Retouching is one of those things that seems to always be kept under the rug. Unfortunately it has become a standard in this digital age… and to be honest, I would much prefer to be out shooting rather than being in front of the computer going square-eyed. Sometimes, though its unavoidable. Here are 2 examples.

This first image was shot for NRMA – Open Road Magazine.
I had to shoot a cover shot of 4 cars and was only given about 1/2 an hour to shoot. The only elevated position I could get had a pretty ugly background.
You can see below the workings to create a cleaner background.

Here is the final image:

This second image was used on the cover of Australasian Dirt Bike Magazine.
The brief was to shoot an action shot of the new Yamaha 450 with a urban background. Unfortunately there was no budget for location or to truck in huge amounts of dirt into the city. This meant shooting the rider in a separate location and dropping the background in separately.

Check out the working below:

The Final Image: