Photography Tips · Brussels

Retouching Levels Explained: Basic, Detailed, High-End (and Beauty)

By Dmytro Derkach · Brussels-based commercial photographer

Basic retouching is included on every good frame I deliver: colour and light corrected, horizon straight, crop tidy. Everything beyond that is chosen per image. Detailed retouching cleans up specific flaws. High-end goes further on skin in portraits, and there's a separate beauty level for cosmetics close-ups.

Basic: what every frame gets

Basic retouching is about the whole picture, not the details inside it. I balance the colour so a white shirt looks white, set the exposure, straighten the lines and crop the frame. It's the same work on every successful image in the gallery.

What it doesn't do is remove things. The crumb on the tablecloth stays, and so does a small blemish on a cheek. For most images on social media or in a reportage, that's exactly right.

Detailed: fixing what catches the eye

Detailed retouching is for images where something specific distracts. A stray hair across the forehead, a scratch on product packaging, a crease in a backdrop, a power socket peeking out behind a chair. I remove or soften those, one by one, and leave the rest alone.

I'd pick it for the images that carry weight: the main photo on a product page, or the dish on the cover of the menu.

High-end: portraits and skin

High-end retouching goes further, mainly in portraits. Skin is evened out while keeping its texture, and small things in shape and colour get adjusted. My aim is a portrait where the person still looks like themselves, just on a good day.

Phone apps with a smoothing slider are handy for a quick story. The difference with high-end retouching is that it works on one area at a time, so the skin around the eyes keeps its lines while a red patch on the chin disappears.

I don't do the plastic, poreless look. If you can't tell whether the skin is real, it's gone too far. For executive and personal branding portraits, a set number of images with high-end retouching is already part of the package.

Beauty: for cosmetics and close-ups

Beauty retouching is its own category. It's for cosmetics campaigns and macro shots, where the texture of a cream or the reflection on a glass bottle has to look perfect at a large size.

It takes the most time, and that time depends on how complex each image is and how many there are. That's why I plan it separately during a beauty session.

How to choose in practice

After the shoot you get a private online gallery with basic retouching on every good frame. You mark the images you want to take further and pick the level for each. Doing everything at high-end is rarely worth it. Usually a handful of hero images get the extra work and the rest stay as they are. For portraits, the finished retouched images arrive within 72 hours of your choice.

What happens between the shoot and the final files, timing included, is explained in what happens to your photos after the shoot. The price per image for each level is on the price list.