Any comments on this? What can I improve on? What came out good?

Nice job of smoothing the face. However, for me the result is too yellow - both your subject and the background. The teeth could also use a little whitening. The attached is more how I would imagine the color to be.
Regards, Murray

Nice job of smoothing the face. However, for me the result is too yellow - both your subject and the background. The teeth could also use a little whitening. The attached is more how I would imagine the color to be.
Regards, Murray

My very thoughts, Murray. Brilliant job of it you've done! :jacko:

Maureen :)

Like murray said.

Plus you might try and correct the distortion.
The photo was taken close up with a small focal length lens, this causes the fish-eye effect - not very flattering in portraits.

I had a go at correcting - but be warned that some bits of the image you'll have to "invent" to fill in.
- CS2 lens correction or PS7 rotate and wedge transform to eliminate the rotation and "keystone" effect.(and had to "invent" some hair);
- CS2 lens correction or PS7Distort>Pinch to eliminate the barrelling of the background;
- On a new layer, CS2 lens correction or PS7Distort>Pinch again, now trying to fix the barrelling of the face. When satisfied, mask and combine with the background layer (and, again, "invent" the missing bits).

Rô

I used a technique that I outlined here (http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1006&message=19859574) to start out with, but then I did so many blends/ autocontrasts, etc. (hair coloring too to eliminate the purples) and such that I can only say, you have your work cut out for you. I would have done more, but I hate working on dinky images. :)

Edit: yes I brightened the teeth too.

I took your retouched version, dragged a copy of the original over it, set the Blend Mode to Luminosity and lowered the opacity to 40%. This brings back some of the crows feet around the eyes and some of the facial lines etc. I think you will agree this looks more natural. You want to ameliorate the effects of aging not remove them entirely. This move did have the unwanted side effect of bringing back some detail in the background. I didn't bother to blur that again. It was also too yellow so I adjusted the color. I also used USM to sharpen it a little (Radius 1.5 Amount 20).

Syd