As one of the top printers in the nation, we at Sandy Alexander understand the importance and value of color correction, profiling, and retouching to product marketing. Our sister enterprise in NYC – Salt Studios is a high-end visual media production boutique concentrating on CG and creating retouching. Salt is more than a studio. They are comprised of industry-leading digital artists utilizing cutting edge technology for fortune 500 clients across the nation. They strive for innovation to bring any project to the new heights through any discipline necessary to turn their client’s visions into reality.
The Salt team works hard to ensure visual enhancing as well as brand consistency of color across all output platforms. It’s true that anyone can alter images for digital use these days. But true photo retouching has less to do with the image you see on the screen and everything to do with how the image ultimately prints. This is where the expertise comes in. Photo Enhancement breaks down into two main areas; image manipulation (or creative retouching) and technical retouching or color profiling. In the example below, the image manipulation involved the cosmetic appearance of the models which is easy to see, but the color profiling takes into account how the final image will be reproduced, such as whether it will be displayed on a screen for web or digital billboards, or if it is to be printed, on what kind of stock and using what inks. Like most projects at Sandy Alexander, total color consistency across all output platforms & manufacturing facilities is essential to the servicing of their high-end clients.
Color Retouching for the Holidays
An amazing example of what our team can do is the below image for Tommy Hilfiger’s upcoming holiday campaign.
The Salt team altered the raw images to remove unwanted background elements, shadows, and slight blemishes as well as editing the lighting on the models. In the before and after (above) it is easy to see the changes made. Our team removed the obvious photo studio background and intensified the colors, creating a bolder, more vibrant image that falls in-line with the Tommy brand. On the models, the hair flyaways were tamed and their skin was smoothed and brightened. Color correction was also a step taken in the editing of this image as our team closely matched the clothing color from the image to that of the actual clothing the models wore.
Check out Salt’s website for more examples of product retouching and for more information from Salt Studios in NYC, please contact Joe Savattieri at jsavattieri@salt-studios.com, or call 212.947.9222.
