Overall Critique!

[KR1156]

I'm posting this image for people to crit the quality and coloring...but at the same time i'm interested in any tips ppl may offer with the evening of skin tone.

Coloring or matching the skin tone, especially on the face is prob my biggest problem area when retouching.

Im looking to see if anyone knows any good techniques for evening out the skin tones without blurring or surface blure, strictly color correcting on the existing pixels and image detail.

I will also post this in the Restoration and retouching forum to see what feedback I get.

Thank you.

[NancyJ]

I will also post this in the Restoration and retouching forum to see what feedback I get.

you shouldnt crosspost

Overall its OK but there are a couple of things:
You've removed her badge - but left the shadow in.
Theres a weird reflection on her arm.
I would remove the hand from the car if you can
Her underarm area could use some work.
Theres something not quite right about her face but I cant put my finger on it.
You've removed her bellybutton

As for the colour correcting skin, I would run byRo's degrunge method to get a smooth base - it does a great job of getting rid of skin mottling as well as spots. Then desaturate and paint/curves the colour in over the top.

[studioj]

Yeap, I agree with Nancy, if you loose skin texture, then the final pic it's kind of plastic and lifeless face.

byRo's technique it's great in a lot of ways, jejeje, I'm a trully fan of his posts

Also, my critique, I don't love her final skin color, I think it's like a porcelain doll, not a woman's skin.

[KR1156]

I see the underarm area, didn't do much to it, maybe shoulda payed more attention to that area.

The colors and tone I blew out on purpose...and my only defense to that is I notice when I post jpegs on here, they are a little off as to what I see on my screen. This jpeg has it a little more flat while my original isn't that extreme.

Our monitors are closely callibrated here so I'm not gonna sweat that.

And I have no idea why I removed her belly button!!

As far as evening the skin, I love Ro's Technique was just curious of what other methods are out there.

Thanks Guys.

[KR1156]

On Nancy's tip

"Then desaturate and paint/curves the colour in over the top."

i didn't catch that first time i read over it but just tried it and it worked pretty nice! I start to get a much more "evenly spread" skin tone.

Thanks alot!

[twinkissed]

I agree with Nancy on the face and I think it has something to do with the duplicated eye. Also her right breast looks awkward to me. Something to do with the inside curve of the dress maybe??? I dunno... like I said it looks awkward to me but I can't really tell what is causing it to look that way. Sorry if that doesn't help much

[KR1156]

To twinkissed,

Yea I def think the duped eye is weird looking, When I tried to liquify her original eye to open it up a little, I lost alot of sharpness and image quality, even with a subtle move...so that's why I just opted to dupe it.

I think not ony is it the same exact eye, but the positioning and angle is prob off.

Thanks.

[byRo]

Originally Posted by twinkissed

Also her right breast looks awkward to me....

I have observed the young lady's breasts closely (good thing my wife doesn't understand english) and it seems that the problem stems from the fact that she is using an almost transparent bodice.

Where the light hits her right breast region there is a reflected highlight instead of a shadow.
On her left breast it seems that the seam didn't hold out.

For the retouch you must make a decision. Either you make believe that there wasn't something there holding everything in place, or you make it clear that there is something - so people don't get that "awkward" feeling like twinkissed noticed.

Rô

[byRo]

Here's my try.....sans bodice (of course ).

- In LAB, used curves to adjust L, A and B of the bodice to match the "real" skin;

- deGrunged ;

- In LAB, tuned the A and B curves to a more believable skin colour range;

- Blurred and changed the Hue of the background to help the subject stand out better;

- Applied some lighting to brighten the young lady and darken the rest, but darkened the lower body which seem to be too light;

- Used Adaptive Equalisation (soft light) to bring out some more details.

Rô

[PatrickB]

I had a (very) quick go, but according to what you tried to achieve I sucked

I guess copying the background and setting the copied layer to overlay + desaturate a bit might give you what you want!

Patrick

PS: Please forgive me numerous flaws like the halo around her hair and the very bad work on her top and cleavage

[aylaah]

I only have one little thing to add, was wondering if it is possible to move her swimsuit? The first thing I notice in the pic, is that her swimmers go one way, and her body goes another, especially in the thumbnail. My comment comes purely from a looking at the photo as a whole, though. I'm not very clued up on the technicalities, lol, but if I were to see this pic somewhere and ask what was wrong with it, that would be what stood out to me, so I thought I'd mention it anyway.

Sorry I can't be more help

[NancyJ]

Originally Posted by aylaah

I only have one little thing to add, was wondering if it is possible to move her swimsuit? The first thing I notice in the pic, is that her swimmers go one way, and her body goes another, especially in the thumbnail. My comment comes purely from a looking at the photo as a whole, though. I'm not very clued up on the technicalities, lol, but if I were to see this pic somewhere and ask what was wrong with it, that would be what stood out to me, so I thought I'd mention it anyway.

Sorry I can't be more help

...I dont think its a swimsuit

[byRo]

as NancyJ said...
If you look a few posts above you'll see that, to me, it looks like an almost transparent base (swim-suit like, if you wish) with some black cloth sewn in at the appropriate places.

The clothing isn't twisted in any way because her navel is exactly in the middle.

However, when I was retouching this photo, I did get the same feeling that there was something odd - I just took plan "B" and threw a shadow there.

Rô

[aylaah]

Ahh see now I look at it again I can see that. I guess I was working off the shape - it is a popular swimsuit style, and not being able to see any lower, I just assumed. Shall we hereby refer to it as the black stuff? lol

The main area I am noticing is her hip, I don't know that whatever it is is twisted, it just looks non-symmetrical with her body, is that better phrasing?

I should also add a disclaimer that I am a symmetry fan which is possibly why it jumps out. I like symmetry

[Cameraken]

Hi Ken

A difficult image to colour balance with two light sources. But it was fun trying

Ken