Preparation

Not everyone is the artist he thinks he is. Retouching is an art in itself because it can bring out the life of a photo that was struggling to emerge. If you don't have retouching experience already, then taking a class would be your best option to start off. Retouching involves adjusting lighting, color, tones and hues, as well as rectifying blemishes. This all takes a trained eye. Photo retouchers must be experts with Adobe Photoshop software. Understanding how to reshape lighting effects, remove objects from the background or foreground and perform color correction are essential skills. Taking a class is an option. There are tutorials on YouTube as well as a multitude of step-by-step articles online that teach how to use Adobe Photoshop. Start by learning the basics through and through, after which you'll be able to build upon those basics to obtain a well-rounded grasp of the program. Add a high-end, high-resolution monitor to your home office computer and learn how to color calibrate it. You can't perform color correction without it.