Do retouched friends get touchy?

"john" wrote in message

I frequently take photos of friends at parties, dinners, gatherings.
I sometimes retouch their appearances that I think nobody would notice and I don’t tell them. E.g. remove to varying degrees acnes, wrinkle, double chin, large nose, crooked teeth, uneven eye sizes, minor waldrobe malfunction, etc

Sometimes I want to make bigger changes but am not sure what reaction to expect.

Have you ever retouched your friends and let them know (or they noticed)? What are the usual reaction? Happy? Upset? Furious?

I do a lot of photo retouching and I’ve learned not to change any permanent feature unless I’m asked to. I took a photo of a boy who had large sticky-out ears and I made them less sticky out. His mother was furious! She said it would make him worry about his ears if I thought they were so bad that they had to be changed. I’ve had a bad reaction from customers when I have removed small scars or moles so I no longer do this. I find it’s OK to change temporary marks such as spots, messed up hair, creased clothes etc. My advice is to be careful with retouching photos of friends, you could end up losing a friendship!

—
Geoff J.

On Jan 26, 7:17 pm, "john" wrote:

I frequently take photos of friends at parties, dinners, gatherings.
I sometimes retouch their appearances that I think nobody would notice and I don’t tell them. E.g. remove to varying degrees acnes, wrinkle, double chin, large nose, crooked teeth, uneven eye sizes, minor waldrobe malfunction, etc
Sometimes I want to make bigger changes but am not sure what reaction to expect.

Have you ever retouched your friends and let them know (or they noticed)? What are the usual reaction? Happy? Upset? Furious?

It takes a master politician to do portraiture. I have learned to avoid it whenever possible. I would rather throw my camera off a cliff than takes someone’s picture – and I love my camera. It is one of the most inefficient ways of making people unhappy. Kicking them in the shin is faster and they may forgive you for that.

On Mon, 26 Jan 2009 20:11:35 -0800 (PST), ""
wrote:

On Jan 26, 7:17 pm, "john" wrote:

I frequently take photos of friends at parties, dinners, gatherings.
I sometimes retouch their appearances that I think nobody would notice and I don’t tell them. E.g. remove to varying degrees acnes, wrinkle, double chin, large nose, crooked teeth, uneven eye sizes, minor waldrobe malfunction, etc
Sometimes I want to make bigger changes but am not sure what reaction to expect.

Have you ever retouched your friends and let them know (or they noticed)? What are the usual reaction? Happy? Upset? Furious?

It takes a master politician to do portraiture. I have learned to avoid it whenever possible. I would rather throw my camera off a cliff than takes someone’s picture – and I love my camera. It is one of the most inefficient ways of making people unhappy. Kicking them in the shin is faster and they may forgive you for that.

I recently took photographs at a birthday party for an adult. The series was posted on the net and links were sent to all who attended. The most common comment was "Everyone looks great except me".

—
Tony Cooper – Orlando, Florida

On Jan 26, 11:11 pm, "" wrote:

On Jan 26, 7:17 pm, "john" wrote:

I frequently take photos of friends at parties, dinners, gatherings.

I sometimes retouch their appearances that I think nobody would notice and I don’t tell them. E.g. remove to varying degrees acnes, wrinkle, double chin, large nose, crooked teeth, uneven eye sizes, minor waldrobe malfunction, etc

Sometimes I want to make bigger changes but am not sure what reaction to expect.

Have you ever retouched your friends and let them know (or they noticed)? What are the usual reaction? Happy? Upset? Furious?

It takes a master politician to do portraiture.

True. About seven out of eight pictures of my wife are rejected out of hand. 🙂

My only advice is, NEVER respond, "The camera doesn’t lie!" 🙂

I have learned to
avoid it whenever possible. I would rather throw my camera off a cliff than takes someone’s picture – and I love my camera. It is one of the most inefficient ways of making people unhappy. Kicking them in the shin is faster and they may forgive you for that.

toby wrote:

On Jan 26, 11:11 pm, "" wrote:

On Jan 26, 7:17 pm, "john" wrote:

I frequently take photos of friends at parties, dinners, gatherings.

I sometimes retouch their appearances that I think nobody would notice and I don’t tell them. E.g. remove to varying degrees acnes, wrinkle, double chin, large nose, crooked teeth, uneven eye sizes, minor waldrobe malfunction, etc

Sometimes I want to make bigger changes but am not sure what reaction to expect.

Have you ever retouched your friends and let them know (or they noticed)? What are the usual reaction? Happy? Upset? Furious?

It takes a master politician to do portraiture.

True. About seven out of eight pictures of my wife are rejected out of hand. 🙂

My only advice is, NEVER respond, "The camera doesn’t lie!" 🙂

Not totally true, because camera does know how to lie and lying well.

– If your wife can tell the difference or dislike 7 out of 10 then I guess someone really over doing it.

– If you don’t think camera doesn’t know how to lie, then I would say you have lot to learn from camera. And of course camera can only be able to lie if the photographer allows it to do the lying.

I have learned to
avoid it whenever possible. I would rather throw my camera off a cliff than takes someone’s picture – and I love my camera. It is one of the most inefficient ways of making people unhappy. Kicking them in the shin is faster and they may forgive you for that.

I don’t know who said the above (I don’t care either), but have learned to avoid may not the right word, but I would say learning not over doing is more acceptable.

Same as most people use the word "natural" when they haven’t learned that the true natrual can be pretty ugly sometime. Or that’s one of the reasons why woman uses make up to change the real natural, while saying natural look.

Or *if* you work on human (portrait) then you may realize we have many pretty ugly parts (like paled skintone, damaged skin-texture, thin-lip etc.), and most if not all photos are not 100% natrual (I am talking about the skin-tone).

john wrote:

I frequently take photos of friends at parties, dinners, gatherings.
I sometimes retouch their appearances that I think nobody would notice and I don’t tell them. E.g. remove to varying degrees acnes, wrinkle, double chin, large nose, crooked teeth, uneven eye sizes, minor waldrobe malfunction, etc

Sometimes I want to make bigger changes but am not sure what reaction to expect.

Have you ever retouched your friends and let them know (or they noticed)? What are the usual reaction? Happy? Upset? Furious?

Have you ever seen someone do a caricature ? Try that for a laugh, it’s a lot quicker way to annoy folks.

Oh and don’t forget you could be doing a lot worse, stick their heads on some movie poster etc.

D

"toby" wrote in message

It takes a master politician to do portraiture.

True. About seven out of eight pictures of my wife are rejected out of hand. 🙂

My only advice is, NEVER respond, "The camera doesn’t lie!" 🙂

LOL. Or say "They say the camera adds 10lbs, god knows how many camera’s there were on you at the time".

john wrote:

I frequently take photos of friends at parties, dinners, gatherings.
I sometimes retouch their appearances that I think nobody would notice and I don’t tell them. E.g. remove to varying degrees acnes, wrinkle, double chin, large nose, crooked teeth, uneven eye sizes, minor waldrobe malfunction, etc

Sometimes I want to make bigger changes but am not sure what reaction to expect.

Have you ever retouched your friends and let them know (or they noticed)? What are the usual reaction? Happy? Upset? Furious?

Very touchy decision.
What I try to do is take 10-12 pictures, explaining that the chances of getting "just the right look" is greater, the more pictures I take. They are usually fine with that.
Then I sit down with them and look at all the images.
I ask them which picture they like the best.
Then I ASK them if they would like me to lighten a shadow….Usually OK. Then…. would they like me to "reduce" an eye wrinkle…..Usually OK. How about removing it completely? Maybe Yes …Maybe No.

Gradually, let them decide just how much retouching they are comfortable with. Takes a little more time but the subject usually ends up delighted with the results. Gives them a feeling of participation and authorship. Bob Williams

On Wed, 28 Jan 2009 09:23:15 +0000, dr wrote:

john wrote:

I frequently take photos of friends at parties, dinners, gatherings.
I sometimes retouch their appearances that I think nobody would notice and I don’t tell them. E.g. remove to varying degrees acnes, wrinkle, double chin, large nose, crooked teeth, uneven eye sizes, minor waldrobe malfunction, etc

Sometimes I want to make bigger changes but am not sure what reaction to expect.

Have you ever retouched your friends and let them know (or they noticed)? What are the usual reaction? Happy? Upset? Furious?

Have you ever seen someone do a caricature ? Try that for a laugh, it’s a lot quicker way to annoy folks.

Oh and don’t forget you could be doing a lot worse, stick their heads on some movie poster etc.

D

You can’t know in advance just how far anyone will accept. So much depends upon their individual personalities. Like, do they have a sense of humor, or no humor? What are they sensitive about? Weight? Hairloss? Her mustache? Being caught with a finger up their nose? The appearance of drinking when their religion forbids it? Only by knowing your subjects on a very close level can you know with reasonal certainty…. but even then…. protect yourself at all times, and if possible go to a neutral corner.

A member of a group was ill when we took a group shot at our reunion. The backdrop wall had a huge portrait, like you might see of the Queen, or President, etc. We replaced the portrait with her picture. She laughed her butt off. It looked like she was the stern old school marm just waiting for someone to move so she could bust some knuckles with a ruler. Another member of the group was upset because it "looked" like all the overweight people were being put in the back.

—

Vintage Burgundy 65 Fastback 2+2, 289 OEM 4bbl, Custom C4, OEM front disc/rear drum P/R&P, 16×8" V40s, BFG gForce T/A skins. Cobra drop, halogen and LED lighting.

Here’s a nice exercise for you regarding how people tend to view themselves and how our day to day routine affects our awareness of our own appearance.

Most photographers ( whether keen amateur or pro ) when they have taken a series of photos in a portrait sitting will almost always be able to pick out the one which makes the sitter look best….

However, when it comes time for the client (or friend) to pick out the shot that they like best, do they concur with our choice… Rarely….

Now here’s the exercise, experiment with it over time and you will probably find it works….

Arrange all of the pictures you have taken in whatever way you normally show them, but take the photo which you think is best and "flip horizontal" nealry every time the client will go for this shot… why???

well, it is the version of themselves that they "know"… they spend hours every week looking at this face, not the one you have shown them, cause very few people ever see themselves except in a mirror…

give it a go!!

with regards to re-touching I think it is related

Personally I always give a little but of re-touch to all portraits, however, like everything else in photoshop the trick is to make it believable, so… if the client has bags under their eyes, blotches and wrinkles, you don’t make them look like a Hawaiian Tropic ad… all you do is take maybe 30-50% of the blemish away. That way when they see the image, again, it is the "them" that they know, but just looking really well…. do they think… ohh he has only re-touched that by 30%… No, they just think, wow! that’s a great photo of me, he made me look really well!!

Also there are some special cases where I would always re-touch… like babies… everybody thinks babies have prefect skin, but most babies have milk rash or little cuts from their fingernails.. these go every time

J

Well, actually thing goes something like this.

– Professional, they pick whatever they feel like, and they can turn a single photo into multiple styles.

There won’t be many to chose, and whatever you chose will cost ya $$$$ so you always wish to have more.

– Friend, family etc.., cuz it’s FREE, too many to chose so they often won’t see the real value.

That’s about it! then about the retouching style is another story which I can’t see to tell.