Here is my latest retouch. Overall I'm happy with it.
This is my first dark skin retouch, and it brought some unique issues. Things like a general darkening where creases are, like above his right eye. He's very happy with it so thats a good thing.

Any tips/pointers/critiques?

Here it is (http://farm1.static.flickr.com/124/368724927_165390bcc6_o.jpg)

I like the idea and the overall mood. Obviously it's always a subjective thing but here are my thoughts.

On my computer screen the dark colors seem too dark (unless that is what you were shooting for) making the whites overly prominent. I brightened the image and added 30% of the darkness back to the background.

Prizo, on my monitor, your depth of field looks good as do shadows etc.,

Thanks for the review.

Monitors are interesting... I can see where it could look a little dark on some. Too bad all monitors aren't calibrated the same.

Anyone else have comments?
Feel free to rip it apart if you think it blows.

I'm just an amateur but here is my two cents. I also found the tone to be a little bit dark. I took the original and placed it on top of the re-touched version with opacity of 35% and blending mode of normal. The skin color seems more natural (at least on my monitor). It also looks like the stripes in his suit are too bright (brighter than the original) and the texture in his sweater is showing more. This may be the result of sharpening. Mixing in 35% of the original reduces both of these (not good if you intended the effect).

Yeah maybe it needs to be a bit lighter.

I'm not really going for a "natural" skin tone or look. I'm not trying to make it look like a painting either. I guess I'm going for a "processed photo" look.

Thanks for the comment!

I think it looks great, I like the overall mood and I can see you're going for that steely blue look. All it needs is a few finishing touches.
Mainly the skin is still a little blotchy and bumpy, but I also added some highlight/shadow emphasis and a tiny touch of sharpening.

I like it a lot. Im a sucker for these processed looks.

I think it looks great, I like the overall mood and I can see you're going for that steely blue look. All it needs is a few finishing touches.
Mainly the skin is still a little blotchy and bumpy, but I also added some highlight/shadow emphasis and a tiny touch of sharpening.


I LIKE that!!!

I knew it was a bit blotchy but I couldnt really fix it without getting it looking too much like a "painting".
How did you achieve that? It really looks great.

Its a modification of ByRo's degrunge technique. I duplicated the original and ran a 6px high pass followed by a 2 px gaussian blur, then inverted the layer and set the blend mode to overlay. Then I used a hide all mask and just painted in over the skin where it was needed.
For the extra highlights and shadows I used a couple more duplicates one set to multiple the other to screen and just masked them in where desired.

Its a modification of ByRo's degrunge technique. I duplicated the original and ran a 6px high pass followed by a 2 px gaussian blur, then inverted the layer and set the blend mode to overlay. Then I used a hide all mask and just painted in over the skin where it was needed.
For the extra highlights and shadows I used a couple more duplicates one set to multiple the other to screen and just masked them in where desired.

Thanks.
I did a similar high-pass technique at (I think) 7px Highpass, 2.3 blur, but I guess when I did it on the full size image it wasnt as aggressive as what you did on a much smaller image. Plus I did it as a "Light something" layer (can't remember the name).
Do you find that your method is just as effective on larger images?

On a larger image, ofcourse the values need to be adjusted, it also helps to manually clone out some of the larger lumps and also sometimes multiple passes are needed to maintain integrity
I used the size that you posted but had to resize to fit it on the forum

On a larger image, ofcourse the values need to be adjusted, it also helps to manually clone out some of the larger lumps and also sometimes multiple passes are needed to maintain integrity
I used the size that you posted but had to resize to fit it on the forum

I thought 7px was alright for the original size (orig size was much bigger than what I posted).
I did clone out what I thought I could acceptably do - the acne, lines, creases. I'll have to work on my large area cloning.
What do you sample from to do large areas? Do you slowly build up an area then sample from it with increasingly large tools as it gets cleaned up?

I have lots of questions because your edit was what I was ultimately shooting for. I came close, and was quite happy with my result but it didnt turn out as goos as I saw it in my minds eye.