Dear Creative Professionals,
As we approach the holiday season, I find myself looking back not only at what this year meant for Retouch4me, but at what it meant for you — photographers, videographers, retouchers, and creatives — the challenges you faced, the work you brought into the world, and the way the photography industry keeps reshaping itself around new tools, bringing non-destructive generative fill to our daily edits, layered prompt editing, and AI culling that sorts thousands of RAWs in minutes. It feels like the right moment to pause, breathe, and reflect on where we’ve been and where we’re heading.
I keep returning to a memory from years ago when I worked as a photographer, before Retouch4me existed. It was one of those late nights every working photographer knows too well — a full card, a full inbox, and a folder of nearly two thousand images waiting for attention. I remember zooming in on the same face again and again, removing the same skin blemishes, smoothing the same shadows. You know — doing work that felt less like creativity and more like a toll booth I had to pass through to get to the part I actually loved: making photos.
That night didn’t make me quit photography. In fact, I still do occasional sessions. It made me want to fix the part of it that was quietly draining the joy out of the craft. Retouch4me grew out of that feeling — the belief that repetitive manual editing shouldn’t steal your time, your energy, and ultimately, your passion.
This year, the Retouch4me family welcomed new tools, each created to solve a specific post-production problem you face. Face Make, released in March after two years of development, became our most creative AI plugin designed to refine facial features and apply a variety of makeup styles. Apex followed in May for moments when you need fast, reliable results: upload, click once, and get client-ready images. And in October, after many requests from videographers, we released Dust Video — a tool that automatically removes small particles and dust from footage.
We also updated nearly every existing plugin in the Retouch4me portfolio, refining interfaces to make your work fast and easy, and improving results to keep them natural and consistent. The update I want to bring special focus to happened in early December, when we brought smart photo selection to our photo editor Arams, automating one of the most time-consuming tasks. Many photographers told us it cut their culling time by 80%, giving them back hours each week. This is truly rewarding to hear!
New Year is usually a time when we make resolutions and wishes. My wish would be to build an in‑camera tool where you click, the image uploads to the cloud, gets fully professionally retouched, and is sent directly to your client — all in real time and in a matter of seconds. That’s my dream workflow — and I hope you’d love to try such an app, too. Honestly, I haven’t figured out how to make it work technically yet. But that dream drives me, and I believe one day we’ll get there.
Of everything in 2025, I’m most thankful for your messages — the ones where photographers write to say their life got a little easier because of what we built. One photographer wrote to tell us she cleared her entire editing backlog in two weekends after switching to Retouch4me Arams. She said she hadn’t realized how much that unfinished work was weighing on her until it was gone. Reading that felt like looking back at my own story and thinking: this is why you started. That’s my vision for every tool we create at Retouch4me — you pour energy, time, and passion into your favourite craft and your clients. Retouch4me software takes care of everything after the click.
As we move into 2026, I want to thank you for being part of this journey — for your trust, feedback, your patience during beta tests, and the incredible work you share. I hope the new year brings you more shoots that excite you, more time with the people you care about, and far fewer late‑night folders waiting for attention!
Wishing you to shoot more, edit less, and live better in 2026!
With warm regards and kind wishes,
Oleg Sharonov, Co-Founder, Retouch4me & 3D LUT Creator (RELU OÜ)