Photo Processing: Types, Techniques, and Stages

Photo processing includes basic corrections, retouching, restoration, and creative editing. The stages involve importing, adjusting, retouching, and exporting to deliver high-quality images.

1. Photo processing: types and stages

Photo retouching makes a photo more impressive, complete,
aesthetic. A beginner gets lost in the abundance of techniques and
tools, regardless of whether he takes courses, reads articles or learns

2. from videos. What to grab? Where to start? What kind of processing is
needed for a photo, and what will waste your time?
We’ll tell you what kind of retouching is needed if you’re shooting a
reportage, a portrait for a private client, or working on a photo that
will appear in a magazine, advertisement, or exhibition.
Types of retouching
The first thing you need to realize is that it’s better to be able to do
everything. And process a photo in detail “like in a magazine”,
bringing every pixel to perfection, and simply do a light makeover with
color correction. But, depending on the task, the price of the work and
the final destination where the photo will be sent (social networks,
billboard, exhibition, competition), in what size it will be viewed, the
depth of processing can and should be different.

4. Let’s imagine a situation: you’ve been commissioned to make a
portrait. Does that sound large-scale? But what if it’s going to hang on
the website as an icon in the technical support section, 50 by 50 pixels
in size? Does it make sense to spend 1.5 hours on one frame to clean
the background, remove pimples, even out the light and shadow,
“comb” the hair and eyebrows, drawing them hair by hair? The answer
is: for training, yes, but if we’re talking about the work and its result,
no one will notice your efforts in the end. Color correction
As a rule, this is a stream Photo Editing of a large number of frames,
where the author edits only brightness and color. It would be more
correct to call it RAW conversion or JPEG color correction. Most
often, street photos and photo reports are processed this way. For
example, weddings, when from several hundred to several thousand
photos are obtained from the registration, banquet, walk of guests and
newlyweds.

5. What this stage may include:
●​Changing brightness. Overexposed photos are darkened,
darkened ones are lightened. Photographers often adjust
brightness in a separate tonal range. For example, when in a
wedding photo shoot the bride’s dress can turn into a shining
white spot.

6. ●​White balance. It is changed if the photo seems too yellow,
blue, or green. The goal of this stage is to bring the colors to
natural ones.
●​Increase sharpness and contrast.

●​Tinting. If desired, you can add some shade to the photo. For
example, weddings are often made warmer. This also
includes adjusting individual colors. For example, you can

7. mute all the green shades so that the foliage is not
conspicuous, or remove the redness on the face.
There is no correct order here. Usually, start with what bothers and
irritates you the most. Is it so dark that you can’t see anything? Raise
the brightness. Is the frame so yellow that you can’t distinguish other
colors? Adjust the white balance.
Technical retouching
The main direction of this type of processing is the effect of a photo
without retouching. Its task is to remove and correct significant frame
flaws that affect perception, but leave the photo natural. For example,
correct the color, remove wires, garbage, clean the background. Maybe
you took a photo of a model in front of a mirror and then saw stains?
Or accidentally during a break in shooting a stain from coffee or ice
cream appeared on the clothes? Did the lipstick smudge? Did the
mascara crumble?

8. This retouching is most often used by photographers who work for
private clients. These are single, couple, family photo sessions,
children’s, but it can also be a photo shoot of clothing catalogs
(although, ideally, color correction should be sufficient for catalogs).

9. What does technical retouching include:
●​Color correction. Yes, everything you did in the previous
block is just one of the stages in technical retouching.
●​Background Cleaning: Remove dirt, debris, wires,
unnecessary objects and people.
●​Cleaning clothes. Clean out fur, lint, stains and the most
noticeable creases.
●​Working with a model. Fix any makeup that has fallen off and
obvious skin defects that you don’t plan to show. For
example, a large pimple appeared on your nose before the
shoot. If this is not part of the concept of the photo shoot,
where you want to show a person completely natural with all
their flaws, please the model and erase the pimple so that she
can confidently post the photo on social media.
●​Working with skin color. For example, the face is one color
because of the foundation, the neck is another, frozen hands
are a third, and the legs are a fifth because of tights. In this

10. case, it is better to even out the color. Another reason when
spot color correction may be needed is cheeks, nose, and
fingers that are red from the cold.
●​Plastic surgery. Not always and not everywhere. It depends
on the wishes of the model, the photographer’s vision and —
naturally — the shot. For example, a model in a tight dress
and tights. The latter squeeze the waist, which makes the
silhouette a little uneven. Plastic surgery will help smooth out
this flaw. As you can see, it is not always about changing a
person’s figure and face no less than a plastic surgeon would
do.
●​Can a photo with such retouching end up in a magazine, a
competition or an exhibition? Definitely yes! However, in this
case, the photographer bears more responsibility for
organizing the shoot: model, location, light, selection of
accessories, clothes, makeup, idea. Everything should be so
high-quality that detailed processing is simply not needed.

11. Deep retouching
You can find several variations of the name: magazine retouching,
hi-end retouching. This is a detailed processing of a photograph,
where the retoucher pays attention to every little detail. The shape of
the lips and the beauty of the glare on them, the thickness of the
eyelashes, the shape of the eyebrows and teeth, gaps in the hairstyle,
the consistency of colors, symmetry and accuracy of light and shadow
— all this is paid attention to during such processing. This retouching means that not a single pixel is left without attention.
It is suitable for advertising portrait and product photography, and
can be submitted to magazines and exhibitions.

12. Stages and order of magazine retouching:
●​color correction;
●​technical retouching;

13. ●​deep processing of a model or object. This stage is the longest
and most labor-intensive.
It uses and mixes two retouching techniques: frequency
decomposition and dodge & burn. The first allows you to clean the
surface of an object or the model’s skin from pimples, wrinkles, and
even out the light and shadow pattern, the second allows you to work
in detail with texture and light and shadow. Also, at this stage, they
work on details. For example, you are processing a large portrait that
will advertise lipstick.
What, besides the skin, may need to be edited:
●​eyelashes, if they are sparse;
●​makeup flaws;
●​lips. For example, make the outline perfectly clear, add a
highlight, change the texture if the lips are chewed or
chapped.

14. ●​eyes. For example, remove capillaries, redness.
●​teeth. For example, whiten, remove a chip.
●​hair.

15. It is important to retouch not only the model itself, but also the
background. It is not enough to simply remove a scratch or a shoe
mark. For example, if it is a crumpled paper background, it needs to be
brought to perfection.
In addition, they retouch clothes, removing folds, wrinkles, protruding
threads, and the rest of the body. Yes, if hands and neck are in the
frame in a large portrait, they need to be edited with the same care.
●​Working with color. Even out skin tone, recolor individual
elements of the image, bring the photo to a beautiful color
scheme. ●​Plastic surgery, if you didn’t do it at the technical sharpening
stage.
●​Sharpness if it seems insufficient.

16. Product Photo Editing
A separate type of deep processing is artistic retouching. This is a
conventional name, but the key message here is a strong change in the
source, a complete reworking of the image and turning the photo into
something more. For example, collage, photo art, photo manipulation.
Here the author can use many sources, 3D objects, redrawing and
finishing of image elements manually.

17. By and large, it is difficult to call this photography. Such works can be
seen at exhibitions in galleries and in advertising, but this is a separate
world. Rather, it is a picture created with the help of graphic editors,
so we are talking about creativity here, where the author acts as an
artist and where the skill of drawing is much more important than
photography or retouching.