Did I take this image to far??

[Justin Goode]

well I haven't done any retouching in terms of portrait/fashion/glamour, or whaterver, but I thought i'd take a stab at it. I followed various methods in the book "Photoshop Restoration & Retouching" by Katrin Eismann and I think I got pleasing results, that're also looking pretty natural. Although, the end result doesn't really look like the original woman at all.

So i'm wondering if there is even a need for such extreme retouching as this or if I took it to far and the finished result should look more like the original. I've heard people say "if a photo isn't good enough to show, then it's not good enough to retouch" (or somthing like this) and this might fall into that category. I guess i'm looking for crits on 2 things:

1. should a retouched photo not be this drastically different from the original.
2. regardless of the answer to #1 could you comment on the technical aspects of the retouch outcome itself.

thanks for any help and crits!
before and after

[Doug Nelson]

It all depends on your intent. You can go nuts, or you can make the person look like the idealized version of herself. In this one you moved the eyes, which is a no-no if you want to maintain identity. And perhaps you shaved off a few too many years for the same reason. Not knocking your technical skills, just commenting on keeping the "me" in an image.

[Justin Goode]

thanks for the comments. Going into this I guess I didn't really have an intent, since it was just an exercise....which is never good to not have a gameplan ha.

Thinking about it more I guess was just trying turn it into a "clean pretty photo" and keeping her identity wasn't nessesarily somthing I was striving for.

I'll keep that comment about the eyes in mind in the future for keeping identity. Guess it makes sense really. For this I had changed them just because they looked sightly different sizes/positions.

I'm thinking when I have some free time i'll do this image again with the intent of keeping "her" in there. As if it was portrait that was just being cleaned up a bit.
Thanks for the input.

[maureeno]

Justin, I think you did an excellent job of digital makeover-ing. IF that was what your subject had in mind.

If you were testing your skills, you got high marks.

If you wanted to "bring her back in time" you did that. If you want a more realistic portrait, I sure can see you've the skill level to get that done.

Maureen

[ray12]

Justin,

I think you did great for one of your first attempts!

Your techniques are good and there are probably many different ways you could change the image the next time you do it - every time you practice you find something else you can improve on. So from a technique point of view I'd say keep going. You're doing great.

Some people find that getting the techniques down first is helpful - then when you become proficient - then you can major on the artistic side of those techniques.

If you know this woman - then you might be able to tell just how far to go. If you have a paying client - then they will tell you they want the retouch to look natural, or enhanced, or ultra polished. If you dont know her, and you dont have a client - then do what you want - stretch your talents and experiment into all the possible boundaries. You will not easily know how to achieve a certain kind of look later on - unless you have experimented with it in the past.

So try out everything until you find your own center - and keep on retouching until the customer gives you some feedback. Its just like reading - you have to learn how to sound out vowels before you can read a novel.

Lets see some more work from you next month - lets see how you have developed. Would be fun.

Ray

[Kraellin]

i agree with doug in every respect here. faces always amaze me in how little it takes to change an identity.

you did end up with a nice looking image; it's just not the same woman

craig

[mfgriggs]

I think you did a great job. You just took some of the CRAZY out.