When I was younger in the profession, I think I noticed everything more loudly. Every skin irregularity, every uneven tone, every shadow that felt slightly too strong, every wrinkle in fabric, every small distraction in the background.
Of course, noticing details is part of the job. A retoucher needs a sharp eye. But over time I learned that a sharp eye and a calm eye are not quite the same thing. A sharp eye sees what can be corrected. A calm eye understands what does not need to be corrected.
My taste changed with that too. There are images I would probably have considered beautifully retouched ten or fifteen years ago that now feel overworked to me. Very clean skin. Perfect transitions. Carefully controlled details. I still notice the technique. But now I also notice what may have disappeared because of it: texture, character, a shadow that gave the face structure, a small irregularity that kept the photograph from feeling too polished.
I remember an old client once coming back to me after a long break and asking if I could retouch the images “like before.” At first I did not quite understand what he meant. Then I realized he wanted the stronger, more transformative kind of retouching I had done years earlier. The kind that once felt completely normal to me, but now felt like too much.
I did what the project required. But the moment stayed with me because it made the change in my own taste very obvious.
Experience did not make me see fewer problems. If anything, I probably see more. But I react to them differently. I am less interested in correcting something simply because I can. I am more interested in whether that correction actually helps the photograph.
Some texture should stay. Some shadows should stay. Some irregularity should stay. Some parts of an image do not need to be improved into something cleaner.
With time, my eye became calmer. Not because I stopped noticing. Because I became more comfortable leaving the right things alone.