Retouching has changed photography.

The companies in London who do analogue printing are slowly disappearing and at the same time, digital photography has become an integral part of our lifestyles. It’s sad that the old companies are closing down, because analogue photography is such a beautiful art form. But at the end of the day, retouching expands the possibilities of photography – and that can’t be a bad thing.

I’ve been at the same company for two years. I work in a small team; there are often clients popping in and out of the office, and it’s a very open, exciting environment. We work on a mixture of advertisement and fashion projects – at the moment, I’m doing a lot of retouching for fashion magazines and designer labels, but I don’t think it would be fair to mention their names. A lot of photographers don’t want people to know who their retouchers are – once they find a good retoucher, they want to keep hold of them.

The amount of time it takes to retouch an image depends on how much work the client wants done. In a way, we try not to change too much, but we aim to bring out the main elements of the picture – whether that’s by changing the colours or just by making it look sexy and sleek. You have your own creative input, but it’s important to make sure that the client leaves with what they had in mind. A lot of photographers will give you a general idea of what they want, and then you can push yourself to enhance their idea and create something unique.

Some photographers are dead against retouching, like Juergen Teller. Others take it to extreme levels, especially in women’s magazines. When we retouch celebrities, we want to keep them true to how they look – to make the image as beautiful as possible, without doing too much.

I got into retouching after graduating with a BA in Photographic Arts from Westminster University. I started out as a photographer’s assistant, but the work was too unpredictable. A friend of mine heard that there was a job going at a retouching company – they were looking to train someone up, so it seemed like a good opportunity. Many companies want to get you in early and train you to work in a particular style.

I applied with a CV, but – as is the case in a lot of creative industries – if you know someone, it always helps. I started at the bottom, by scanning images. I’m now working at a different company; once again, a friend let me know that there was a vacancy.

Once you know how to retouch, you can progress quite quickly from printing to scanning to retouching, and then possibly one day finding your own clients. There are opportunities out there, as long as you’re passionate enough. Most of all, it’s important to be subtle in your work and always try to make new contacts – it never hurts to send someone an email.

Yiannis was talking to Luiza Sauma