Every brand wants to make a great first impression and many of them do hit the bullseye. That’s when they find the real hard work begins.

Impressing your customers the seventh, 18th or 120th time takes more than just luck: it requires a great deal of thought, planning and skill. 

We know this because our agency has lots of experience creating an on-the-money portfolio of assets, including images and videos, that demonstrate brand quality and consistency every single time.

Whether you want smooth skin tones for a beauty campaign, irrelevant reflections removing for an eye-opening background, or need elements adding or removing to create an exquisite still life, we can do it all.  

From initial brief to post production, our agency’s retouching skills will ensure your product photography, model images or exterior shots are pitch perfect, not to mention delivered on time and on budget. 

What is creative retouching?

Images and video are everything and everywhere in our fast-moving, digital age.

Whether you’re stopped in your tracks while scrolling social media or flicking through a glossy magazine, photography can convey a message quickly and effectively in a way text can’t.

Understandably, brands were quick to recognise the power of this marketing tool and have spent decades harnessing it to engage consumers and sell their products and services.

Major technological advances have made it easier than ever to tell the visual story of a brand or client, but not even the smartest bit of kit gets production right the first time.

That’s where the creative retouching team at our agency comes in. 

What does a creative retoucher do?

The short answer is we take clients’ images and retouch them to make them perfect. Let’s break that down a little further and explain what it means to retouch photography.  

Retouching model images

Oscar-winning UK actor Kate Winslet is known around the world for being dead against the removal of any fine lines on her face. Yet beauty brands and agency clients often retouch their model images for several reasons.

Even the most stunning models or actors can have a ‘less than perfect’ skin day and it’s not solely down to the photographer to hide a little shine, blemishes or mini breakouts.

The same goes for the production of hair photography. Whether the photoshoot takes place in a studio or on location, it’s almost impossible not to end up with flyaway hairs in the final frames. 

If a client needs a megawatt smile in their photography but the model’s teeth seem a little dull, that can be fixed - no dentist required.

Our agency can expertly retouch a wide variety of high-end beauty photography.

That includes creating a fresh, natural look for all types of skin, whitening teeth and the removal of flyaway hair or even boosting volume, all while retaining the original project brief given by the company.    

Fashion retouching

The fashion industry is one of the world’s biggest, and it is powered by a near-constant production of eye-catching print and digital images.

Stylists and photographers around the world work closely with industry names large and small to create a portfolio of images that bring their products to life. However, the quest for the perfect image doesn’t end in the studio.

Our team can generate a rainbow of colour versions of the same product, retouch skills that can save clients in the fashion, food and other industries lots of time and money.

We can also adjust hemlines, add or remove details, or make any other type of alteration to clothing photography. Our agency will retouch whatever is needed to meet the requirements of the company or client.

Lighting retouching

Not every photoshoot for a brand project is set in a dust-free, well-lit studio. Location photography is great for snapping engaging images for a client, but they often need additional work from an agency afterward.

Our creative retouching service can warm up or cool down any type of natural lighting in photography, generating results that better match a client brief.

Our agency is also skilled at the removal of unwanted reflections or glare on shiny products, such as car photography, ensuring a perfect end result for each client, every time.

Background retouching

Stylists and photographers work hard to create gorgeous layouts but shooting multiple backgrounds can quickly eat into even the most generous company budget.

With the expert retouching service provided by our agency, we can alter image backgrounds, helping a client to maximise all their resources.

Whether a company wants to change colour or add form and texture, our editing knowledge and skill can create any photography background, expanding the image portfolio for any client and project.   

E-commerce image retouching

The UK is home to some really talented photographers who bring elegance and style to a wide range of high-end beauty and fashion campaigns.

The rise of e-commerce has seen a boom in demand for product photography. It is no less carefully crafted but is a simpler form of photoshoot, and needs less artistic staging.

The team at our agency are experts in not only photographing assets for a variety of e commerce outlets covering fashion to food, but also applying our creative retouching skills to enhance still life photography or create ghost mannequins.

Whether you want us to retouch a flat lay or something more complex, we can deliver.

Colour matching and grading

Many brands advertise their products across multiple channels, taking in print and digital outlets to entice potential buyers. However, no matter where in the world their photography appears, each project has to be consistent.

The colour of a client image viewed on a London smartphone must be precisely the same as that seen in the pages of a New York glossy magazine. 

During the editing process, our retouchers will make sure every shade of colour will match across all your photography, whether it’s grading the landscape or background, a food item or the featured product.

Compositing in retouching

Creators, brands and agencies have used compositing in photography for more than a century, and digital technology has enabled that envelope to be pushed further than ever.

If a food or beauty product or fashion range changes before launch, we can retouch the photography to add or remove items from every image, just like magic.

The compositing and retouching skills within our agency will ensure the person or product in the photography looks amazing from every angle, no matter how many changes a client needs. 

Post production support

Of course, here’s more to our agency than being able to retouch images. We have a range of post production offerings that have been specifically developed to make life easier for brands who work with us.

The result of years of hard work at our agency, the Renaissance platform is an all-in-one, complete solution that enables clients to create, manage, collaborate and deploy their projects efficiently, easily and on time.

Renaissance has integrated media production management, digital asset management and product information management capabilities. It gives all stakeholders insights into every stage of a retouch project, from initial shoot to retouching.

The platform allows clients to track each set of images as they move through the editing process, backed by up-to-the-minute data about each version after retouch.

Where is your retouching team?

We’re based in Southend-on-Sea in Essex. If you’re interested in finding out more about how we can help your brand, why not book a complimentary retouching test?

It gives each client the chance to see our retouchers’ deft touch for themselves, so they can be confident our agency will deliver exactly what they want.