Help with trouble areas

[Joe Motola]

Hi everyone,

This is my second posting with the first being the guidelines. I’m beginning to find my way around this site.

I started using Photoshop last September and started retouching sometime in October. I’m to a point now that I’m focusing on my trouble areas. Two of the areas I would like help in are smoothing out the skin and the other is the hair. Browsing the tutorials, I can see where they would be helpful. But, instead of going full speed ahead, I would like some feed back first.

Please look over my work and tell me what you think. I know I’m not working as efficiently as I could be and I don’t have a system yet so my explanations may not be as complete as you would expect or want.

Attached is a copy of challenge No 42 Granddad 1902 that I submitted last week.
Skin
Patch Tool to remove most of the scratches.
Combination of Blur, Unsharp Mask, Dodge, and Burn tools, to smooth out skin.
Added noise for texture.
Redrew
Hair, eyebrows, irises and pupils
Uniform
Made Paths for the uniforms outline along with layers and clipping masks
Found material similar to time period
Used drop shadows for uniform detail
Background
Removed Background and used a cement wall from a fort in that time period.
Special thanks to Kurt at www.tekawiz.com for help with the uniform.


Joe

[barry_uk]

Joe could you post up the original photo!! We would love to see what it looked like befor. Maybe we could help you with it. the image you have there I can tell has had major repair, Seing the photo befor stage will give us more infomation and help you with it more maybe!! please post the orignal.

Regards Barry

[Joe Motola]

Berry
The original is challenge #42. I copied it to this thread.
Thanks for looking at it.
Joe

[barry_uk]

As it is past my bed time ha I gave your picture 15 mins work all I did was simply cover in various colours of grey at 50% gave me this quick result i may have a better go later tomorrow after work. I am sure some one else will love this challenge. the fella looks proud be a cracking picture if can be restored to its normal glory.

Regards Barry

[Joe Motola]

Thanks for taking the time and looking at it.
Joe