What’s The Difference Between Photo Editing and Photo Retouching?

Digital photography is essential in a lot of different fields. Photo editing and retouching are important ways for businesses to make their brands stand out and create images that show what makes their brands unique. Services for retouching photos are now used not only by big companies but also by people. Using a photo editor to retouch a photo lets a person project the image that best fits them, whether for their career or to show who they are.

But a lot of people get photo editing and retouching mixed up. Photo editing and photo retouching are often used interchangeably in photography, which can be confusing. Even photographers can be caught off guard when they use either editing or retouching without explaining what they mean. The purpose of this post is to help you know how to use the right word and avoid confusion.

Retouching vs. Editing

The main difference between editing and retouching is that editing aims to make a picture look sharper, have the proper exposure, and be cropped to the correct size. On the other hand, the goal of retouching is to achieve the editor’s artistic vision, which can be based on the photographer’s or the models. You only need to make simple changes for an edit, but for a retouch, you need to know a lot about changing photos.

Which Should You Choose?

The services for editing and retouching photos will depend on what you need. If all you need is a better photo that still looks like the original, photo editing is the way to go.

Editing

Noise Reduction: Photos with a lot of noise can make the picture look bad. Smoothing the image will eliminate the noise and make the photo look better unless that’s the photographer’s style.

White Balance: If you change the white balance, you can change the color temperature of a light source. This either makes the photo look warm or cool.

Contrast and Exposure: A picture’s brightness and contrast determine whether it looks good or bad. Too much exposure will make other details look washed out, so balancing it with the contrast will sharpen the picture and show off the details.

Color Changes: If you need to, you can change, remove, or change the color of a picture.

Cropping and Resizing: Photos can’t be used for other things until they’ve been cropped or resized correctly. Before photos are put on an online store’s website, for example, they use specific photo sizes.

Background Removal: In some pictures, the subject must be separated from the background. An essential background removal will remove the background and prepare the image for a background change.

Retouching

Basic Retouching: The image is changed in small ways to make it look good and have a high resolution. Usually, blemish removal, teeth whitening, and smoothing the skin are the services that are needed to finish the enhancements for portraits.

Extensive/Complex Retouching: This kind of retouching usually takes more time, making the photo look perfect. For extensive retouching, services like using advanced techniques to create a face and body slimmer, removing or adding objects to the picture, compositing images together, adding fancy effects, and digital makeup are just a few examples.

Conclusion

A photo doesn’t have to go through much editing to look great. Before having anything done to your photos, you must discuss how you want the changes to be made. You must decide if you just need to make small changes or like the images to look like they came from another world. If you need editing or retouching, use a program like AutoRetouch that can do both.