Finishing (re)touch?

[Rokcet Scientist]

I retouched this photo and, imho, it's now better than originally (she has real bad acne). But it's nagging at the back of my mind that there might be more I could do to it to improve it further. What do you think?

[Mr. Pickles]

Get rid of the glare from those bright boxes on the right (clone them out?). Bright light grabs eyes, and those take away from her. You could whiten her teeth a bit too, but don't make them white. Feathered lasso around the teeth and lower the yellow, and brighten the lightness of the "master".

The cathclight looks like you added a starburst, and it looks unnatural to me. Looks right for a light bulb though.

[Max@Home]

Hi Rokcet Scientist,

OK, I'll play ), all adjustments done in PhotoShop Elements 3.0:

First: you removed the acne, but left an IMHO too 'plasticky' skin behind, I selected the skin, copied to a new layer and added some grain to give it back some 'life' (I only recently learned this trick from Bill George, username BGeorge, honour to whom it deserves )

Second I made a different crop, more 2 wide 3 high, which *I* think makes for a stronger portrait, IMHO your crop was a little to 'square'

Then I removed (clone-stamped) the remaining highlight to the right of her face, as *I* judged this too distracting.

Her teeth might be a tad whiter, IMHO, so I selected them, copied to a new layer, and 'removed colour cast'.

Then I flattened the layers, and added a tad LocalContrastEnhancement (USM set to 20/50/3) to give it some 'punch'.

I then 'saved as', wrote this text and posted the 'final result' underneath )

I hope you like, just *my* suggestions, *my* €0.02 worth.

My kindest regards,

Max@Home

PS: ) and while I was doing all this, Mr. Pickles had some of the same thoughts (highlights, teeth )

MODIFIED:

PS2: I had to save the file 'low quality' to be able to post it,
and as I now see, this enhanced the 'grain' effect, and made it too strong :-((
but you get the idea )

[Rokcet Scientist]

Thanks guys. Useful tips. Although I think you overdid the teeth whitening, Max. Ivory is not that white.