What standard retouching covers
Every headshot booking includes retouching on three to five selected frames, and it takes about three minutes an image. Spots that will heal within a week, stray hairs catching the light, shine on the forehead, dust on a jacket shoulder, a stray thread near a lapel, sensor dust that has landed on the file rather than the face. All of that goes, included in the headshot photography from £150 price, with no separate line item.
What is not included is anything that changes the shape of your face. I do not reshape jaws, thin noses, or move features closer together. That’s a different job, and one I turn down more often than I take it.
In order, a standard edit looks roughly like this:
- Remove sensor dust and lens flecks from the file itself
- Clean temporary blemishes and stray hairs
- Reduce shine on the forehead and nose
- Tidy a crooked collar or stray thread
- Even out an obvious colour cast from mixed lighting
None of it takes longer than the three minutes it is meant to, because none of it needs to. The face underneath stays exactly as it was when you sat down in front of the lens.
Request by request
Twelve requests come up more than any others, on almost every sitting I run. This is how I answer each one, and what it costs if you want more than the standard clean-up.
| What you might ask me to remove | Standard, extra, or no | Cost | What happens if you go further |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stray hairs | Standard | Included | Left messier if you actually want texture; most people don’t |
| Forehead shine | Standard | Included | Automatic on every frame; skip it and any screen will catch it |
| A temporary spot | Standard | Included | Gone in three minutes; it was not going to last the week regardless |
| Permanent scarring | No | Not offered | Your decision, not mine. I soften harsh lighting, nothing more, unless asked directly |
| Under-eye shadows | Standard, light lift only | Included | Ask for more than a lift and I will say no |
| Teeth | Extra | £8–£15 | Past “not grey” it starts to look like a filter, not a photograph |
| Wrinkles | No, by default | Not offered | This is your face at your age; I fix the lighting, not the line |
| A double chin | Extra | £8–£15 | I would rather solve it with angle and posture on the day than retouch it after |
| Glasses reflections | Standard | Included | Usually solved with bounced flash before a laptop is even open |
| A crooked collar | Standard | Included | A two-second nudge in the edit, not worth mentioning on the day |
| A tattoo | No | Not offered | If it is visible in the room, it stays visible in the photograph |
| Body shape | No | Not offered | Not something I will alter, at any price. Ask elsewhere |
That pattern does not shift for a difficult brief or a rushed morning. It’s the same line, applied the same way, every time.
The two-week rule
The line I use, in front of the camera and in the edit, is this: if it will be gone in a fortnight, it goes. If it’s part of your face, it stays. A spot, a shaving nick, tired skin after a bad flight, all gone. A wrinkle, a scar, the shape of your jaw, all stay.
That single line handles nearly every request without an argument. It breaks down in one place: scarring or a skin condition someone has lived with for years. That isn’t a two-week matter, and it is not a two-year one either. It is the subject’s decision, not mine. I soften harsh lighting on a scar the same way I would on any skin. I will not paint it out unless asked directly, and even then only partway.
Partway has a practical meaning. On a scar I drop the redness and lift the shadow a hard key light throws into it, so it reads the way it does across a table rather than under a studio strobe. The shape stays. Anyone who has met the person still recognises the face, which is the only test that counts.
Why over-retouching costs people work
I photographed a barrister near Chancery Lane two winters ago who had a previous set retouched hard by someone else: smoothed skin, a narrowed nose, a jaw that was not quite hers. The photograph earned compliments online and confused looks in meetings, because she didn’t look like it in person. That is the real cost of overdoing it. Not vanity. Friction, every time someone meets you after seeing the photograph first.
Recruiters compare a LinkedIn photo with a video call inside the first thirty seconds. Casting directors do the same with a headshot and a self-tape. If the gap is too wide, the photograph stops doing its job, which is to look like you on a good day, not like someone else entirely.
Different audiences, different limits
Different sitters want different things, and it is rarely about vanity. It is about what the photograph has to do for them once it leaves my studio in Shoreditch.
Who asks for the least
Actors ask for the least retouching, almost without exception. A casting director needs to see the face that will turn up to the audition, not a smoothed version of it. Barristers are not far behind; a chambers website photo that does not match the person standing in court looks odd fast.
Who asks for the most
Founders raising money and consultants pitching new clients ask for the most, usually because the photograph does double duty on a deck and a website. I take extra care within the standard clean-up, but I still will not reshape anything.
Board portraits for print are their own case. Printed at size on a boardroom wall off Cheapside, every retouching mistake shows at close range, so I keep the edit lighter, not heavier, and let the lighting carry the work instead.
Estate agents want a fast, consistent look across a whole team page, which sits closer to branding photography from £600 than a single headshot sitting.
Costs, rounds and asking for changes
Extra retouching beyond the standard clean-up runs £8 to £25 an image, depending on what is involved. An additional edited image beyond the agreed set costs £15. One round of revisions is included in every headshot booking; anything more is billed at the same per-image rate. For the full breakdown of what a sitting costs before any of this, see what a headshot costs in London.
Timing matters as much as the rate. Retouched stills go out within 48 hours of the sitting, and a revision comes back inside the same window once you’ve marked up what you want changed. Sending the requests in one message rather than across three days is the difference between one round and a disagreement about what counts as two.
What a reasonable request looks like
“Can you lift the shadow under my left eye a touch more” is reasonable. “Can you take ten years off” is not something I can action, because there is no version of that which does not start reshaping your actual face. My how revisions work page covers the mechanics of turnaround times and what counts as a round.
When the request arrives six months later
Occasionally someone comes back long after delivery wanting a change. I will usually still do it, at the same per-image rate, but the original files need to still exist on my side, and a face can shift a fair amount in six months. If you have had work done, grown a beard, or simply look different now, a fresh £150 sitting is often the better option than a retouch chasing an old file.
The retouch that costs people interviews
The one I refuse by default is teeth whitening past “not grey.” Push it further and it reads as a filter rather than a photograph, and interviewers notice filters. I’d rather hand someone a slightly duller smile that is obviously real than a photograph that makes them look unsure of their own face.
I will do it anyway if the subject asks directly and understands the trade-off: an actor about to shoot a toothpaste advert, say, or someone working to a specific brief from a client. Absent that, it stays off the list, and I say so before I have even opened a laptop.
Tell me the date and the postcode, or just ask what my standard edit covers before you book. I’ll reply within one working day.