Mistakes are natural for different spheres of people’s life. Thanks to them, people know what is right and what is wrong. In the field of photography, there are already several dos and don’ts for retouching-enthusiasts to be aware of. The more useful tips you know, the more protected your final results are from the risk of failure. 

Who wants to receive a bad selfie or portrait photo after applying filters to it? To keep your work balanced, just refuse to apply the techniques and approaches described below. Let’s get it started!

Overly Heavy Accents

The right retouching touch allows receiving the right emphasis and color contrast in layouts. Making some image zones look darker guides viewers to the main photo character(s). For instance, the technique of a dark edge vignette is preferred. This design trick adds more deepness to the picture. Overdoing it, on the contrary, results in the visual illusion the shot is taken through a binocular — absolutely unnatural and irritating.

Overly Smooth Skin

The opportunity to get rid of wrinkles, pimples, and other facial deficiencies is deeply appreciated by the target audience. The mistake of falling into the trap of overdoing is common not only among amateurs. Some professional photographers also tend to apply too heavy smoothening filters on their images. No matter what, the skin texture has to be preserved. High interest in this technology can result in a plastic-skin effect.

More senior models want to look younger in photos, but the effect leads to the opposite result. Aging is beautiful in its essence too, so hiding freckles, taking redness off the face, removing pimples/moles, as well as removing shadows should only complement your natural facial eye-catchiness and attraction.

With the help of a modern face swap photo editor like RetouchMe, customers can combine the benefits of two different photos to achieve a flawless outcome. If you like the way you smile on one image, but the background is better on another shot, just mix them by erasing and replacing your face.

Oversharpening

Contrast colors and shapes make the image brighter, for sure. Too much grinding is the opposite edge of overly smoothing filters. Your images shouldn’t be either pixel-like or absolutely blurred. If you are not sure your mastership in retouching is enough, especially when you desire to prepare a photo album as a gift for your beloved ones, don’t hesitate to apply to RetouchMe professionals. In a couple of minutes, ready-made gorgeous shots with the right balance of light and contrast are guaranteed.

Oversharpening has its own siblings too. The epoch when retouching just began its implementation in people’s daily life, photos with overly whitened teeth or eyes became common. They take place nowadays too, so the problem is still vital. Excessive use of design tools makes images cartoon-like. The redundant eye treatment can even change the overall photo vibe from a pleasant to a scary and terrifying one.

The Final Verdict

The list of retouching mistakes isn’t limited to three positions — oversaturation, overly embraced shadows, too heavy noise reduction, haloing are other enemies of photographers. As you see, the main problem is that customers don’t know how the right retouching should look like. Pursuing their purposes, they forget about the balanced combination of tools. Check professional video tutorials to see which aspects should be improved and what is better to leave untouched.