Retouching is the process of emphasizing, removing, adding, or enhancing elements in an image. These elements can be people, shadows, colour, structures, or blemishes to name but a few. Images are retouched to improve their general appearance, to create emphasis or focus on a particular region of the image, or for reasons of artistic expression.

 

With Photoshop CS, there are many ways you can retouch any given image. What tools you use and what approach you take will vary from image to image depending on the end result you have in mind. Photoshop has a number of stamps, brushes, brightness and colour controls, and other tools that give you a lot of flexibility when it comes to retouching. If you have a pretty good idea of what you want your want your digital photo to look like, more often than not Photoshop can help you achieve the desired results.

 

 

Take a close look at these two images. Examine them closely to see if you can see any changes from the first image to the second.

 

The first image is the original Ranch House image from the Photoshop Samples folder

 

The second image is a retouched version of the ranch house. If you look closely, you will see that many of the scratches and gouges on the door have been removed. Also, the shadows on the right edge of the door have been lightened. You will also notice that the hat and coat hanging on the wall, as well as the boots on the floor, have been darkened.

 

All of these alterations were performed easily and quickly with only a few of the Photoshop retouching tools: the clone stamp, the burn tool, and the sponge tool. With practice and patience, you can use the retouch tools to achieve much more than what is shown in this example.