How much editing to do?

[Asmodeus]

I'm shooting headshots and full body portraits of my daughter's high school marching band. The seniors get a framed head shot (3/4 bust style shot) as a gift from the band parents committee at the end of year banquet. I'm shooting the images now due to scheduling issues for the band. They are included, however, in the images available from my smugmug site that the parents can buy to support the band.

Anyway, these are high school kids. Most of them have pretty bad skin (oily, acne, etc.). The question is, how much PP do I do to these images? Do I get rid of the worst of the blemishes, do some smoothing, PP out the oily sheen, et., etc.

Or do the parents really want memories of what their kids really looked like?

[asysin2leads]

My advice would be to clone out the blemishes. Here's a good skin smoothing tutorial.

http://leonsandoval.com/tutorials/smoothskin/Part%20II.html

[SheRidesABeemer]

I'm of the school that not all people look like air brushed models. I prefer the blemishes, these are not for a modeling portfolio.

[Yanis]

I'm of the school that not all people look like air brushed models. I prefer the blemishes, these are not for a modeling portfolio.

Greetings Asmodeus,

Ditto.

Just do your normal post processing. Maybe soften the skin a tad but that's it. As a parent, I would feel cheated if got a picture of my child with perfect skin but yet it's not. I'd prefer looking back at the pic and say, "Oh gosh, look at how you looked back when you were member of the marching band."

Peace,
Yanis :D

[poloman]

I remove blemishes that are "unnatural". Pimples, irritation, etc. People don't really want to look at their infection.
I leave moles and freckles, etc.
With teens I like to selectively sharpen the eyes, hair and lips and gently blur the skin.
Here is a short tutorial...at the bottom of this page.....
http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=549051&page=4

You may want to do the blur layer first and save the sharpening until you resize just prior to publication.

[Asmodeus]

I'm thinking about doing stuff like this example. I've got 150 kids to do and this isn't a paying job, so there's a limit on how much time I'm willing to donate ;)

Before

http://www.chernicoff.com/pictures/s2.jpg



After


http://www.chernicoff.com/pictures/s1.jpg

Does this seem reasonable?

[poloman]

I think you made him look a lot better. :)

[Yanis]

Looks very reasonable! I'd buy extras. :D

Peace,
Yanis :D