The client said my edits looked “plastic.”

That one word changed the entire direction of my career. I was 26, fresh off a brutal stretch of 60-hour wedding weekends, and a beauty client told me exactly what she thought of my retouching. It stung. But she was right — I had no idea what I was doing with skin. So I spent the next year going down the frequency separation rabbit hole until I could retouch a portrait without it looking like I’d retouched it at all.

Before that wake-up call, I’d been grinding as a wedding photographer in Portland, Oregon. I grew up in Vancouver, BC, where my parents ran a small portrait studio. That’s where I first learned to care about how people look in photos. After art school, I interned at a fashion magazine in New York, which taught me speed. But it was that one honest client who taught me craft.

These days I freelance for beauty brands, teach retouching workshops, and write about portrait editing here at Learn Retouching. I remember what it felt like to struggle with every adjustment layer, and I write for that version of myself. A couple years back I met a composite artist named Frank Moretti at a retouching workshop in New York — we ended up debating frequency separation vs. dodge-and-burn for two hours straight. I still think about some of his points.

When I’m not at my desk (a standing desk I never actually stand at), I’m drinking an alarming amount of green tea, naming my Photoshop actions after movies, or chasing my 4-year-old daughter around the house. My husband is a graphic designer, so our dinner conversations sometimes turn into debates about kerning. I still keep my first terrible retouching attempt saved on an old hard drive — a reminder that everyone starts somewhere.

If you’re just starting out with retouching, trust me: everyone’s early work looks rough. The key is showing up every day and being willing to learn. I publish tutorials regularly here, so keep checking back.

Want to get in touch? Drop me a line at maya@learn-retouching.com.