The apartment was secure; no one had broken in yet today, thank goodness. I poured myself a drink, switched on the computer and the external drives, and began work on Justine's photos.
First, I separated out the flawed shots - times when the model had blinked or had an unbecoming expression, or where I failed to acquire sharp focus on the eyes. I tagged the remaining files as potential keepers or at least worthy of further review.
I picked out a handful of images that caught my eye - mainly nice poses or expressions. I adjusted the contrast and white balance in order to bring the look closer to my expectations. I cropped some of the images, as I prefer head shots with a 4x5 aspect ratio.
Next, I delved into retouching. Even gorgeous nineteen-year-olds have skin flaws, and a professional makeup job doesn't cover everything. I don't exaggerate the touch up process. I never want the subject to look as though her skin were made of plastic, but I do want her to look as nice as she can - clean, clear, and natural. That typically requires the removal of the occasional freckle, mole, crease, blemish, or other imperfections.
A dash of sharpening and saturation spiced up the overall look. I took a second pass at fine-tuning the white balance in order to ensure natural looking skin tones. In some cases, I added a vignette effect, a slight darkening at the edges of the frame.
I boosted the rating on my selected and now processed shots up to three or four stars. Some photographers rate all of their work at the maximum rating of five stars. I could never justify that strategy (perhaps it's a vanity issue on their part). I reserve the five-star rating for my absolute best images, because I want to be able to distinguish them from the rest of my work.
The initial sample looked great. Justine was a stunning young woman, and we had captured her in a variety of alluring poses. I felt good about the results, good enough to stop obsessing over it for a few minutes so I could call Manny.
"Hey, what time do you finish tonight? - Could you meet me at the Rainbow? I have a project that I'd like to discuss with you."
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