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Fine Negative Retouching: Few photographers have either the time or the ability to do their own retouching, and so must farm it out to professional retouchers and hope for the best. Some photographers who don't appreciate the value of fine retouching will accept the cheapest job they can get, sometimes priced as low as a dime a negative. And believe it or not, the retouchers can make a profit at this rate, spending only a minute or so on each negative.The biggest profit, then, will come from those clients whom you round up by your own efforts, and you should be extra careful in the work you do for them, to be sure it is pleasing. A satisfied customer not only will come back to you again and again, but will send you other clients who admire his pictures. See to it that each of your clients has several of your business cards to pass around to other photographers. Really fine negative retouching is an artistic accomplishment much in demand and short in supply. Consequently, those who can deliver it enjoy a perpetual seller's market and thrive like the green bay tree. At its best, retouching can make the work of any mediocre portrait photographer look like the inspired product of a master. At its worst, bad retouching can hopelessly ruin a good negative. Most retouching as done for commercial photographers of the land is of a very low grade, so ineptly applied to the negative that considerable diffusion is necessary in enlarging in order to make the picture acceptable.
When some prints of Adam-Salomon's were shown at the Edinburgh Photographic Society, an argument broke out: was the effect due to retouching? It was settled only by a microscopic examination of the prints: Adam-Salomon had indeed retouched them. Retouching had become controversial ever since Franz Hanfstaengl, the leading portrait photographer of Germany, showed at the 1855 Exposition Universelle in Paris a retouched negative with a print made from it before and after retouching. |
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