Retouch ME

[aylaah]

This is what I've done, myself. I've had a life-long thing about blue eyes (being the only child of 9 without them) which inspired me to retouch myself.

Personally, I love the eyes, and my father (passer of non-blue eyes) is happy I'm 'over it'.

I decided to go all out and do a complete retouch. I have attached both the original image and the end result, and would love to hear your thoughts and what you'd do to improve it. Personally I think the eyebrows are the most glaring work-requirement. I'm no model so I don't expect to get 'magazine-worth results' on my own face, but am interested in learning and photographing myself when the desire to attempt something is the easiest option.

[bart_hickman]

I like the makeup--looks good and being a guy I have no skill in that area at all.

It looks like you did a subtle adjustment to your jaw--nice job on that too. Just one suggestion--after you get the jaw the way you want, use the reconstruct tool to undo any damage done elsewhere. For example, the skin-lines under the chin are stretched out.

The eyes look not quite right--the color isn't quite even enough and they're too smooth-looking which makes them look painted.

I try to avoid painting directly and instead alter color and/or exposure and leave texture alone. In this case I just tried emphasizing the color (boost exposure and saturation) that's already there. They're a bit bright, but it illustrates the priniciple. I used a mask so the adjustment only affects the eyes--that way I'm not actually painting over the image itself.

I also used Ro's skin-degrunging method and used liquify to make your hair bigger (I'm just having some fun.) That's the first attachment.

Now, if you really want the blue eyes, just adjust the Hue/Saturation accordingly. I did that for the 2nd attachment.

I also attached the layer palette so you can see the four adjustments that were made (also did a sharpening step). Notice the little white dots at the eye locations to enable H/S/L adjustments only on the eyes.

Bart

[aylaah]

Thanks

I didn't paint the eyes, I did pretty much as you described, putting them on their own layer and playing with brightness, hue and so on. They are very light - the main achievement with them for me was the flecks - there are still flecks in them, the colour isn't completely flat - hope that detail wasn't lost on compression! Of course they are an extreme blue, but that was a detail I wanted obvious lol. I'm trying generally to move away from painting over and toward using the other tools to colour change.

I did play around with the jawline and made the mouth bigger too.

As for the make up, I used darken and multiply to colour, and found on low opacity it comes out looking much more on the face than added later, which I'm happy with - but everything can always be better!

Can't say big hair is my thing by choice, the pics you've done are how my hair is after being washed/brushed! Who knew relatively straight hair could be so boofy?

This is another far more effect-intensive I created from a very similar photo (same night, same 'shoot', same part of house etc) as the first, for fun. For the hair I copied by layer and then duplicated, flipped etc to create lots of lengths I could add in, like hair extensions

I can see a couple of problems with this one too, especially around the jaw to the right, the hair isn't perfect at all, but its fun! Lots of very symmetrical highlights there though.

[Vikki]

This is a dramatic retouch, mostly because of the hair and eyebrows (excuse my "artisitc" skills at drawing hair.) I hope you don't mind.

Some changes I made: darkened and thickened brows to bring attention to your eyes (didn't change eye color). Changed hair style and color, again, to bring the focus to your eyes and also to change the overall shape of your face. Parly due to the camera angle, and the hair style, I thought they created a triangle that brought the focus to the lower half of your face and I wanted it too be on your eyes, again.
Added eye makeup to accentuate the eyes..little bit of dark brown liner, and lashes. I also added a taupe shadow in the creases and highlighter under the brow. Added blush and lipstick.
I also changed the background color to something that would look good with your eyes. The color of the shirt seemed rather bright and I thought it grabbed too much attention, so I changed it to a more subtle color.

Regarding your photography...
The angle you're shooting your photo at looks like it's creating a "fisheye" type distortion to your face. If your camera has a timer feature, I'd use that instead of holding the camera. I made a small adjustment to the image to compensate for the distortion.

The image on the far right is an overlay of the two images. Basically, I wanted to show that no features were changed, other than the slight distortion compensation, and that, if one wanted to, a makeover such as this could be achieved in the real world, with makeup, and better lighting.

[Jeronimas]

Ten with plus , only hair looks not very realistic, but I'm sure, this was only quick try. Very nice .

[aylaah]

Wow! Very different!! The hair is really good though, you shouldn't be excusing it! I'm yet to master the whole hair thing, I have hair brushes I just can't get it right, so I'm tending to copy and paste rather than paint.

Thanks for the tips on the photo, too. I can have others take them, but this particular one was from a burst of 'need to practice' at about 3am one morning. The fish eye distortion, I'm trying to picture what that is - the face shape in the original looks pretty accurate to me, lol.

[byRo]

Just wanted to join in the fun!

Rô

[aylaah]

Vikki I forgot to say, the retouched image looks exactly like my sister (who mind you is more than 10 years my senior, lol)! Remarkably so, actually.

I've been getting results by cheating similar to yours, Ro, using neat image. Well I say cheating because its so much easier to do that way, lol.

I think I'm starting to get a complex now seeing my face on all these posts!! lol

[lkroll]

At least I gave you blue eyes.

Had fun playing; don't mean to offend.

[aylaah]

No offence taken, I quite like the results! If only you knew how close to my previous colour that hair is!! lol

[Kraellin]

vikki,

excellent job! that's the look i kept trying to find. i kept arranging the hair and arranging it again and just couldnt find it. you got it spot on. well done!

craig

[PatrickB]

We should really have a date, what do you think?

For those not involved: Look here

[aylaah]

LOL ahh needed that laugh.

Have to let you down gently, I'm in a relationship of opposites lol many more elephants in the sea, I'm sure

[palomino]

Hello! I had to get in on the makeover as well- what fun. It is brave to put yourself out there. I just took some of the reds and yellows down to give a more natural deep brown in the hair...also gave you some eyebrows...and your baby blues ofcourse! cheers!

-Kate

[sfrench]

Hi

I gave it a try maybe a little late,

Adjusted the overall cast of the shoot, used the healing brush a little and took the distortion out of the face and made a new crop