Before & After Retouching

[movingex]

Working on retouching.
Any comments on retouching or image in general welcomed and appreciated.
1st is retouch
2nd isn't.
Thanks

[digdug]

IMO I liked the color adjusments made which brough out more color to the picture. Adjustments to the pupil, iris, lips, and cheek was great. The only thing you might want to consider is how you soften the skin at a glance it looks a little uneven especially in the right forehead area. I suspect this was difficult as you have some hair to contend with whne making ur adjustments. The other thing you might want to consider is to try to adjust the area of the models hair where it almost appears to light giving the apparence of grey. Anyway hope that helps and thanks for sharing

[RexChun]

my attempt!
IMG_0905not.jpg

[emanariola]

nice retouch.
how did you do it? if u don't mind

[Park]

movingex, I would say you did a fine job. she looks natural. yet i can see you touch-up.

[cbjetboy]

I started a thread similar to this one. Some of mine are there. Nice job BTW!

[movingex]

Originally Posted by Park

movingex, I would say you did a fine job. she looks natural. yet i can see you touch-up.

Thanks for the compliment.

My process of retouching is a project in the works. The main things I do are:
1. Spot retouch blemishes, pimples and such with cloning tool or patch tool. I use the cloning tool mostly at different levels of opacity. I also try to get any uneven skin tones, blotches and such corrected at this point.
2. After completing spot retouching I create a layer mask for the skin, minus the eyes and mouth.
3. I then apply sharpening to the spot retouched layer. I will also make a selection for the eyes and copy to a top layer. This is so I can apply more sharpening to the eyes later if necessary.
4. Now I apply a surface blur to the layer with the masked skin. I will then reduce the opacity of this mask to my liking to make it look less like plastic.
5. I will normally group all of the layers used to this point and make a duplicate of that group. I will flatten the duplicate group.
6. On the flattened duplicate layer I will do makeup corrections/changes by adding necessary adjustment layers, making selection for the makeup or just painting in color on a separate layer.

I also use a variety of tools like dodge/burn during the process when I see it will be useful. Different images require different techniques and that's what makes this challenging. There is no one set of rules that will apply to every image that you retouch.

As I said this is a work in process for me and I am constantly changing processes, trying to get it down to a science. The hardest thing for me right now is uneven skin tones and large patches of skin blotches. A good MUA will take of these problems but right now I generally don't have the luxury of working with good MUAs.

[RexChun]

Originally Posted by emanariola

nice retouch.
how did you do it? if u don't mind

I was not sure if you were talking about mine. I don't want to embarrass myself on one hand and don't want to be rude on the other. I am still learning and I though I would share my method anyway.

1. take care of blemishes and pimples.
2. clone out some hair
3. use curve adjustment to change the tone of the skin
4. Use liquify filter to reshape the eyes and eyebrows a little
5. adjustment layer curve adjustment-->make it brighter-->add mask-->invert mask
on the layer mask -->pick up a brush--> opacity: 5-8% mode: normal-->brush away all the shadow (this is the famous D&B method but I not only use it to smooth skin I also use it to brighten the shadow area)
6. Still not happy with the skin. I add a new layer. I sample the skin color and use 8% opacity and brush the area I want to further smooth
7. now the skin looks too soft. Therefore, I use un-sharp mask to make it sharper (if this does not work there is always high pass filter)
8. add another s curve adjustment layer
I am pretty happy with the result now!