Interested in sharpening up your photo retouching skills? Below, we have compiled a list of the 7 of the best photo retouching courses that are available online. This list includes both free and paid photo retouching tutorials that will teach you everything you need to know to use the tool effectively – whether your goal is to be a highly-skilled creative professional, or you just want to be able to touch up photos for your own enjoyment.
But first, let’s answer an important question – what is photo retouching?
Photo retouching is the process of altering an image to prepare it for final presentation. Typically, photo retouching involves small, localized adjustments to an image. For example, when working with portraits, retouching involves masking blemishes, smoothing skin, enhancing eyes or whitening teeth. Whereas, when working with product photographs, photo retouching involves giving more definition, improving texture, removing glare and much more.
To be able to retouch up photos properly, you don’t need years of training or experience. Instead, you can gather all the photo retouching skills you need to create beautiful images through online classes. In this article, I’ve gathered the best online photo retouching classes. They are suitable for a wide range of levels, budgets, and time frames. So, whether you’re a marketing executive looking to advance your skills, someone looking to make a full-time career in photography, or a small business owner who is wanting to cut costs and edit their own marketing photos, we guarantee that there will be a photo retouching class for you.
1. Professional Retouching – Start to Finish (Skillshare)
- Level: Intermediate
- Completion time: 1h 23m
- Cost: 14-day free trial
- Certification: No
- Number of people who have completed the course: 2,678
- Course rating: N/A
Taught by Marcin Mikus, an open-minded and creative Photoshop Instructor and professional retoucher, this Skillshare class will show you how to do professional retouching for beauty from start to finish.
In this short photo retouching course, you will cover how to do raw processing, how to use certain retouching tools, how to do professional dodge and burn retouching, how to work with contrasts and colors selectively, and how to do final touch ups to ensure your images look absolutely perfect. By the end of this class, you will be able to confidently move your photo retouching into a new level and finally start working like a professional retoucher!
2. Professional Retouching Techniques in Photoshop (Skillshare)
- Level: Intermediate
- Completion time: 7h 3m
- Cost: 14-day free trial
- Certification: No
- Number of people who have completed the course: 1,958
- Course rating: N/A
Suitable for anyone wanting to learn how to retouch portrait, beauty and outdoor photographs, this course will show you how to expertly retouch multiple different images.
With over 40 lessons and 7 hours of content, Marcin Mikus, who is the course instructor and a professional photo retoucher, you will learn how to produce high quality raw images. You will discover how to use photo retouching software, how to correctly analyze an image before you retouch it, the most important retouching technique (dodge and burn), different methods of working with lights and shadows and how to make final color corrections.
After just 7 hours of your time, you should feel confident with retouching a wide range of images – whether you want to become a professional retoucher or retouch images as a hobby.
3. PHOTOGRAPHY MASTERCLASS: Complete Guide to Photo Retouching (Udemy)
- Level: Beginner
- Completion time: 3h 19m
- Cost: $13.99
- Certification: No
- Number of people who have completed the course: 3,646
- Course rating: 4.7/5 (out of 92 ratings)
Learn EVERYTHING you need to know about photo retouching in this number 1 selling photo retouching course!
Instructed by Sheldon Evans, a professional photographer and retoucher with over 10 years industry experience, this course allows anyone to learn how to successfully retouch any image. Sheldon will cover how to non-destructively retouch images. You will go over how to clean up skin, whilst still preserving the texture. You will also discover how to enhance eyes and lips, how to do frequency separation and dodge and burn, how to color grade an image, and how to perfect image sharpening for social media!
With over 35 video lessons and hours of content, this course has everything you need to get to grips with every step of the retouching process. If you’re passionate about producing beautiful images, then this course is the one for you!
4. Photoshop Retouching: Faces (LinkedIn Learning)
- Level: Intermediate
- Completion time: Approx. 1 hour
- Cost: 1 month free trial
- Certification: Yes
- Number of people who have completed the course: 47,195
- Course rating: N/A
Timothy Sexton, a senior retouchers at Gloss Studios in New York, knows the importance of the face for broadcasting emotion, intend and beauty! He recognises how important it is to balance these elements, and he will show you how to expertly do this in his short LinkedIn learning course.
In this course, you will learn how to identify the areas of an image for selective enhancement. You will then learn how to improve color and contrast, correct your models postures and use the Liquify, Patch, Clone Stamp and Dodge and Burn tools correctly to soften or play up your model’s features. As a bonus, Timothy will also share useful professional insights from his decades long career in high fashion photography.
After completing, you should be able to professionally retouch faces so that you preserve the natural beauty and character of each of your subjects.
5. Adobe Photoshop CC Portrait Retouching Masterclass (Udemy)
- Level: Beginner
- Completion time: 14h 50m
- Cost: $18.99
- Certification: Yes
- Number of people who have completed the course: 2,241
- Course rating: 4/5 (out of 133 ratings)
Instructed by Sandy Dee, a professional photographer with a passion for creative and conceptual art, all you need to complete this course is access to Adobe Photoshop CC! The rest, Sandy will teach you!
In the 14 hours that it takes to complete this course, you will learn the best Adobe Camera Raw developmental processes. You will also learn important photoshop tools (e.g., skin healing, tanning, teeth whitening and much more), how to stylize your image to its fullest potential, how to use actions to streamline your workflow and how to include natural light. All of these tools will teach you how to adjust an images light exposure and balances in a fast, and efficient, manner.
At the end of this course, you will have mastered creative and efficient portrait retouching. You will have the skills to bring out the best in each of your images, whether you’re retouching images for clients as a professional photographer, or whether you’re retouching your small businesses marketing photos to cut costs and save time!
6. Master Advanced High End Beauty Retouching in Photoshop (Udemy)
- Level: Intermediate
- Completion time: 14h 50m
- Cost: $15.99
- Certification: Yes
- Number of people who have completed the course: 2,241
- Course rating: 4/5 (out of 133 ratings)
Suitable for anyone who already has a passion for photo retouching, this Udemy course is designed to take your skills to the next level.
This course covers all advanced aspects of beauty retouching techniques. You will learn how to shape a face, how to give a full lip look and how to retouch eyes to make them bigger and brighter. You’ll even learn how to retouch nails… who even knew that models had their nails retouched in professional beauty photographs?!
After learning all of this, you will be able to work fluently with photoshop and retouching tools. You should be able to retouch beauty photographs to the highest of standards, by using advanced techniques that will set you out from the rest of the crowd.
7. Photoshop Retouching: Beauty Portraits (LinkedIn Learning)
- Level: Intermediate
- Completion time: Approx. 1 hour
- Cost: 1 month free trial
- Certification: Yes
- Number of people who have completed the course: 4,601
- Course rating: N/A
In this course, you will learn the foundations for mastering the art of fashion retouching! To begin with, you will learn how to evaluate and image and develop a retouching strategy that dovetails with the clients needs and the photographer’s vision. You will then go on to understand file and layer management and the core aspects of retouching, such as: ways to enhances eyes and lips, skin shaping, how to selectively sharpen portions of a photo to draw attention to them, and how to use masks to change the color of clothing.
Also taught by Timothy Sexton, who is a senior and experience retoucher, you will learn how to evaluate your work so that you can ensure each of your images is off the highest professional standard!
Conclusion
So, there you have it… the 7 best photo retouching classes online.
There are a huge variety of photo retouching tutorials available. Some of them are quick and cost effective. Whereas others are more expensive and take more time – but they offer a more in-depth photo retouching skills and knowledge.
All of the above photo retouching courses are excellent. They are the best of the best. Each is taught by an experienced and dedicated teacher and they all have satisfied and happy customers.
So, which course you decide to take depends on you experience, funds and spare time. Have you ever has a go at retouching images? Or have you got some experience with taking photos and editing them? Do you have a huge amount of money to spend on your skill development? Do you have a lot of spare time, or are you just looking for a quick, but effective, skill top up?
