Photo Retouching vs. Photo Editing: The Differences, Explained

So you glanced over your photographer’s timeline and spotted there’s a line in there about photo editing … but maybe you don’t want your photographer retouching your photos because you want to keep things all-natural. Or maybe it’s the opposite — you were really hoping for some photo retouching, and you’re not sure you need editing done after your shoot. 

What’s the difference? Is retouching the same as editing a photo, or are they entirely different things? And if it’s the latter, which one should you be asking for?

First off, let me just assure you that you’re not alone in wondering if these words are just two different ways to say the same thing. As a photographer, I’ve been asked this question … well, a lot! 

With that in mind, I’m going to break it all down for you as easily as I can. I’ll explain what photo editing is all about, including a look at what I do when I edit photos after a session. I’ll also dive into the difference between photo retouching and photo editing (yup, they’re two entirely different things!), and explain my personal policies on what I will retouch and what I won’t. 

What Is Photo Retouching?

Let’s start with photo retouching. You’ve probably heard the phrase used over the years, maybe even in some pretty negative ways. 

In its simplest form, photo retouching is enhancing or correcting specific elements or details within an image. The goal of photo retouching is to remove imperfections — and that can mean anything from the bright red zit that broke out on a small business owner’s chin the day before their personal branding session to that smear of chocolate on a toddler’s cheek from the M&M’s they found on the car ride to their family session. 

Some of the techniques that could be considered photo retouching are:

• Smoothing skin
• Removing acne
• Fixing broken teeth or whitening teeth
• Body shaping
• Brightening/sharpening a subject’s eyes

Photo Retouching vs. Airbrushing

If you’re thinking this all sounds a lot like airbrushing, you’re right. Photo retouching and airbrushing are the same process. They involved “touching up” a photo or “brushing away” imperfections. 

Which leads us to the big elephant in the room … 

Why Is Photo Retouching Controversial?

Whether you call it airbrushing or photo retouching, the goal of the process is not to alter the overall composition or style of the image — just to affect one particular part of the overall photo. 

So why is it so controversial? Let’s just say that retouching covers a VERY broad range of techniques and decisions made on a computer screen. 

I mentioned removing a smear of chocolate on a toddler’s face. That’s retouching (or airbrushing). But retouching is also the name for a fashion photo editor using a computer program to smoothe away a model’s curves, changing the overall shape of their body until the person who is a size 12 in real life is very suddenly a size 2. Airbrushing can just as easily refer to removing a person’s wheelchair to make them appear as though they were sitting on a standard kitchen chain, or digitally adding an arm to someone with a limb difference. 

There are plenty of studies out there that show the extensive retouching that’s long been rampant in fashion and beauty magazines and advertisements has had pretty negative effects on society. Google “girls’ self esteem” study, and you’ll find myriad studies on the problems that these falsified images have wrought. 

Is Photo Retouching Ever OK? My Policy

I prefaced this section with “my policy,” because I recognize that retouching is controversial and very, very personal. I’ve had clients over the years who have specifically asked for retouching on their bodies, purposely asking me to me to eliminate acne scars or remove a cold sore that popped up the day before their photo session.

I DO provide photo retouching — within reason. What do I mean by that? 

Here’s where I draw my lines in the sand:

1. I do not retouch anything permanent. Your body is your body, and I am not here to judge you. I am here to celebrate you and your story!
2. I will remove minor impermanent things such as food on a toddler’s chin or a stain on a t-shirt. BUT I only do this on formal portraits. These are part of a lifestyle story, and they’re especially important in documentary sessions. That said, if I notice something like this prior to a session beginning, it is something I will mention to so my client can decide whether or not they want to clean the child’s face/change an outfit.
3. If someone asks for retouching, I consider the request one at a time. I’d like to say I had a blanket policy here, but as an eating disorder survivor, as a mom, as a human, I have to treat requests to retouch an adult — coming from that adult — differently than I would requests to retouch a child — coming from that child’s parent. I am not here to tell you how to parent. I am here to tell you that I will not “make a 16-year-old look thinner.” 

Photo Retouching Services

My photo retouching services will not turn you into Gisele Bundchen (sorry?). But we have all had that angry zit pop up the day before a photo session, so I am happy to provide retouching services for the following:

1. Acne removal
2. Smoothing frizzy hair or fixing out-of-place strands
3. Limited teeth whitening (natural adjustments)
4. Light skin smoothing for a polished look
5. Reducing under-eye circles or smile lines
6. Minimizing the appearance of bruises or scratches
7. Removing lint or small stains on clothing
8. Lightening or darkening areas of uneven tan lines
9. Subtle adjustments to correct lighting or shadows on the face
10. Removal of cold sores, boogers, stray mascara or lipstick
11. Adjusting minor wardrobe malfunctions (e.g., sneaky bra straps or crooked bow ties)
12. Reducing glare on glasses (when possible)

My goal is to enhance your natural beauty, not create a different version of you.

So What’s Photo Editing, Then?

OK, so I don’t do a whole lot of photo retouching … but every single session goes through a round of hand photo editing. What’s going on here?

As I touched on earlier, photo retouching and photo editing are two entirely different processes. Instead of focusing on a single detail or group of details, photo editing involves improving the composition or aesthetics of the image as a whole. 

Photo editing includes a variety of techniques, including:

• Cropping
• Adjusting the brightness or darkness of a photo
• Correcting the overall balance of colors
• Adjusting the contrast 
• Removing unwanted objects (such as photo bombers!)
• Creating black and white versions of color images

Photo Editing — My Policy

Every photo that I send to clients has gone through a round of photo editing. Why? The simplest reason is that I take photos in a format known as RAW. Just as the name implies, these RAW format images aren’t final! They’re, well, raw! 

RAW is a large file format — so large it takes up an incredible amount of space on my hard drives — that professional photographers use because it prevents the camera from making decisions about the final composition of an image for us. It captures more information from the scene, which we can then use to make our final adjustments on the computer. 

Most amateur photographers use a format known as JPEG (or JPG), which creates much smaller files that take up less space on your computer and are used for printing. Clients may even notice that the files I deliver are in this JPEG format for that very reason — they can save space and easily use them for printing. The problem with using this format during the photographing process, however, is the camera will compress the files and you’ll lose all that extra information. 

Believe it or not, this harkens back to the olden days of dark room photography. The photo edits that photographers and photo editors make today under the name of editing are the exact sort of adjustments that used to be made in a darkroom to take the “raw” negative and create a polished photo. 

Find out why you really DON’T want your photographer to give you the RAW files!