Headshot Retouching: What to Ask For and What to Avoid

You just got your headshot photos back from the photographer. Now comes the question: how much retouching?

Too little and you're publishing a raw photo with every pore and blemish visible. Too much and you look like a wax figure. The line between "polished" and "fake" is thinner than most people realize, and photographers vary wildly in where they draw it.

This guide covers what professional headshot retouching should include, what it shouldn't, and how to communicate your preferences so you don't end up looking like someone else.

What Standard Retouching Should Include

Most professional headshot sessions include basic retouching in the price. Here's what that typically covers:

Skin Cleanup

Temporary blemishes. Pimples, scratches, razor bumps, and dry patches. These are anything that won't be there next week. Removing these is standard and expected. Nobody wants their headshot to memorialize a breakout.

Under-eye circles. Lightening dark circles without eliminating them. The goal is to look rested, not airbrushed. Most photographers reduce these by 30-50% rather than removing them entirely.

Redness. Evening out skin tone, reducing redness around the nose, cheeks, or forehead. Subtle color correction that makes you look like yourself on a good day.

Teeth

Whitening. Slight brightening of teeth is standard. The benchmark: your teeth should look clean and healthy, not blindingly white. If they look whiter in the photo than they ever have in your bathroom mirror, it's overdone.

Stains. Removing coffee or wine stains that showed up on shooting day. Same principle as temporary blemishes: if it's not a permanent feature, it's fair game.

Hair

Flyaways. Stray hairs that catch the light and create distracting wisps around your head. Removing these is standard, especially for outdoor shoots where wind is a factor.

Frizz reduction. Subtle smoothing of frizzy areas. This means reducing the noise that distracts from your face, not reshaping your hair.

Eyes

Brightening. A slight increase in the white of the eyes and a subtle enhancement of iris color. Done well, this makes you look alert and engaged. Done poorly, it makes you look possessed.

Catchlights. Enhancing the small reflections of light in your eyes. These are what make eyes look alive in a photo. A good photographer creates them with lighting. Retouching can enhance them if they're weak.

Technical Corrections

Exposure and color balance. Making sure the photo is properly exposed and colors are accurate. This isn't vanity retouching. It's basic technical quality.

Background cleanup. Removing distracting elements, smoothing out wrinkled backdrops, or cleaning up an imperfect studio setup. For background guidance, see our headshot background ideas guide.

What to Be Careful With

These retouching requests are legitimate but easy to overdo:

Wrinkle Reduction

The right approach: Soften wrinkles so they're less prominent in the photo than they appear under studio lighting. Studio lights are harsher than real life, so reducing wrinkles by 30-50% actually looks more accurate.

The wrong approach: Eliminate all wrinkles entirely. You'll look 10 years younger in the photo and 10 years older in person. That disconnect damages trust, especially in business contexts where people will meet you after seeing your headshot.

Skin Smoothing

The right approach: Even out blotchy areas and reduce the visibility of large pores under harsh lighting.

The wrong approach: Smooth all skin texture until your face looks like plastic. This is the single most common retouching mistake. Natural skin has texture: pores, fine lines, and subtle variations. Removing all of it creates the uncanny valley effect that makes everyone think "AI" or "Photoshop" even if they can't articulate why.

Body Reshaping

The right approach: Adjusting collar symmetry or smoothing a bunched-up jacket. Fixing the clothes, not the person.

The wrong approach: Slimming your face, narrowing your shoulders, removing a double chin. If the change would be visible when someone meets you in person, it's too much. This applies especially to headshots for dating-adjacent contexts and any platform where you'll meet connections in person.

What to Avoid Entirely

Changing Your Features

Reshaping your nose, enlarging your eyes, altering your jawline, changing your skin tone. These aren't retouching. They're creating a different person. Your headshot should look like you, optimized. Not like someone else.

Age Reversal

If you're 55, your headshot should look like a well-photographed 55-year-old. Not a 40-year-old. The people viewing your headshot will eventually see you in person, on video, or in casual photos. The disconnect is worse than the wrinkles.

Heavy Filter Effects

Dramatic color grading, film grain simulation, high-contrast black and white. These have their place in creative photography, but for professional headshots they date quickly and distract from the purpose of the photo: showing what you look like.

How to Communicate with Your Photographer

Most retouching problems happen because clients don't communicate expectations. Here's how to avoid that:

Before the session:

• Ask to see examples of their retouching style, ideally before/after pairs
• State your preference: "natural with minimal retouching" vs "polished but still looks like me"
• Mention anything specific you'd like addressed or left alone

After receiving proofs:

• Be specific with feedback: "Can you reduce the under-eye shadows slightly?" is better than "Can you make me look better?"
• Ask for one round of revisions, not five. Most photographers include 1-2 revision rounds in their price.
• If something looks over-retouched, say so. Photographers can always dial it back.

The golden rule: Would you feel comfortable if someone compared your headshot to your face in a video call? If the answer is no, there's too much retouching.

What Retouching Costs

If retouching isn't included in your session price, ask upfront. Typical rates:

• Basic retouching (blemishes, color correction, minor cleanup): $15-30 per image
• Standard retouching (everything above plus skin evening, teeth, eyes): $25-50 per image
• Advanced retouching (compositing, significant cleanup, creative editing): $50-100+ per image

For a 5-photo headshot delivery, standard retouching adds $125-250 to your session cost. This is one of the hidden costs of professional headshots that catches people off guard.

The AI Alternative

AI headshot generators handle "retouching" fundamentally differently. There's no raw photo to retouch. The AI generates a finished image with professional lighting, natural skin texture, and clean composition built in.

The output from tools like Narkis.ai looks professionally retouched because the AI has learned what professional headshots look like. Skin texture is preserved but even. Lighting is flattering but realistic. The result is closer to "you on your best day, well-lit" than "you, airbrushed."

The advantage: no retouching negotiation, no revision rounds, no additional cost. The $29 for 200 photos includes everything. There's nothing to retouch because the AI generated it right the first time.

The limitation: you can't ask the AI to fix a specific thing about one specific photo the way you'd direct a retoucher. It's a different workflow. You generate many options and pick the best ones rather than perfecting a single shot.

For more on how AI compares to traditional photography, see AI headshots vs. professional photographer. For tool recommendations, see best AI headshot apps.

Quick Retouching Checklist

Always appropriate:

• Remove temporary blemishes
• Even out skin tone
• Lighten under-eye circles slightly
• Remove flyaway hairs
• Correct exposure and color balance
• Clean up background

Use restraint:

• Wrinkle reduction (soften, don't eliminate)
• Teeth whitening (brighten, don't bleach)
• Skin smoothing (even, don't erase texture)

Avoid:

• Feature reshaping
• Significant body modification
• Age reversal
• Heavy filters or color grading