inspired by NancyJ tutorial

[Cyber Cat]

hey all. got inspired by NancyJ's tutorial. please critique.
p.s. thanx NancyJ for awsome tutorial and provided image.

[Caitlin]

Hi Cybercat,

I don't know the tutorial you are referring to, but a couple of comments from me:

I quite liked the girl's pouty expression that you have removed from the retouched image. Similarly the little line at the edge of her mouth gave her character I think. You might want to darken/tidy up her eyebrow - particularly as they are now a big contrast with her eyelashes.

I like the eye colour and makeup.

For some reason the nostrils and ear look a bit strange - like they have closed over - I think they have been smoothed/contrast has been dropped there a bit too much.

Hope these comments are helpful.

[MBChamberlain]

good job,

Three little things. First a personal preference: I prefer to use the liquify tool for changing the shape of the lips. Second the skin repair was a little overdone (easy to do), always remember that people's skin is not made of plastic. Last, I thought the eyes were a little too green.

These are things that are subjective, but I think they make the image look a little better.

A couple of examples with explainations: makeup and coloring and skin repair

Hope that helps,

Michael

PS this usually takes an hour or two but this quick 15 minute job should show you what I'm talking about.

[Cyber Cat]

Caitlin, MBChamberlain thank you very much for compliments, comments and critiques.

[Bujo]

I like your work up. The only thing that sticks out IMHO is the eyes. The whites are too white, but just a tad, maybe put in some shadow and the green is too metal looking. Almost like metal flake paint on a car.

The smoothed over skin and eye make up look good too.

Nice post.

[Cyber Cat]

Bujo thank you.

[rnbluvva]

Cyber Cat-

I'd love to know how you enlarged the model's lips.

Can you tell me how you did that?

Thanks

[Cyber Cat]

rnbluvva sure...
make selection around the mouth. copy into a new layer (ctrl+j). free transform it (hold shift when u do) move transform around till it looks natural, after that drag transform handle down a bit. fix any patchy areas (if any)
zoom into the image, make sel. around the whole mouth. filter->liquify. use warp tool to even out line btw the lips. make selection inside of the lips. filter->distort->pinch . do the same thing for the upper lip only. copy some texture from lower lip to upper lip. rotate if needed.
feel free to ask if any questions.

[rnbluvva]

Thank you Cyber Cat! I will try this later on

[leuallen]

I thought I'd give it a try.

Played with the hair inspired by a tutorial I just read, also eyebrows.
Tried to smooth the skin per MBChamberlain.
Enlarged the upper lip per Cyber Cat.
Eyes per Johnson tutorial on this forum.

Just a copycat

Larry

[rnbluvva]

Originally Posted by leuallen

I thought I'd give it a try.

Played with the hair inspired by a tutorial I just read, also eyebrows.
Tried to smooth the skin per MBChamberlain.
Enlarged the upper lip per Cyber Cat.
Eyes per Johnson tutorial on this forum.

Just a copycat

Larry

Larry,

I'd be interested in reading the hair and eyebrow tutorials you used to do this. I like what you have done with the image.

[leuallen]

rnbluvva

The information for hair cloning is from a sample chapter of a book. There is much more covered and the chapter is quite extensive.

Beauty Retouching in Photoshop

* By Suzette Troche-Stapp.
* Sample Chapter is provided courtesy of New Riders

The online sample chapter is:

http://www.peachpit.com/articles/art...&seqNum=6&rl=1

[rutherford]

Hi!

Retouching is a very personal work. Depends on your point of view as a retoucher and the art directors view of his work.

I just took a look at your post. You did a nice job.

- I think you could work a bit more on her lips. I think you lost a bit of volume on the upper lip with the liquify.

- The skin job is nice. I think you could go a little easier on it though. i t tends to a plastic texture. You could also mask the nostril and the contours on the nose, chin and ear with a a very soft brush (about 20% pressure). This will solve the blurry feel of the skin treatment. Try and put some texture over the treatment as well to reduce the plastic feel.

- In my opinion i think you could go easy on the eye. the colour doesn't feel real and, as you compare with her right eye, although it is in shadow you notice that you didn't give it a similar treatment (respecting the shadow values of it).

Well, Like I said in the beginning, it is all very personal. You have done a good job. Congratulations.




Cheers!!

George Rutherford
www.seagullsfly.com
www.fotolog.net.rutherford

[Cyber Cat]

ok... let me start by saying thank you all very much for your input, comments, critiques!!!!
MBChamberlain thank you for your tutorials!!
rnbluvva u wlcm u did awesome job (see another thread) you just need to get a lil more familiar with liquify tool (im looking for some good tutorials for you, deff. let you know if i'll find any)
leuallen on retouching. we all started by coping and trying to figure out how things are. so once again love your work!!
rutherford thank you very much. lip volume hmmm... there was none to begin with, so i know for sure i added some, but now im looking at it i think you right and i should add some more.(its just when you working on an image, and see before and after right there, you tend to loose it... meaning you can clearly see improvements you made, that is why its always a good idea to ask someone else's opinion). skin- note to myself* about realistic finish(thank you) funny thing tho i always add noise, maybe not enough. as of skin texture i always go for almost plastic finish (think Lancôme ads) unless i told not to. eyes -yeah i know dont look real, but i just liked look of it at that moment, still eye envy (wish i had eyes like that lol)
once again thank you all.

[leuallen]

Revisited the lips. When I completed the lips, I was so happy with the result of the Liquify tool that I did not proceed further.

I now see that the top lip looks flat with no contour, not that the original had much to start out with. The Liquify tools reduces this even more, like stretching a colored ballon - the more it is stretched, the less intense the color becomes.

I felt that the problem is with shadows, there are none at the bottom of the top lip. This makes it look flat. I created a new layer, blending Overlay, and filled with 50% gray. Painting on this layer with black darkens, white lightens. Using a small soft brush with black at 5%, I created some shadowing at the base of the top lip. As with most operations done at high enlargement, we tend to overdo the effect we are working on. I zoomed the picture out to full size reduced the opacity of the shadow layer to a more natural setting.

But I am not sure that I like the result. The attachment shows the lips before and after the shadowing. What do you think. Am I on the right track?

Larry