Adobe Photoshop CS3 How-Tos: 100 Essential Techniques

Chapter Eleven. Retouching Portraits

I recently had the opportunity to photograph one of the top-ranked triathletes in the world. My assignment was to create a telling portrait for a major publication. When I started planning the shot, my first thought was, “How do I capture the essence of this athlete and make him look good?”

When you stop to think about it, much of a photographer’s work with portrait photography is to use the specific environments, lighting, perspectives, and Photoshop techniques that help make a subject look good. The important thing to keep in mind is that different genres of photography require different types of retouching. We do not simply retouch an image because we can. Rather, we retouch to fit the parameters of the genre ...