I have received a lot of questions recently regarding our post-processing, editing, and this big question: do we liquefy our boudoir images? And our short answer is: Nope! We don’t like to liquefy or remove things from our clients’ images, if at all possible. In fact, our post-processing is SO extremely minimal – and for our clients’ orders, after processing in Lightroom, we really only open them in Photoshop to do blemish removal & skin softening/light airbrushing, with some sharpening. And that’s it! If a client requests special or extra retouching (for example, removing a tan line, removing scars, removing braces, etc) – then we will do so, but at an extra charge ($65 per hour). If a client ever asks us to make her more slender, we actually tell her that that’s not something we do. We want to be sure that we are working with our tried-and-true posing & lighting techniques (using the poses from The Posebook, & using the easy lighting recipes that we share on our Lighting & Shooting DVD). So with our Divalicious posing & lighting tips, along with specific outfit choices/recommendations… we make a woman look as beautiful as we can, without needing to ‘slenderize’ her or ‘fix’ anything later in Photoshop. Now, if a client is adamant about having us slenderize her body, we will fight her on it for a while, and we try to use the opportunity to empower her and help her realize just how beautiful she is. Our goal is always to help our client feel comfortable in her own skin, and to recognize her own unique beauty. With all of that said, at the end of the day, we want our client to be happy. So we want to be honest and let you know that if a client is unhappy, and she is still fighting us with this policy, then at some point we might decide to give in and make an exception to use the liquefy tool. However, we don’t use it very much – just slightly, because we don’t want to change her into something she’s not. It’s all about making her look beautiful, and celebrating who she is – JUST as she is.
Now, we also want to add a disclaimer here and say that this is not the only ‘one right way’ to approach this subject. I know there are a lot of photographers out there who may have a different opinion – and that’s just fine! We are simply responding to the many questions we’ve received, and we wanted to share what OUR opinion is, and how we do things at our studio in San Diego. So, there you have it! Feel free to leave a comment and share your thoughts on this topic. xoxo, The Divas
