To fix hair or not to fix hair.

[Jayson]

I took some photos of a mother and her son recently and am not really sure if there is something I should be aware of. The mother has lost a significant amount of hair on the top of her head and I am unclear if I should edit it so that she has more there. She is from an Indian culture and I am not sure it is something I should fix? Would anyone here have any knowledge of this situation and if it is something I should worry about? I didn't feel comfortable speaking with her about it and wasn't sure if it was something I should have brought up. I have already edited the photos and I think they look pretty good, but can easily go back and remove what I have done.

Thanks!

[cls]

My answer would be don’t do any obvious beauty retouching that the client/model hasn’t agreed on (explicitly asked for). If you do obvious retouching according to your own beauty preferences it may cause unnecessary trouble and a hurt client/model. If you believe her hair is a problem for her, you could improve it slightly but not obviously. Instead you could focus on something positive - maybe she has beautiful eyes? Make them sparkle a tiny bit extra (but still not too much).