my wife

[Kraellin]

just some things to consider here. a bit late. i can comment tomorrow.

craig

[mchawkes]

just some things to consider here. a bit late. i can comment tomorrow.

I think I have some funky profile thing cause when I open it in Photoshop the color and transitions look really bad. Harsh breaks from 3/4 to shads. plugged up shadow detail. green cast around the edges. tone in reflective hl's etc...

As for the nose thing... sorry, this is a portrait.. so I cant really change bone structure and retain the likeness.

Here is a detail shot so you can see close up what is really going on here.

[NancyJ]

Originally Posted by mchawkes

As for the nose thing... sorry, this is a portrait.. so I cant really change bone structure and retain the likeness.

Artists have been 'creatively adjusting' people's features for centuries Theres nothing wrong with a small tweak here and there to make a portrait more flattering.
I made a minor adjustment to your image, given that you're stuck with the up-nostril shot and you dont want to make any structural changes, I've softened the shadows and highlights on the nost to make it less prominent, its still the same size and shape but attention is drawn away from it so we can focus on those gorgeously rendered lips

[Kraellin]

mchawkes,

i'm not too surprised that mine looks a bit odd to you. i use psp 10 and it doesnt like the profile you had embedded, 'Cinema HD Display' and it changed it to sRGB. with that difference and with the compression to post here, it doesnt surprise me a bit. it looks fine on my monitor but we run into this a lot with various profiles and color spaces here on retouchpro.

so, throwing out my picture as a reference, i'll just give this in words. that you dont want to change the nose, why, ok. but i think nancy has the right of it in that case. just de-emphasize it a bit.

aside from that, i felt the lighting emphasis was off in your original. the highlights are spread such that the neck and shoulder and collar bone have the same weight as the face, cheek and eye areas. my attempt was to re-light the whole thing putting more emphasis on the face and less on the areas below. but, even having said that, i did find some interesting characteristics in your lighting. it did give a nice full feeling to the overall whereas mine tends to narrow things a bit. but lowing the highlights on the neck and shoulder could probably still be done without losing that 'full' feeling.

as well as changing the nose shape i also changed the lighting on it, adding more shadow both on the nose end and inside the nostril.

i also reduced a small shadow above her left eye. totally optional in this case.

there was a small blown out area near her left eye, between eye and nose that i re-did.

i blurred around the outer edges of the iris giving this a slightly softer look.

i added a bit more color to the lips and changed the lighting just a tiny bit to show more.

i found your texture quite interesting. seemed to be a bit of a crosshatch giving a sort of pore look to the skin. nothing wrong there, just interesting.

i know that having to compress images to 100k tends to lose a bit, so anything else could be chalked up to that and not worth mentioning.

i also know that a lot of my critiques are subjective and quite minor. overall, you did an excellent job and i wouldnt normally be this nit-picky but you mentioned having years of experience, so you probably have years of experience in dealing with 'critics' as well

it's a very good job and you could throw out everything i mentioned and it would still be a very good job. so, there ya go

craig

[mchawkes]

Thanks craig.. That is very valuable input. i messed with the nose thing, but it just does not look like my wife. So while to some it looks better to some, I just look at it and see that its not an accurate rendition, given that I see her every day of my life. I just think.. whats wrong with her nose! If it was strictly cosmetic or a fashion type thing I would completely agree. I dont object trying different lighting though. The texture pattern only shows at the large zoom. when output at the size of the litho, its very subtle and actually looks like its on a tightly weaved canvas. But at the large size, yes it looks bad.

Subtle color adjustments and contrast issues seems trivial and counter productive given the in-discrepancies of monitors.. who knows, you might be applying corrections that make the image look more like the litho on your screen. Does that make sense. In other words if I saw the image on your screen, I might agree with the changes, but on mine, it looks bad.


Thank you though... I really appreciate your sensitive eye. I have posted some more images that are typical retouching/fashion and not portraiture that might be better suited to retouching critiques.

[Kraellin]

mchawkes,

i perfectly understand about the nose.

i also perfectly understand about monitor differences and i remind folks from time to time to go walk into one of those big appliance stores and look at the rows of televisions all displaying the same channel and pick out the ONE tv that is 'right' out of the bunch.

and again, i do understand about clients and client wishes superceding our own. my observations here shld always be taken as subservient to what the client is asking for. when you're your own client, then you can make the choices that are right for you. i've found that actual perception differs person to person and that it's not always a matter of subjective taste; it's often a matter of personal perception. so, if the client wants 'green' and points to what you see as 'blue', then 'green' it is. and digital has only complicated this matter further; e.g. our monitor differences.

craig