Photographic retouching - when to do it?

We're all so used now to seeing pictures of airbrushed people in perfect settings that reality can be rather disappointing. It's easy to forget that it might have taken an age to set up the shot on location and that quite a bit of postproduction went on before the image was printed.

Wedding day photography, however well planned, can never be like a controlled photo shoot. Perhaps the weather isn't quite what was hoped for. Perhaps you've chosen a really lovely car, like this fabulous white Rolls Royce and then the caterers park their van just behind it. You can see the 'before' set up in an earlier blog entry. Michelle and Andrew particularly liked this photo and wanted a print made. Godfrey worked his magic, and voila, no more van.