Hey all, I really love the community you've built here. I'm learning a lot. I'm a photographer... I mainly do headshots these days, and I actually thought I knew a decent amount about photoshop until I checked out the ACE exam and this website. It only takes a bit of comparison with the pro's to know I've got a hell of a lot to learn. I'm posting 3 images. The orignal, the first retouch I did before finding this site, and the retouch using some of the 'dior look' tutorial on this site. I want my retouching to look natural and eventually "hi-end" :dizzy:

Any comments would be appreciated.

hi and welcome
First I think the angle and the nice smile and beautiful eyes are great. I also like the colors.
I would play up the eyes and maybe sharpen the contrast between the chin and neck/shirt.

I worked on the high light on her forehead, by air brushing in some soft color at a low opacity.
and I dodged and burn in eyes and painted in some pupils.

Thanks Cathy, the neck/chin/shirt separation is a good point. I'll do that. For your redo, did you use the first or second image? I know you didn't use the third cause you chose to show a bit more reality (smile lines) than I did. I also see you didn't particularly care for the highlights on the nose and forehead and in the eyes. It's so interesting to see someone else's perspective on an image I've spent time with. Very cool. Thanks again. I love it.

Another issue I'm dealing with is that since photographically I'm mainly doing headshots.... over retouching is kinda dangerous for the actor cause it's hard to live up to such perfected images yet a beautiful headshot will stand out in the crowd. Any opinions?

A very good makeup Artist,theaters and movie sets have makeup artist not retouchers.

It's a very nice image but I think it needs a lot of work especially the hair and skin. Minor work needed on the eyes and lips. I have attached the original, my take, and Layer Pallet with details. The basic work-flow was:
- Duplicated background with Multiply blending mode to fix hair
- Duplicated again with Screen blending mode and a Layer Mask to lighten the face
-Used Degrunge tutorial (thanks to byRO)
- Hue/Sat. Adjustment layer to remove red cast
- Levels Adjustment layer to increase mid-tones
- Added layer for Gaussian Blur of skin
- Added layer to Dodge & Burn eyes
- Added layer to fix lips
- Added layer to sharpen the blouse/neck interface

Here is a link to my web site with a mouse-over showing before & after
http://oosterbaan.us/RetouchPro-001/

Duwayne, since I complimented you on your work on nyxxie's post, I was very pleased to have some attention thrown in my direction. The subjectivity of this process is really twisting my mind up in a way. It's totally weird. I really liked the sharpening of the neckline, the degrunge is interesting, I'm gonna try it on another image today, and I really like the lip addition you made. The issue I'm having is the levels. While I adore dark skintones, it still seems a bit under exposed to me. Esp. in the eyes and hair. I'm gonna play with the image a bit more and see if I can find a comfortable middle ground. By the way, you're really cool with the roll-overs and the layers pallet shots.... I'm gonna learn to do that one day!

Thanks again. Can you explain why you went so dark on my image? Did the blown out background bother you?

neeceeblack...

You should understand that I am not a professional retoucher or photographer. Actually, I'm retired and just fine this field interesting to play with as a hobby.

The blown out background is unfortunate but not a problem. The hair had more to do with going darker. It looks like there is flash burn or too much light hitting the hair. Also, the light is on her back and would put a shadow on her face. I see the face as the main subject and the hair as secondary.

I think the tonal qualities of an image has a lot to do with setting the mood but is also a matter of personal taste.

Here is a lightened version. Also, fun to play with, is conversion to black and white. This photo make a very nice black and white.

Very nice for a beginner but especially for a first try. You've shown a lot of restraint and obviously tried too keep her looking natural - all of your changes are ' take aways' rather than additions.

You did a nice job remving the vein on first face and most of the skin grunge. Under her eyes you lost the texture and it looks a bit plastic in comparision to the rest of her. You hit the smile line on her left pretty hard but since you didn't do her right side it looks out of balance. Good job on the eye whites. I would try and bring out the color of her irises by using an HSL layer and mask.

Overall, and I noticed someone suggested working on the light on her forhead, overall, her face looks a little flat as a result of the backlighting. I would develop a plan to apply some subtle light and shadows to round out her face and make it a bit more real (as opposed to flat).

Nice job.

I had a go with the nice image. Dodging and burning a little, added some lipgloss and slight eye makeup. Smoothing the skin a little.

Very interesting indeed Pellepiano, you're quite the make-up artist I see! I really like the eyeshadow and lipgloss you added. I like your version a lot. Esp. the shading on the cheek. Very glamorous.

As for Bluedog's post.... I may have been a bit too self-depricating as this was my first post.... but I'm not a beginner in any sense of the word (except for being new around here)... I just know I've still got a lot to learn.

Your mention of the smile line on the right side of her face was really helpful as I totally overlooked that. I also kinda agree about the area under the eyes looking plastic-y, and I will try some "3D" shading too. I plan to be a regular here so will see more of my work soon.

Thanks to all who've check out this thread!