here is my retouching work of a head shoot. the original is found in this forum and i use it. i did following retouching:
1) skin cleaning and smoothing
2) enlarge the eyes a little, change the eyes color
3) reshape the nose, teeth and the mouth


the retouched photo can be found in my gallery in this great website:
http://www.retouchpro.com/gallery/showphoto.php/photo/3961/size/big/sort/1/cat/500

the original:
http://www.retouchpro.com/gallery/showphoto.php/photo/3960/sort/1/size/big/cat/500/page/

and the high resolusion version can be found here:
http://img2.imagevenue.com/loc212/949_04ecuthbert_sample.jpg

thanks for your critiques and suggestions

Jeru, very good job. I took the liberty of using your 'after' to add a few things. A quickie. This is rough around the edges, but hopefully you'll get the idea. Worked on the face and hair only.

kiska

thanks for your idea.

looks great :bigthmb:
Bruce :happy:

Cudos! You've done a wonderful job without introducing that phony, plastic, oversmooth, unreal, nasty glamour look.

Dave

Thanks Bruce, Duv. I like realistic retouching and manipulation which let audience not to feel the changes without seeing the original. I regret that the teeths maybe done better, and the lips may be done a little redder?

Kiska and Jeru, you both did a very nice job. And I agree with Duv's comments wholeheartedly...no plastic, no phony. Kudos to both of you.

Janet

Jeru, stick with 'real' retouching. It's the best. The teeth could be whitened a little. The lips could be smoothed out somewhat with just a touch more color. I usually take a sample of original lip color, open color picker and use a slightly darker version. Apply lipstick on a new layer, soft light, low opacity.

kiska

thanks for your suggestions

Good natural retouch work, however the eyes are too green and could do with a little tonign down.

without introducing that phony, plastic, oversmooth, unreal, nasty glamour look.


Well after doing some serious reading over the past few days, i have come to the conclusion that those people that specialise in that phony plastic oversmoothed look get paid thousands in their industry, but i can appreciate where your comments are coming from.

Thank you Axle. I mean, if that's where you want to be go for it. I'm not in it for the money..I'm just having fun.....and posting my opinions that perhaps a small number of members might agree with. Perhaps if you are a real pro that look can "look" good. Unfortunatly, too many beginners, intermediates go over the top. IMHO.
BTW. I'm glad your back and hopefully feeling better!

Dave

Thanks Axle. I think the eyes color need to be a more realistic one. I have looked at your gallery. I like it.

I would like to find a tutorial that offers a natural look to a model than a false plastic smoothed out look.

I blame the pretentious industry we have for our teenagers magazines, if those magazines shown real models, teenagers would grown up knowing beauty is being oneself, having freckes years ago was known as a sign beautiful, these days models have them sprayed out on the magazines, then a teenager would get a complex, i also blame these magazines for the suicide rate and also the confidence kids seem to lack about their looks, and slim girls thinking they're fat.

Jeru keep the models looking natural, one photo i saw on your gallery has two sets of light on her eyes, not sure about that, i don't think it looks natural, but the others well done they look very nice.

I found this tutorial that looks promising. http://www.gimpguru.org/Tutorials/CosmeticRetouch/

Let me know what you think.

Cheers
Dave