Why Your Headshot Edits Look Overdone (And the Exact Workflow That Fixed Mine)

Why Your Headshot Edits Look Overdone (And the Exact Workflow That Fixed Mine)

A client once told me my retouching looked “like a wax museum.” She wasn’t wrong. I still have that file saved in a folder called “Humbling Moments,” and I open it maybe once a year to remind myself what over-processing actually looks like when you’re too close to the screen to see it. Headshots are the trickiest category in portrait retouching, not because the techniques are complicated, but because the margin for error is almost zero.

Portrait Cleanup Before You Touch the Skin: Why the Background Is Costing You More Time Than You Think

Portrait Cleanup Before You Touch the Skin: Why the Background Is Costing You More Time Than You Think

Last week I opened a portrait from a beauty brand shoot and spent forty minutes working on the model’s skin before I noticed it. A single strand of hair, ghosted across her left shoulder, catching the backlight in a way that made it look like a scar. I had to repaint half the shoulder. If I’d caught it in the first five minutes, it would have taken thirty seconds with the Clone Stamp.