I have a confession. I know we all have our pet peeves, but I have one that truly hurts my head. It hurts my head almost as bad as a baby screaming at the top of his lungs on a airplane or as bad as hearing finger nails scratch a black board. It’s when people use the words “editing” and “retouching” interchangeably.

Here’s two definitions from Dictionary.com:

EDIT:
–verb (used with object)
1. to supervise or direct the preparation of (a newspaper, magazine, book, etc.); serve as editor of; direct the editorial policies of.
2. to collect, prepare, and arrange (materials) for publication.
3. to revise or correct, as a manuscript.
4. to expunge; eliminate (often fol. by out): The author has edited out all references to his own family.
5. to add (usually fol. by in).

RETOUCH:
–verb (used with object)
2. Photography. to alter (a negative or positive) after development by adding or removing lines, lightening areas, etc., with a pencil, brush, or knife.

I realize in the world of digital photography the line between the two processes can sometimes be quite thin because much of the same software is used for each process, but still it hurts my head.

Let me just describe the post production process and how we use the terms, which I’m pretty confident are the correct usages.

After you shoot your job, either digitally or on film (if you still use it) you send your film or digital files to the lab. Since we’re shooting about 99% digital, we’re sending them to our Post Production Department.

Once the Post Production Department receives the images they begin a quick, loose EDIT of the images. Meaning they’re going through all the images from each look that I shot and narrowing them down – taking out the out of focus images (which never happens), getting rid of bad exposures (of course, this never happens either), making sure I never see an image again where the model looks like she’s about to die (unless that’s what we’re going for), and, of course, based on my direction narrowing out the images that just don’t support the story. As a side note, we NEVER delete images, we keep all raw files – the editing process is done using the “rating” function that is made available in CaptureOne, Bridge, or similar file viewing programs. (FYI, we use CaptureOne for the editing process.)

After my team has taken the 60, or so, images per look down to a more manageable 20, or so, images per look, I step in. Sometimes depending on the client or project, we’re actually starting the loose edit in CaptureOne as we’re shooting. That way, as soon as we’re done shooting the look, I can jump in and narrow down the selection on set with the client and immediately send the images to our Post Production Department for Retouching. With the client, I will then narrow down the number of images to 1 or possibly 2 per look. Sometimes this final tight edit is done by providing the client a web gallery, or we just sit together in front of a computer with CaptureOne, or we will print a contact sheet of my favorite 5 images per look for the client to select their “hero’s”.

Editing (in photography) is the process of narrowing down your selection of images from many to few to find your “hero” images that will ultimately be retouched and printed.

After we edit the images, we process the raw files from CaptureOne into High Resolution, 16-bit tiffs and send them back to the Post Production Department to begin the Retouching Process. Retouching is the process that many people mistakingly call “editing”, but it’s not. Retouching is Retouching. You usually use a piece of software like Photoshop to retouch. Retouching is the process of correcting or manipulating an image to remove imperfections and enhance the image that was created on set.

So I ask you, please take a look at your vocabulary. Try to use these two words separately and correctly!

Just my rant for this (very cold) Friday in NYC..

About the author

Kevin Michael Reed
Kevin Michael Reed (Google+, Facebook) is a fashion & beauty photographer and producer/director based in New York City and Los Angeles, CA. He is the President/CEO of RedFOG Visual Media, a production company in New York City, and a partner in Passion of Photography, Inc, a company dedicated to teaching photographers and sharing our passion through charitable causes. Kevin has lectured and hosted workshops throughout the United States and the world teaching photographers the business and creative sides of photography. (Kevin's Fashion & Beauty Photography Portfolio can be seen here).