Retouching the Nude: Knowing Where to Stop

Retouching in this genre is harder than portrait work: there is more skin, and therefore more visibility for any intervention. The main skill is stopping earlier than you want to.

What is almost always removed

• The temporary: spots, scratches, elastic marks, redness from contact
• Rubbish in the frame: dust on a backdrop, a crease in fabric, a stray reflection
• Patches of light and shadow that arrived by accident — a bounce from an unnoticed surface, say

What is kept

Moles, scars, the natural texture of skin, relief, the asymmetry of a body. All of it makes the image an image of a specific person. Remove it and you have a mannequin: technically flawless and entirely lifeless.

The principal error

Blanket skin smoothing. It removes pores and micro-relief — the very things by which the eye recognises a living surface. Over-smoothed skin is easy to spot: the body looks like plastic and edges turn soapy. Lost texture cannot be restored afterwards.

The working order

Spot corrections to temporary blemishes first. Then evening out patches by luminosity — but not texture. Then work on volume: light dodging and burning that reinforces the relief the lighting created. General softening comes last and in minimal measure.

The check

Step two metres back from the screen and look. At that distance only the general remains: tone, volume, silhouette. If the picture falls apart there, the problem lies in light and composition rather than retouching, and further polishing will not save it.

This material is intended for adults over 18 and is informational in nature.