Photographer collaboration

“The closer your RAW is to the final vision, the stronger your work will be.”

35× Series.
5 Creative Worlds.
4 Regions.
1 Global Final.

We’re selecting 35× photography series to become the official competition imagery for the first Retoucher of the Year. You can create something specifically for the Open Call or submit a suitable unpublished series from your archive.

Photographer Open Call closes 13 September 2026.

What Are We Looking For?

Retoucher of the Year isn't a portfolio competition.
Artists competing within the same category and region receive the same RAW files and the same creative brief, so everyone starts from the same place.

The competition runs across Europe, Americas, Africa & Middle East and Asia Pacific, followed by the Global Final.

So we're looking for:

5× Documentary Fashion Stories
5× Experimental Haute Couture Stories
10× Beauty Stories: 5 Rising Star + 5 Supernova
10× Product Stories: 5 Rising Star + 5 Supernova
5× Key Art Stories

35× series in total.

For Beauty and Product, Rising Star is created for retouchers with 0 to 3 years of experience, while Supernova is for artists with 3+ years. The creative direction stays the same. The level of technical difficulty doesn't, so we're looking for different series for emerging and experienced Beauty and Product retouchers.

Meet the Five Creative Directions

THE GOLDEN ERA

Documentary Fashion Story

You know that feeling when you see a fashion image so full of life that you immediately want to be there?

Inspired by the spirit of 1950s and 60s advertising imagery and iconic Dolce & Gabbana campaigns, The Golden Era brings fashion into real streets, communities, characters and generations, stylish, cinematic and full of life.

Don't just make us want the clothes. Make us want to be there.

CHROMATIC DREAMS

Experimental Haute Couture Fashion Story

Some images don't need to make perfect sense. You feel them before you understand them.

Inspired by Elizaveta Porodina and Paolo Roversi, Chromatic Dreams is where haute couture meets coloured light, movement, motion blur and experimentation.

Here, we actually want you to blur it. Move it. Break the perfection.
The imagery is created for Luminist, our dedicated colour grading category, where competitors work only within Capture One or Lightroom and colour grading takes centre stage.
Make us feel the colour. Make us feel the movement. Make us dream.

Capture One officially supports Luminist.

THE ART OF BEAUTY

Beauty Story

Sometimes the face you remember isn't the most perfect one.
It's the one that made you feel something.

Inspired by the honesty and humanity of Peter Lindbergh, The Art of Beauty is about character, expression, skin, texture and presence.
We don't want photography that gives the retoucher a person to perfect.
Give them a person worth preserving.

We're selecting photography for both Rising Star Beauty and Supernova Beauty, with different levels of technical complexity.
Beauty isn't about removing humanity. It's about revealing it.

OBJECT OF DESIRE

Product Story

Have you ever looked at an advertisement for something you absolutely didn't need...

and suddenly wanted it anyway?

That's the challenge.
Through light, texture, reflections, shape, liquid and composition, take an object and make it feel precious, tactile and luxurious.
Almost impossible not to reach for.

We're selecting photography for both Rising Star Product and Supernova Product, with different levels of technical complexity.
Don't just show us what it is. Make us want it.

THE ALCHEMIST

Key Art Story

Imagine the poster for a film, series or game that doesn't exist yet.

This time, you create the story.
Build the concept. Imagine the world. Create the characters. Give us the photographic ingredients.

Retouchers, compositors and Key Art designers around the world will work from your idea, each interpreting your concept through their own skills and imagination.
Use people. Use characters. Use whatever your story needs.

Your idea. Your photography. Their interpretation.
But don't just sell us the faces. Sell us the story.

Create Something New. Or Open That Drawer.

One of these worlds already has ideas running through your head?
Go and shoot it.

Already have the perfect series sitting forgotten in your archive?
We want to see that too.

The work must never have been published by a magazine or publication. Social media is fine, but if selected, we'll ask you to temporarily remove it so competing retouchers approach the RAW files with fresh eyes.

For the initial submission, JPEG exports are enough. No retouching is required specifically for Retoucher of the Year.

If selected, we'll ask for the original RAW files and the necessary permissions and releases.
New or forgotten, if it belongs in one of our five worlds, show us.

What Happens If You’re Selected?

Your series becomes official Retoucher of the Year competition imagery, with you and your creative team fully credited.

And there's something very different about people simply seeing your photography and actually working with it.
Retouchers around the world will spend hours with your images, then share what they create.

Think of them as your new best friends, except you don't have to beg them to share your work. ;)
But we don't want people to know only the images. We want them to know who created them.

We'll interview the selected photographers and their creative teams, sharing the people and stories behind the shoots across the Retoucher of the Year blog and social channels.

You'll receive the finished images and will also be invited to join us as a Special Guest Judge, seeing how different artists interpreted your work and having a voice in the result.

Winner coverage is already secured with the prestigious UK-based Design Week magazine, putting the winning work and the names behind it in front of the wider creative industry.

We're also developing further magazine collaborations and seeking funding for a London exhibition and official award ceremony, where winning work from every category and region would move from screen to print, with photographers, retouchers and creative teams credited alongside it.

Because some images deserve more than a screen.