Before
Before
Before
BeforePortrait Retouching Services
Professional photo retouching services designed for photographers, digital photo studios, and brands. Whether you need basic photo cleanup, wedding photo editing, or high-end photo retouching services for beauty and editorial projects, our expert photo editors deliver high-quality results with fast turnaround time.
5 services · order one or stack three
- Starting Price
$2 per Photo
Per-service pricing — skin, eyes, hair and glare are each billed on their own.
Turnaround
24h
Free trial
3 portraits
Rating
4.9 ★ 1,240 reviews
No card required · Reply within 1 hour
16 years on apparel
Image Delivered
In-house editors
Portrait retouching services we Provide .
Five portrait retouching services, each priced on its own. Order one, or stack three on the same photo — you are never billed for a full retouch when the frame only needs skin and eyes.
Skin smoothing and tone .
Blemishes, redness, shine, and under-eye shadow are removed one at a time, then tone is evened with frequency separation — colour on one layer, fine texture on another. That separation is the whole reason the surface of the skin survives the edit.
Pores and expression lines stay exactly where they were. If a face needs less than this, we do less; the brief is always to make someone look rested rather than resurfaced.
from $2 per photo
- Blemish and spot removal
- Frequency-separation tone work
- Redness and patchiness evened
- Shine and hotspot control
- Under-eye shadow reduced
- Pores and texture preserved
Blemish and scar removal.
Spots, marks and temporary irritation are taken out individually with the clone and healing tools, sampling from the subject’s own skin so the repair carries the right tone and grain. Nothing is blurred away in a pass.
Birthmarks, freckles and permanent scars are left alone unless you tell us otherwise — they are the difference between a portrait of a person and a portrait of a type.
from $2 per photo
- Acne and spot removal
- Scar softening on request
- Sampled from own skin tone
- Temporary irritation cleared
- Cold sores and cuts removed
- Freckles and marks retained
Teeth whitening and eye correction.
Yellow cast is lifted off the teeth with a targeted hue and saturation mask rather than a brightness push, so enamel keeps its natural variation. Catchlights are cleaned and the iris is given a little local contrast so the eyes read awake and focused.
Both are brightened to the point of looking healthy and stopped there. A pure-white tooth or a glowing iris is the fastest way to make an edit obvious across a whole gallery.
from $2 per photo
- Yellow cast neutralised
- Catchlights cleaned
- Red or bloodshot whites calmed
- Enamel variation kept
- Iris contrast and clarity
- Sclera brightened naturally
Stray hair and flyaway cleanup.
Loose strands are tidied against the background, gaps in the hairline are filled by cloning from denser areas of the same head, and the outline is cleaned strand by strand rather than masked into a solid shape.
Movement is deliberately kept. Hair that has been smoothed into a helmet reads worse across a gallery than a few strays would have, so we leave the ones that look like hair and remove the ones that look like accidents.
from $2 per photo
- Flyaways off the background
- Outline cleaned strand by strand
- Parting tidied
- Hairline gaps filled
- Frizz calmed, not flattened
- Natural movement retained
Glasses glare removal.
Reflections and hotspots are cleared from the lenses without blurring the area around the eyes or losing iris detail, and the frame’s own shadow on the cheek is kept so the glasses still sit on the face rather than float above it.
Where a reflection covers an eye entirely there is no data to recover, so we rebuild it from an adjacent frame if you send one. Two or three extra exposures make this line far cheaper than it otherwise is.
from $5 per photo
- Lens reflections cleared
- Iris detail preserved
- Eye rebuilt from adjacent frame
- Hotspots removed
- Frame shadow retained
- Smudges and dust cleaned
Four steps, no account needed.
Upload & brief
Drop RAW or JPEG into Drive, Dropbox or our FTP. No sign-up, no card, and 3 portraits free on a first order.
≈ 1h reply
Composite the join
Tick the services you want and add a reference frame you already like. We reply with a written quote inside an hour.
≈ 12–24h
Independent QA
Review at full size and send notes. Revisions on anything we got wrong are free and uncapped, with no round limit.
Every image
Deliver & revise
Delivered in your naming and folder structure as JPEG, TIFF or layered PSD, ready to drop into your gallery.
≈ 24h
Turnaround
Most orders come back within 24 hours, and small sets often the same day. Galleries of 500 photos or more usually take two to three working days depending on how many services you stack per frame. If a deadline is going to slip, you hear it from us before the deadline, not after.
What each level of finish includes .
Three common combinations, with exactly what an editor applies at each one. Every list below is what actually happens to the file, in order.
Portrait retouching and colour .
The lightest finish we offer, and the one most galleries want. We set exposure and white balance, lift harsh shadow off the face, and clean what is temporary — then stop. Nobody looks smoothed, and nothing about the person has changed.
Background colour is corrected alongside the skin so a corporate set matches wall to wall, which matters more than any single frame once the images sit together on a page.
from $2 per photo
- Colour and white-balance correction
- Light skin-tone evening
- Under-eye shadow reduced
- Blemish and shine removal
- Stray-hair tidy
- Background tone matched
Headshot editing and skin smoothing .
Our most ordered combination, and the level we would pick for anything representing a person professionally. Frequency separation evens tone without touching texture, then dodge and burn shapes the light by hand rather than with a preset.
The rule we work to is that a client should not be able to point at what changed — only notice the person looks well. If you want an area left alone, say so and it stays untouched.
from $5 per photo
- Everything in natural clean-up
- Hand dodge and burn shaping
- Teeth whitening
- Frequency-separation skin work
- Eye brightening and catchlights
- Refined colour grade
High-end beauty and editorial .
For frames where the skin itself is the subject, or the image will be enlarged. Every pass is worked at 200% throughout: makeup refined, hair detailed strand by strand, clothing pressed, and light shaped across the whole face rather than locally.
This is the level that survives print at size and close inspection, which is why cosmetics and editorial work sits here rather than one tier down.
from $14 per photo
- Everything in professional retouch
- Strand-level hair detailing
- Full-face light shaping
- Makeup refinement
- Clothing and wrinkle work
- Background clean or replace
What makes a best-in-class retouch.
Six checks every portrait passes before release. It is the standard that separates the best portrait retouching services from a smoothing filter, and it is the same list we hand new hires in their first week.
01
Pores survive at 200%
Zoom to twice actual size and skin still has surface. If texture has gone waxy or cheeks have gone flat, the frame is reworked, not shipped.
02
The person is still recognisable
Permanent marks, freckles, and expression lines stay unless you asked otherwise. We remove what is temporary, never what is characteristic.
03
Eyes and teeth read as healthy
Brightened enough to look awake, never enough to glow. A pushed eye or pure-white tooth is the fastest way to make an edit obvious.
04
Light is physically consistent
Dodge and burn follows the key light that was actually on set. Shaping that argues with the original lighting looks wrong even when nobody can say why.
05
Grade holds across the set
Skin tones checked frame to frame, not one at a time. A gallery where warmth drifts between images undoes the work on every individual file.
06
Spec sheet obeyed
Crop, canvas size, output format, layer structure, and file name checked against your sheet. Consistency across a delivery is what clients notice later.
Sixteen years as a professional portrait retouching service provider .
A retouch looks simple until you zoom in on it. What follows is what stands behind every order, stated plainly.
2010
2M+ portraits retouched
Single headshots through to 3,000-frame wedding galleries and cosmetics campaigns. We have met most faces, lighting setups, and briefs this craft can throw at us.
60+
Editors on retouching alone
A dedicated retouch floor, five of them Adobe Certified Professionals in Photoshop. Nobody rotates in from a cutout queue for a beauty frame.
98.6%
First-pass approval
Measured across every retouch order. When a frame does come back, the reason is logged and the editor who worked it sees the note.
NDA
Written commitments
Signed NDAs, encrypted transfer, and revisions until the skin holds at 200%. Unreleased campaign work stays in a separate clean-room queue.
What we see go wrong in Client files .
Most difficult retouches were made difficult on set. These are the six issues that cost our editors the most time, and each one is cheap to avoid before the shutter clicks.
Heavy-handed presets baked in
A JPEG exported with clarity and contrast already pushed has lost the tonal room we need. Send the RAW and let us open it flat.
Blown highlights on skin
A clipped forehead or nose has no data left to recover. We can paint tone back in, but that is reconstruction rather than retouching.
Mixed colour temperature
Window light on one cheek and tungsten on the other splits the skin into two tones. Correcting it evenly is slow, and it never fully disappears.
Soft focus on the eyes
If the eyes are not sharp, no amount of local work makes the portrait feel alive. Sharpening a soft iris just produces a crunchy soft iris.
No reference on the first order
Ten portraits, ten interpretations of “natural”. Five minutes agreeing a reference on the trial saves a revision round on every batch after it.
Flattened files requested by mistake
If your team plans to adjust the grade later, ask for layered PSD. A flattened JPEG means paying again for work you already own.
Hand retouching vs. the alternatives .
A preset costs nothing and an AI filter costs almost nothing. This is where a human retoucher earns the difference, and where they do not.
| Hand retouching | Lightroom preset | Ai portrait filter | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Keeps real skin texture | ✓ Pores intact | Partly | ✗ Smoothed |
| Removes blemishes selectively | ✓ Per mark | ✗ Global only | ✗ Averages the face |
| Person stays recognisable | ✓ Always | ✓ | ✗ Features shift |
| Consistent across a set | ✓ QC checked | Varies by frame | Varies by face |
| Editable later by your team | ✓ Layered PSD | Settings only | ✗ Flattened |
| Cost per photo | From $2 | Near zero | Near zero |
Galleries we keep consistent .
-18% ReturnsGhost mannequin edits that cut returns in half
A fast-fashion label moved its full product catalogue onto our 24-hour queue, with every garment ghosted, colour-matched and sized to their store templates.
The turnaround is unbelievable — 24 hours, flawless every time. Our product return rate dropped 18% after switching to Clipp Out Line.
+24% ConversionMacro retouching that made every stone sell
A fine-jewellery house moved its campaign and model imagery onto our high-end queue, with skin, metal and stone each finished to a separate standard on the same frame.
Jewelry retouching at this level is rare. They preserve every reflection and gemstone facet while making the piece look magazine-ready.
400+ Weekly ShotsHigh-volume automotive shots without the back-and-forth
A dealership network routes its weekly inventory straight into our queue, with consistent lighting, clean backgrounds and zero revision rounds.
We send 400+ automotive shots a week. Consistent quality, tight deadlines, zero back-and-forth. Exactly what a high-volume studio needs.
+31% InquiriesListings that look believable, not overedited
A real-estate marketing team routes every exterior and interior shoot through our queue for natural sky replacements and true-to-life window pull-throughs.
Sky replacements and window pull-throughs that look genuinely natural. Agents trust the images — and so do buyers.
Sunil Barman, Retouch & Colour Lead
Sunil our retouching floor and the 22-editor team inside it. She has spent eleven years on portrait, beauty and editorial work, wrote the six-point retouch standard on this page, and signs off the QA notes on every new client’s first batch. She reviews this page each quarter against our current rates, turnaround and what we are actually seeing in client files.
Portrait retouching answered .
Each service is priced on its own, starting at $2 per photo for skin smoothing, blemish removal or teeth and eye correction. Glasses glare removal is $5 and digital makeup is $8. You only pay for the services a photo actually needs.
Yes. Because everything is priced per service you can order a single line item — glare removal only, or teeth and eyes only — rather than paying for a full retouch. Most clients combine two or three services per photo.
Yes, and it is the point of the service. We retouch with frequency separation and hand dodge and burn so skin keeps its real pores. We remove what is temporary and leave the lines, freckles and small asymmetries that make a person recognisable.
Yes. Orders over $500 in a calendar month receive 15% off, over $2,000 receive 25% off, and over $5,000 receive 35% off plus a dedicated retoucher and 12-hour SLA. Discounts apply automatically and need no contract.
Standard turnaround is 24 hours, 12 hours on a priority plan, and small sets often go back the same day. Galleries of 500 photos or more are typically returned in two to three working days, across the USA, UK, Canada, Australia, and Europe.
JPEG, TIFF or layered PSD, in your own naming and folder structure, delivered by Google Drive, Dropbox or FTP. A layered PSD means your team can adjust any pass later without the retouch starting again from the capture.
Yes. Send a few of your own finished images or a reference frame and we match your skin finish, contrast and grade. For ongoing clients we save a house-style profile, so every batch comes back consistent with your signature rather than our taste.
A skilled editor needs 10–20 minutes per image. A professional ghost mannequin service delivers finished files within 24 hours, or 12 hours on a priority plan, with small batches often turned around the same day. Clipp Out Line edits 3 garments free before any paid order.
Send 3 portraits. Zoom in yourself .
No card, no commitment. We will run our portrait retouching services on your own frames, deliver them at full resolution