Here's yet another exercise with which I've been playing around. The whole "morph the model to make her what everyone wants" technique has definately been pulling at my morality strings. Here is my first attempt at doing so. Fire away!

I hardly feel in a position to criticise being fairly new to this all myself, however, I think you did a really good job and deserve praise. I like the way you brightened up the skin tones and the photo in general. You did an excellent job removing the wrinkles on the shirt, cleaning up the hair on the neck and removing the vein on the arm. Ditto for adding the extra smoke. You also brightened up the eyes so that they look more open and made the lips rosier. The only area that I think you, perhaps, neglected, and which stuck out for me immediately was the hand holding the cigarette. It looks nicotine stained or dirty. I would do something about that. It seems to clash with her otherwise perfect skin. But maybe you left that for a reason.

Sincerely Syd

Actually, hands are something that I need to work on. I think that hands take a bit more expertise than I possess. I gave it a try and then realized that it looked very fake. I decided to leave the hand in its natural form, rather than make it look like an E.T. hand. I'll put aside a chunk of time to work on it. Funny... I'm pretty good at drawing hands, but making a retouched photograph of a hand look real is going to take some practice.