11 Things That Make My Photography & Retouching Better

1. Full-frame DSLR - I still remember how blown away I was by the difference in image quality when I bought my first Canon 5D Classic in Australia in 2009, upgrading from Canon 400D. I still love it and shoot a lot with my Australian beauty, but my new American Canon 5D Mark II  is a whole new world of even better photography. I mean, we all know that "it's not the camera, it's the photographer", blah, blah, blah... Let's be honest, the type and quality of your camera and lenses (!) do matter.

2. Great quality lenses - I used to have a whole bunch of lenses of all types from wide angle 10-20mm to telephoto zoom 77-300mm. When it was the time for me to leave Australia in 2010, I went through all my photography equipment, analyzed what I used most of all and was the happiest with, and sold all of my lenses except for the two that I loved the most: Canon 50mm f1.4 and Canon 24-70mm f2.8L. That's all I shoot with even today. Well, I am planning on getting me a nice Canon 100mm f2.8L Macro for close-up Beauty too.

3. A set of lights and light modifiers - It doesn't have to be expensive! Not at all! If you don't shoot in a studio, a nice large silver reflector and a flash (I own a Canon Speedlite 580EX) can be your best friends for any type of outdoor photography. I highly recommend Westcott 5-in-1 Reflector Kit. I have been using it for a few years, and I was lucky enough to pick it up without any recommendations. Good choice! You might want to also consider getting a couple of heavyduty sandbags (very cheap) for when you are shooting without an assistant to make sure the stand that's holding the reflector doesn't flip over every time the wind blows.

If you do shoot in a studio you might want to check out Paul C. Buff's lights. I use Einstein 640 with a beauty dish as my main light, but if you would like something cheaper, and still of a great quality - AlienBees would be perfect for you. I don't own any of those, but I have used them a few times, and just knowing how awesome everything that Paul C. Buff make, I'm sure you will love them.

4. Working with a SMASHING team! Makeup Artists, Hairstylists, experienced Models, Clothing Designers & Stylists - we, photographers, can't do much in Beauty and Fashion Photography without these guys. Don't be afraid to reach out and ask, there are ALWAYS tons of artists who would love to collaborate on photo shoots. If you are a beginner, look for beginners, so that all of you can shoot, practice and grow together. If you'd like to step up and work with experienced professionals, you can either hire them, or work hard to become a better photographer, so that no one will even think of turning your collaboration offer down!

A couple of global websites can help you find your team, well, besides Facebook and Twitter, of course: ModelMayhem.com, OneModelPlace.com.

I've found great models and talent on ModelMayhem in every city I lived in since 2006. Here are a few examples for inspiration: my beautiful friend Aja Warren (met and worked together in Denver, CO and Los Angeles, CA),  Sally Arnott - Australian Top Model (met and worked together in Melbourne, Australia),  Elena Fomina - international commercial model (met and worked together in Moscow, Russia) and Dani Daniels (before she became an adult movie star :)) (met and worked together in Omaha, NE). 

There is a lot of fluff and BS on those websites as well, so just make sure you research people's work and reputation before you contact them!

5. Wacom Intuos Graphics Tablet - it is my number one retouching instrument! Check out my Better Retouching, Wacom tablet vs. Mouse blog to see why.

6. Working with small brushes and zooming in (around 100%) as as often as possible. Your corrections will be precise and accurate, and it is easier to avoid leaving any evidence that the image has been retouched when working on such a scale.

7. Using Keyboard Shortcuts and Photoshop Actions for things and procedures I perform every time I work on a photo, or quite often. Here's a little gift from me to my fellow-photographers and retouchers:

Feel free to download my set of Essential Actions and User Manual from my open DropBox folder. I will be happy to hear your feedback. Let me know if they are helpful at all or if you notice that something isn't working correctly - I will make sure to fix that ASAP!

My Beauty, Fashion & Portrait Photography Essential Actions User Manual Download Download here  

8.  Always working on a separate layer - After many years of retouching, I figured out the best and the most efficient workflow for me: I never rely on the History Panel and keep every stage of my retouching process on a separate layer - new or duplicate. For example, I may accumulate many layers while retouching skin, then merge them all into one layer, name it "Skin", duplicate it, and move on to retouching eyes.

9.  Taking 5-minute breaks every now and then while working on an image. Our brain may play tricks on us, and after a while everything may start to seem to be a problem to be retouched. Little breaks help me to come back to my work with a fresh vision and not over-retouch.

10. Using Custom Photoshop Brushes - I have always been in love with Digital drawing and painting, so I've got a huge collection of digital art magazines that I brought  from Australia.

There's one exceptional Digital Artist from Poland - Marta Duhlig - who's been featured nearly in every magazine I've got. She digitally paints very realistic portraits, and mainly beautiful girls. I followed Marta for a long time, and learned a lot from her Workshops in "Advanced Photoshop" and "Imagine FX" magazines, and while jumping between digital painting and photo retouching, I once realized that Marta's custom brushes are very well usable in Portrait and Beauty retouching! You can download her Brush set here. And I promise to make a blog post on how I use them in my Retouching soon!

11. RADLAB Photoshop Plug-In for artistic color application!!! This has totally been worth the investment (thanks for the suggestion, Tassos ;)). The guys at Totally Rad are genius and my color grading process has changed completely and forever, ever since I got the RadLab Photoshop plug-in. I am IN LOVE with it, and will even make a video on how I use it in my work!

I used to buy, download and create color Actions just like thousands of other photographers, but I could never avoid the frustration when using them. You first run an action and then see if you like how it looks on your current image or not. The same action may look good on one photo and crappy on another, and if I'm working on an editorial, this can be a bit of a problem.

RadLab is so light, easy and extremely convenient - I LOVE it! You have a ton of presets, gorgeous colors and effects to apply to your images, you can create your own recipes, and use them alone or combining with other recipes.

And the best part of it is that you don't have to waste your time before you see the result to decide if you like it or not - you choose the one that you already know looks great with your image! Check out a screenshot of the RadLab plug-in interface:

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