How to get those perfect portraits

BALTIMORE - Portraits are always retouched, but it seems more and more people are touching up the most basic photos, even family photos are being touched up to erase marks that families aren't proud of.

Kara McGinnis is a professional child photographer, so she is accustomed to touching up pictures that don't turn out quite so perfect.

McGinnis says "The most common request is to remove acne from a child's face or maybe to touch up a scratch that happened the night before."

Touch-ups are easier than ever now, thanks to new technologies, and there are a growing number of requires to work even more magic, everything from removing braces to erasing signs of an accident or a medical condition.

"Certainly we've had all kinds of requests for re-touching, people might want to change their eye color or their hair color," says McGinnis.

Lifetouch, the company that Kara works for, recently started offering correction services all the way from high schools students to kindergarten.

Some parents have mixed opinions on the touch-ups.

Lifetouch isn't the only company that is offering this.

Sears, Walmart and other chain portrait studios also offer touch-up services for less than $50, and anyone with a computer can buy software that transforms pictures.

Psychologist Dr. David Walsh says that this practice deserves a close up look from parents on why changes need to be made.

"There's a temptation to want to have our kids be our report cards and if our kids look like the glamor shot, if they look like the movie star somehow that makes us look better," said Dr. Walsh.

Dr. Walsh points out little changes are one thing, but be careful.

"The message that's sending to kids is that you are not okay the way you are. We want to change you," said Walsh.

Liferouch tells us there are limits to what the company will do and that they "want to enhance the portrait itself yet not change the natural look of the child."

A police Dr. Walsh applauds, "We need to strike that balance between using the technology in an appropriate way and misusing the technology for our own kind of, for our own purposes"