PS Retouching Skills

[john101477]

Hey folks I have been trying to hone my retouch skills a little in PS. Looking for feed back on the changes to this image and over all feel. thanks

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[OrcaBob]

IMO, there isn't a huge difference in overall feel. The changes are subtle and purely cosmetic. That's because the original picture was pretty good to start with. (However, not crazy about the girl getting cut off at the shoulder.)

I noticed a few blemishes healed, the lines under her eyes just about eliminated, and the armpit crease taken out.

[john101477]

good so it doesn't look to shopped. I had also added some cleavage shadow to help her a little, light hair highlights to pull out some color as well as the blemishes, added some blur, but wanted to keep it realistic so I used a high pass filter to lightly bring back her skin texture. Thats the hard one though. bringing back skin texture without lines is a pita. I know I left some skin texture lines around her eyes. not sure how I would remove those and make it look right.

[Steve (FloppyDog)]

Not bad at all John. Like Bob says, the changes are very subtle and the more subtle the better. You didn't overdue it with the spot healing like some photographers do. Sometimes you see fashion photos and wonder if they even used a live model.

[OrcaBob]

I left some skin texture lines around her eyes. not sure how I would remove those and make it look right.

In my experience, it's best not to remove them. Reduce them. It's bad enough with a younger model, but eliminating lines from an older model makes the subject look ridiculous. But even a young model can look ridiculous if she looks like a plastic mannequin.

The best method (IMO) for finding a compromise is to duplicate the layer, then edit the upper layer to remove all facial lines. Clean that layer up until the model looks unrealistic. Then use the opacity slider to adjust that repaired layer's transparency. The original level's facial flaws will then slowly reappear and you can find a level that's flattering but not unrealistic.

Save the working file and all its layers as a PSD, so you can easily go back and tweak the balance of the two layers if the model doesn't like the compromise as is.

[john101477]

Nov 20, 2009 12:17:18 GMT -5 Steve (FloppyDog) said:

Not bad at all John. Like Bob says, the changes are very subtle and the more subtle the better. You didn't overdue it with the spot healing like some photographers do. Sometimes you see fashion photos and wonder if they even used a live model.

Any more it seems as if there are to many levels of retouch. mostly over done IMO. you see this a lot in fashion and illustrative retouching, where as beauty retouching seems to fall in between a natural look and fashion.
I probably could have gotten to this point with less steps or layers, but I think if I come up with a model with serious issues I could fix most of it. the great thing about PS is there is so many ways to get a desired look it is just a matter of finding what works best for you. I would like to try some Chromakey for illustrative work soon because I have seen some amazing things lately.