keep Climbing: What Portrait Retouchers Need to Know

Storage Costs Keep Climbing: What Portrait Retouchers Need to Know If you’ve been shopping for memory cards or external drives lately, you’ve probably noticed something painful at checkout: prices have gotten seriously steep. I’ve been tracking the storage market closely over the past year, and I’m hearing from industry insiders that we shouldn’t expect relief anytime soon. The shortage of NAND flash memory that’s been driving costs up shows every sign of persisting well into the coming years.

Evoto 8.0 Takes Portrait Retouching to the Next Level
News

Evoto 8.0 Takes Portrait Retouching to the Next Level

Evoto 8.0 Takes Portrait Retouching to the Next Level I recently attended Evoto’s press event in New York City, and I have to say—I’m genuinely impressed by where this software is heading. In an industry long dominated by Adobe’s ecosystem, seeing a challenger bring this level of innovation to portrait editing is refreshing. What’s New in Evoto 8.0? The latest version introduces features that directly address pain points we face as portrait and beauty editors.

Why Local Processing Matters: ACDSee's Latest Update Prioritizes Your Privacy in Portrait Work
News

Why Local Processing Matters: ACDSee's Latest Update Prioritizes Your Privacy in Portrait Work

Why Local Processing Matters: ACDSee’s Latest Update Prioritizes Your Privacy in Portrait Work As portrait retouchers and beauty editors, we work with some of the most sensitive images our clients will ever share. That’s why I’m genuinely excited about ACDSee Photo Studio Ultimate 2027 and its approach to AI—it’s fundamentally different from what we’ve seen before, and frankly, it’s a game-changer for those of us who care deeply about protecting client privacy.