Critics for beauty retouch

[alex.justino]

Well, i just retouched this one pic today:

http://alex-sj.deviantart.com/art/Be...touch-90766672

it was almost 3-3.5 hours retouching it X_X

and i was wondering if u guys can critic the picture ^^

don't worry about being harsh =]

i really wanna know what u think ok

[amica999]

Alex, looks very good to me...even though I am no pro, it looks a little retouched on the top hair, seem to be some cloning spots, could that be?

[TommyO]

I like the skin tones, hair color and lighting. The retouch is definitely moving in the right direction.
I agree with amica999 on the hair. The cloning is too obvious at the top near the part.
Also, the eyes may be a bit too white.. they really stand out. You don't need that given the natural beauty of her iris's.
While some may say the skin is too soft, I don't think so, given her age and what the image may be used for, i.e. a cosmetic market. If it were just a portrait retouch, it may be too much.
Great job !

[MatthewMarshall]

What happen to her lower eyelashes, you need to bring those back

[JD Spears]

I agree with most of what everyone said. It looks beautiful! Personally, I would like to see some of her red freckles come through. That may just be me cause I got a thing for redheads. Also, the part in her hair toward the top of her head looks blurry. The teeth look manipulated. The lips look fantastic to me, eye brows too. I agree about the eyes being to white and bright. I think they could be darkened down particularly around the outer edges. Over all great job and big difference over original.

[alex.justino]

Well, so far.... tks a lot for breaking my heart X_X hahahahahaha

hair... the hair was really awful, i was like a 5 minute retouch on that =/
it`s fixed now ^^

eyes... fixed ^^

lower eyelashes... well, that size is her normal size, on the original looks just a little bigger because of the shadows

teeth... well, i'm not sure how to change that, i can't put the original back and i don't wanna get teeth from other pictures... any tips??

i posted the reretouch photo on the same link:

http://alex-sj.deviantart.com/art/Be...touch-90766672

what do u think now??? ^^


that's the link for the original photo:
http://img169.imagevenue.com/img.php...2_122_63lo.jpg

[madclark]

I agree with everyone in complimenting how beautiful it looks. Wonderful job.

However, to my eye it's been so perfected that you're moving into the realm of photo-realistic illustration. There's literally not a flaw anywhere on her face. The eyes are very saturated and whitened and very sharp. And the skin has been smoothed and texturized to the point of no pores.

If I can tell it's been Photoshopped, despite how beautiful it is, I don't think it's the right answer.

Have you experimented with blending the layers to see if you can affect more realism?

[JD Spears]

Originally Posted by alex.justino

Well, so far.... tks a lot for breaking my heart X_X hahahahahaha

hair... the hair was really awful, i was like a 5 minute retouch on that =/
it`s fixed now ^^

eyes... fixed ^^

lower eyelashes... well, that size is her normal size, on the original looks just a little bigger because of the shadows

teeth... well, i'm not sure how to change that, i can't put the original back and i don't wanna get teeth from other pictures... any tips??

i posted the reretouch photo on the same link:

http://alex-sj.deviantart.com/art/Be...touch-90766672

what do u think now??? ^^


that's the link for the original photo:
http://img169.imagevenue.com/img.php...2_122_63lo.jpg

After closer inspection I see why the teeth look manipulated. You did a fantastic job with the mouth. And no I would not suggest going back to the original. I did play around with your retouch version of the teeth. They seem to be a little too neutral in color. Although their actually not, they appear to have a slightly blue tint. I used several copies of the adjustment filter, photo filter 85 warming. Each one at varying degrees, I used the blend if sliders to weight the affects heavily to the shadow side. Also used D&B to give some more contrast (sharpness) between the teeth. Probably wouldn't hurt too go even further with that. Also, burned teeth just slightly by lip to give lip shadow.
Anyway, I am really impressed with what you did on this and look forward to seeing more of your work.

[ashphotoart]

In the eyes I see some overwork (too white and flatten look)

overall lighting is good. on the top of hair you need to give attention.

Also lips can be more attractive by dodge and burn.

Ash

[ashphotoart]

Some naturality must be in retouch. Please keep some original details of eyes, nose and teeth.

[Insensitive.]

I love this, but her hair looks like a wig, why did you remove her scalp?

[Sinisa]

good work but by all means not a 'high end retouching'

[secretagents]

Although I am by no means expert in that I find that you turned her into some Cindy Crawford and that's a bit odd really.

I find that the treatment of the nose, lips, chin, all that area is not good. I don't mean the finish of it of course but the plastic surgery you did.

Too much of it IMO. And not looking very real to me in terms of tridimensionality.

But as the proverb says, it is easy to criticize.

[alex.justino]

hahahahhahaa

u're destroing my pic but i'm loving this

so far tks to everyone who reply thi post... ok let's try to answer now...

Originally Posted by secretagents

Although I am by no means expert in that I find that you turned her into some Cindy Crawford and that's a bit odd really.

I find that the treatment of the nose, lips, chin, all that area is not good. I don't mean the finish of it of course but the plastic surgery you did.

Too much of it IMO. And not looking very real to me in terms of tridimensionality.

But as the proverb says, it is easy to criticize.

about the plasctic surgery... first of all, when i entered on that other forum where there's a lot of pictures (the link is where i post my pic) i looked most of them then chose that picture bc the model had a lot of "imperfections" (messy hair, bad skin, lighting problems, uneven teeth...) so, that was actually a practice photo, not something that u retouch for some magazine or clients, that's why i change the model a lot, it's was for fun ^^
by the way, what is IMO??

Originally Posted by Sinisa

good work but by all means not a 'high end retouching'

=) well, i'll keep trying though bc i really wanna get there

Originally Posted by Insensitive.

I love this, but her hair looks like a wig, why did you remove her scalp?

hahahahaha wig hahahahah
just to see how she would look like, u didn't like it?

Originally Posted by ashphotoart

Some naturality must be in retouch. Please keep some original details of eyes, nose and teeth.

Originally Posted by ashphotoart

In the eyes I see some overwork (too white and flatten look)

overall lighting is good. on the top of hair you need to give attention.

Also lips can be more attractive by dodge and burn.

Ash

ok i'll take the advice

Originally Posted by JD Spears

After closer inspection I see why the teeth look manipulated. You did a fantastic job with the mouth. And no I would not suggest going back to the original. I did play around with your retouch version of the teeth. They seem to be a little too neutral in color. Although their actually not, they appear to have a slightly blue tint. I used several copies of the adjustment filter, photo filter 85 warming. Each one at varying degrees, I used the blend if sliders to weight the affects heavily to the shadow side. Also used D&B to give some more contrast (sharpness) between the teeth. Probably wouldn't hurt too go even further with that. Also, burned teeth just slightly by lip to give lip shadow.
Anyway, I am really impressed with what you did on this and look forward to seeing more of your work.

well, i actually did what u said, not exactly the same, even though it's hard to escape from the "very manipulated look" tks a lot for the tips =) i posted again, but i only changed the first pic on the right (full view one)




[]'s

[secretagents]

IMO means In My Opinion. Sorry about that.

[madclark]

I've only worked on the skin here, but I've tried to create a step-by-step to get a more natural looking base.

You have two things working against you in this image. The model doesn't have great skin tone in the first place with all the blemishes and she naturally has a lot of freckling. It's very difficult to find unadulterated areas to use to heal problem areas.

Try this as a start though:

1. Go to the Red layer of the image and copy and paste it as a new layer in a new group. This will be your luminosity layer.

2. On this greyscale image, use the spot heal or the heal brush to even out any remaining blemishes. In areas with little contrast, try using the spot heal brush in Create Texture mode to really even out the tones.

3. Create a duplicate of the Background layer, and desaturate. This layer should be under the luminosity layer.

4. On the luminosity layer, create a mask and then open a square to the desaturated background layer for reference.

5. Create a Brightness/Contrast layer above the luminosity layer and "Use Previous Layer to Create Clipping Mask." Adjust brightness and contrast to match the desaturated background layer.

6. Finally, clear the mask of your luminosity layer and then mask everything in the group but the skin and change the blend mode to Luminosity of the luminosity layer. You should have decently dewy, and realistic, skin tone to start from.

7. Finally, create a blank layer and in Overlay mode use a large soft black pen with a low flow rate to burn in some of the shadowing in the hollows of the cheeks that were lost from the luminosity layer.

Took me about 20 minutes to do the attached picture.

[secretagents]

I had a play with that pic. It was interesting, thanks for sharing your model with us. Neat Image plus a bit of healing brush and median here and there and various brightness adjustments. I think that's all I did. Despite the relatively little work on it I feel it is more high end than yours for some reason. At any rate it's completely different.

[JD Spears]

Originally Posted by secretagents

Despite the relatively little work on it I feel it is more high end than yours for some reason.

Alex, You may want to go for the low end;-}

[dsgoen]

Put some freckles back. We redheads must not be denied!

[alex.justino]

Originally Posted by TommyO

I like the skin tones, hair color and lighting. The retouch is definitely moving in the right direction.
I agree with amica999 on the hair. The cloning is too obvious at the top near the part.
Also, the eyes may be a bit too white.. they really stand out. You don't need that given the natural beauty of her iris's.
While some may say the skin is too soft, I don't think so, given her age and what the image may be used for, i.e. a cosmetic market. If it were just a portrait retouch, it may be too much.
Great job !

I'm Brazil the girls from the hair color box have that look, so i was thinking... i need to know how to do that, so i tried =] .... so it is more a cosmectic photo

for a example this is Angelica from Brazil she's is famous in Brazil,
this is her normal: http://angelica.globo.com/adm_img/fotos_13.jpg
this is her photo for loreal: http://bp2.blogger.com/_5c9vjaQwSI8/...0-h/Loreal.JPG

Originally Posted by amica999

Alex, looks very good to me...even though I am no pro, it looks a little retouched on the top hair, seem to be some cloning spots, could that be?

yes the first version had a pretty bad hair hahahahha i changed now bc of the comments ^^

Originally Posted by madclark

I agree with everyone in complimenting how beautiful it looks. Wonderful job.

However, to my eye it's been so perfected that you're moving into the realm of photo-realistic illustration. There's literally not a flaw anywhere on her face. The eyes are very saturated and whitened and very sharp. And the skin has been smoothed and texturized to the point of no pores.

If I can tell it's been Photoshopped, despite how beautiful it is, I don't think it's the right answer.

Have you experimented with blending the layers to see if you can affect more realism?

I totally skip your post... sorry.., i just saw it now... i'm still getting used to this layout on retouchpro... i never thought before u said, u tried but then i lost the light/bright of the final version =/

Originally Posted by madclark

I've only worked on the skin here, but I've tried to create a step-by-step to get a more natural looking base.

You have two things working against you in this image. The model doesn't have great skin tone in the first place with all the blemishes and she naturally has a lot of freckling. It's very difficult to find unadulterated areas to use to heal problem areas.

Try this as a start though:

1. Go to the Red layer of the image and copy and paste it as a new layer in a new group. This will be your luminosity layer.

2. On this greyscale image, use the spot heal or the heal brush to even out any remaining blemishes. In areas with little contrast, try using the spot heal brush in Create Texture mode to really even out the tones.

3. Create a duplicate of the Background layer, and desaturate. This layer should be under the luminosity layer.

4. On the luminosity layer, create a mask and then open a square to the desaturated background layer for reference.

5. Create a Brightness/Contrast layer above the luminosity layer and "Use Previous Layer to Create Clipping Mask." Adjust brightness and contrast to match the desaturated background layer.

6. Finally, clear the mask of your luminosity layer and then mask everything in the group but the skin and change the blend mode to Luminosity of the luminosity layer. You should have decently dewy, and realistic, skin tone to start from.

7. Finally, create a blank layer and in Overlay mode use a large soft black pen with a low flow rate to burn in some of the shadowing in the hollows of the cheeks that were lost from the luminosity layer.

Took me about 20 minutes to do the attached picture.

i will definitely try this on next saturday, this week is gonna be a little busy for me, tks a lot for the tips, i really appreciate that =)

Originally Posted by secretagents

IMO means In My Opinion. Sorry about that.

u have nothing to sorry about =)

Originally Posted by secretagents

I had a play with that pic. It was interesting, thanks for sharing your model with us. Neat Image plus a bit of healing brush and median here and there and various brightness adjustments. I think that's all I did. Despite the relatively little work on it I feel it is more high end than yours for some reason. At any rate it's completely different.

you did a great work on the skin and actually the girl is not my model, i just took the pic from that site, like i wrote on DA i don't have any info about the photographer, which is a shame bc i really like to give credits to them

Originally Posted by JD Spears

Alex, You may want to go for the low end;-}

not high end, not low end... definitely is dead end!!!!! hahahahahaha

Originally Posted by dsgoen

Put some freckles back. We redheads must not be denied!

hahahahahaha
i loved that comment, it's so funny
hahhhahh she looks blond to me =)

[JD Spears]

Alex, Not sure when you put that BG in but it adds a real nice touch. However, I would blur it a bit.

[alex.justino]

Originally Posted by JD Spears

Alex, Not sure when you put that BG in but it adds a real nice touch. However, I would blur it a bit.

do u mean blur the bg???

[JD Spears]

Originally Posted by alex.justino

do u mean blur the bg???

Well, yeah. A slight lens blur. I would make sure that the BG was the least focused thing in the frame. As is, the BG is sharper then her hair on her lower right.

[alex.justino]

Originally Posted by JD Spears

Well, yeah. A slight lens blur. I would make sure that the BG was the least focused thing in the frame. As is, the BG is sharper then her hair on her lower right.

i'll try that on saturday =)
tks for the tip ^^

[amica999]

@madclark, thank you for your technique, but healing brush on red channel layer leaves colored spots, anything I missed here?

[madclark]

Make sure if you're using the healing brush the option for "Sample: Current Layer" is selected instead of the other options. You only want to draw from the B&W luminosity layer for the fixes.

If you're still having problems, let me know.

[amica999]

Originally Posted by madclark

Make sure if you're using the healing brush the option for "Sample: Current Layer" is selected instead of the other options. You only want to draw from the B&W luminosity layer for the fixes.

If you're still having problems, let me know.

madclark, thank you for sharing your knowledge and support :-) I did clone with "current layer", but still when blending the red-channel layer to luminosity I get this light red spots...attached a screen shot, but not sure if it can be seen in the low res...I am puzzled :-)