I've poured through all of the information I could gather here and I'm looking for some critique and advice on what I've done so far.

I've attached the original as well as my retouch.
What I've done;
-Healing brush, patch tool to remove bags and clean blemishes (I couldn't quite get the coloring to fully go away under her eyes though)
-I desaturated a little of the red from her skin (masked out the rest of the image)
-Enhanced her eye and lip color a little bit (hopefully not too much)
-Ended with a median blur with a fairly low opacity to smooth the skin

Any suggestions on things I could/should do differently are more than welcome. And of course, any comments on things that do work well as well are also welcome. :)

You're doing good but I could still see dark part under her eyes particularly the left side...if you can clean it then that would look perfect!

the only thing i could think of was the face was a little cool, maybe try to warm it up a little...the skin that is.

If you have filters try the Nik skylight or sunshine maybe...

just a thought, other than that it looks great.

For this image, I would firstly go by making her less tired and sad. She looks rather tired to me! I would remove the wrinkles on forehead and bags under eyes, and probably spice up a bit by slightly raising one eyebrow, en lip corners, just a tiny little bit. I also would make her skintones warmer, definitely.

Yeah, I can understand about the skin being sort of cool, I tried desaturating the red a little bit, trying to even out some red blemishes.

I used the patch tool to remove the bags under her eyes and it removed the wrinkles, but left the darkish color. I tried using the healing brush, but the dark color stayed. I'm sure I'm just missing a setting or something...

Thanks for the comments!

Hi, newbie to the forum here (but not to retouch)

1. Personally I wouldn't use blur to soften the skin, although you´ve been careful about it. There´s always a risk it ends up looking artificial. I´d go the timeconsuming way with the wacom pen and careful cloning/lightening/darkening etc. Additional soft brushes on above layers can also be used for lighting purposes, and to even out unwanted differences.

2. The lower eyelid looks a bit flat, as if it doesn´t really hold an eyeball within. It´s suttle, but it´s there. Id try to keep some volume of that lid, still trying to get her look less tired.

There are more things that comes to mind, but i don't have the time at the moment. First, you would explain the goals with your retouch (other than to make it "look better"). That will make it easier to give proper feedback. :-)

/Jan Sandahl (it´s a male name in Sweden, where I live, BTW)

All,

Thanks for taking the time to critique this retouch. :)

Frankly, my goal with this image is pure practice. I'm just learning retouching and I'm trying to learn skin at the moment.

I like the shadows and lights, but she looks really tired...

Well, tiredness isn´t necessary a bad - or even unattractive - thing. Maybe it´s just the high key image that contrasts in a strange way with her "mood"? But hey, even that could be artistically justified! Personally, I think it´s contrasting in an unconvincing way though.

:-)