- The price! What is the price? And what is included?
- What about makeup? Does the makeup artist stay the whole time? And what is the cost for makeup?
- Can I refer my friends?
- What is your schedule like?
- What should I bring for my headshot session? Can I bring my own music?
- What colors should I bring?
- Do you use natural light or studio light? Is one better than the other?
- What makes a good headshot? What are casting directors really looking for?
- Can I do my own makeup?
- What do I get when we are done?
- Where should I get my pictures reproduced?
- Can you help me pick the best headshot to use?
- What if I want all of them on disc?
- Do you do the retouching, or should I get it done at Reproductions?
Do you do the retouching, or should I get it done at Reproductions?
I do the retouching. I’m very particular about it, actually; mostly because it should look like it hasn’t been retouched at all, which takes a lot of attention of detail, and thus, a lot of time. So I do it myself. Examples are here and here.
Case Study 1
Retouching is as much or more about color correction and the adjustment of the levels of highlight and shadow as it is about actually retouching. When the colors and levels are optimized, it makes the skin tones look better and even diminished the visibility of lines or blemishes. As you see in this picture, there is very little actual retouching occurring; it's mostly just the adjustment of colors and highlight and shadow levels. Click the before and after buttons to see the change. Notice that the eyes seem to pop more and that the lines and shadows seem diminished.
Case Study 2
How much to retouch and how much to leave alone?
Here we have a picture that needs color correction, but we also want to do light retouching. We don't want to retouch too much, though a little around the eyes will be good. We also touch out some things on the skin and leave others. The picture must look like him and not be too perfect.
Notice that we retouched the eyes, but not too heavily. You can still see the lines, etc. that were there in the original photograph. Also notice how much the effect of wrinkles, etc is diminished just by adjusting the color a little in step 2, in advance of our final color correction in step 4.