Hi everyone,

This is my first post here. I spent too much time on this one, but it was a good learning experience with the healing brush. I'd really like to hear your opinions on this, and what I should keep in mind for my next image?

Beautifully done, so can you tell us how you did it cos i don't know anything about the healing brush.

Welcome to the forum, hope you have a nice time here!!!

Curioso - it's looking pretty good to me. The only criticism I can find is that the edge between your blurred and non-blurred areas is a bit sharp. (Specifically at the hair line and the bottom rim of the eyes) This may not be so noticable when printed though. You might try feathering the edge of your selection a bit more before applying the blur. I don't think it would hurt to blur the hairline a little as well though.

The skin colour and texture looks great. I would probably try to smooth out the bottom lip a little more too.

Thx for the welcome Legacy~Art. It's sort of hard to explain the use of the healing brush. Perhaps if I use the analogy of the healing brush being used as an exfoliating brush. It works really well on skin if it's properties are set to lighten. Once you get the hang of it lightening then try darken and normal modes also.

Caitlin yes her hairline does need a fixup! I totally missed that. I was usure about the effect on the bottom of the eyes so I'll work on it a little also.

Welcome aboard Curioso! Very nice job. Only a couple of thoughts. Are you trying to create a high glamour shot. Even with these, you should think about a little bit of skin texture, maybe add a bit of noise. I personally thought the original skin tones were great, maybe work on eliminating the red from the flash. Also, I find the armpits a bit distracting. Keep in mind though that these comments are from someone who strongly believes that less is more. Hope to see lots more from you!!!

Cheers
Dave

Hi Curioso.
I'd say you have a good handle on using the healing brush. However, as others have noted, there isn't a smooth transition between the retouched and original areas. A good retouch should not be detectable. Here's some advice.....
I'm going to use an analogy for retouching - cleaning a dirty floor.
If you only cleaned the center of the floor, it would be quite evident. You may have done a wonderful job cleaning that one area, but it doesn't make the whole floor look clean, and because of the difference in the clean and dirty areas, it makes it look worse. Going further with that analogy, you also wouldn't clean so hard as to remove the pattern on the floor (character lines, etc).
As with cleaning a floor, an image doesn't always need a complete scrub down, sometimes it just needs a sweep, and sometimes you only need to clean up a small spill.

One more thing, watch out for Gaussian Blur, it's like cleaning with a pail of dirty water.

I wholeheartedly agree. I couldn't see what exactly was wrong. Thankyou for the great comments. Dev your comments about the red flash helped me 'uncover' what was happening. The armpits also definatley stood out.

Vikki lol thankyou for taking analogies to a whole new level. I'll never look at my floor the same way again! It's true what they say.. the trick is learning when to stop!

Onya's (Aussie for 'Thanks')

Much, much, better.
However (excuse me, I'm a nitpicker), you're scrubbing too hard. I'd let more of her own skin show through, especially under the eyes. Bring back that little pocket of fat under the eye (what is that called anyway?). I usually work with the original as my background layer, and my retouched layer over that. I add a layer mask to my retouch and use that to bring back the definition wherever I need it.

Vikki you were right, more texture was still needed. I think the balance between textured skin and even tones is closer now ;)

Curioso, at the start of the thread I had some comments but by the bottom of the thread you pretty much had it perfect. Like Vikki said, work with the retouch layer above the original and you can use layer masks or overall layer transparency to bring back original details as needed. When you remove all the skin details it becomes flat and loses the realistic texture of skin.

If you wanted to take it further with this picture I would:
*) continue to carefully smooth the lower lip
*) very mildly minimize the collar bone depressions
*) you have a very minor loss of cheek shadow on the right side of the picture which makes her face look a bit flat yet.

These are very, very mild critiques, I wouldn't normally bother to correct them, but I assume we are all striving for knowing how close we are coming to perfection (which is of course relative in the eye of the beholder :happy: )

-p

Without knowing the *objective* of your retouching, I subjectively like DUV's correction the best, and agree with his comments. The skin is more realistic with some texture and noise, and is closer to caucasian with less red (or more yellow).

Adapting Vikki's analogy - it's like a waxed car, the more you polish the more you'll see the defects. (Which is why I never polish a car when I'm going to sell it!)

The face is getting pretty good now, but I just can't keep from noticing something strange lower down - a sudden colour change, see arrows.

The ambient lighting seems to have caused some strange coloured shadows on the body.

Rô