well, It's no surprice...i love de grunge!

I've recently started to burn and doge the skin to get it mor clena and adding the de grunge tool on top got me on a nice track on the retouching path!

BUT, I have tried to get the skin abit more smoothened out and adding a new layer after you have added the de grunge tool gives you some new possibilities...

1: burn and dogde the skin with 50% grey on a soft light layer, then flatten the image...

2: Make the right amount of copies of the burned and dodged layer to get the "de grunge effect" made by ByRo!

3: Then make another copy of the dodged and burned layer and add dust and sctracthes...I had around 10 on the radius and 0 on the threhold...But experiement on it since the results is different for each picture! Put this layer beneath the de grunge effect! Make a layer mask on this layer and mask out the eyes, mouth and the nostrals...

The base layer should always be the dodge and burned picture

I'm adding some picture for you to see...maybe you like it or maybe you don't

anyway, thanks to ByRo!

Gerry

...anyway, thanks to ByRo!
You're welcome. Just glad to see you're having fun.

Gerry, I know you're more interested in the skin here but sometimes we "don't see the forest for the trees" *1

There are many important little things hat need to be done. If you don't fix these, then all your efforts on the skin won't make for a satisfying result:

- Most obvious is that the image is extremely dark, I'm quite sure you're not trying for some sort of goth style, so you need to fix that;
- The stray hairs to the left need tidying up;
- Folks often forget to retouch the clothes too. Here there are some loose threads on the neckline that need to be cloned away;
- I'm sure the photo would have been nicer without the bra strap. However, it's going to be difficult to clone it out now so we'll have to live with that, but the twisted strap on the right we can fix;
- The canine tooth is a lot more yellow than the rest, a quick fix here makes a lot of difference;
- The colouring of the skin is blotchy and needs to be evened out;
- A good way to make skin look better is to simply make the other things around it stand out more. Emphasizing the hair, eyes and lips distracts a lot of attention away (and looks cool!);
- Another way of fixing attention is to make the background less interesting, a wee bit of blur helps to make a depth of field effect;
- Lighting also helps, a slight darkening towards the edges (vignette) gives the face more impact;
- I also added the "moonlight under the eyes" trick, just to make the eyes "pop" a little more.

... ah, and did the deGrunge too!

Rô

*1I realized that you may not understand this little phrase - means that sometimes we get so involved in the details that we miss the "big picture"

ByRo: I understand what you mean...I will come with a more approved picture later on the day! I will try to get all the specifics you mentioned done! Just to see what I can do! the dust and scrathes layer is really nice :D

The skin is even more blotched before the d&s layer,so it helps to even out the skin,but not 100%...

Gerry

Gerry

I agree with ByRo:most noticeably the photograph is too dark.

You have also used too much D&S (or perhaps it is too much of the Degrunge trick). The result looks too blurred. The nose looks pinched and the lips look like they have been pulled tight.

I would suggest that you don't flatten your image like you said you did after the D&B. This way you can always lower the opacity of any of the retouch layers. Most people always tend to overdo it initially and if you don't flatten anything you can always come back later with fresh eyes and tone the whole thing down a bit.

Finally, as it turned out that bra wasn't too difficult to clone away. It is just way too distracting and needs to be dealt with.

Sincerely Syd

Finally, as it turned out that bra wasn't too difficult to clone away. It is just way too distracting and needs to be dealt with.

Nice work, Syd. Yes, it really did make a good improvement.

Maybe I just need some more practice at removing ladies' bras? :blush:

Rô