Honest Opinion, Helpful Tips

[Zanevalon]

Hello everyone,

I've only recently got into retouching so I would like to get some thoughts and opinions from the rest of you. A little about the picture..it was taken by my friend on a regular digital camera, nothing fancy, no fancy lighting or anything. So it's just your run of the mill photo.

I decided to retouch it and I used photoshop CS3 to get the job done. The techniques i mainly used were the Healing Brush and Clone Stamp Tool, Adjustment layers, Curves, Hue Saturation, and other little things to get the color's and stuff "fixed"...

Hopefully you get a general idea of what i did to achieve the look i got. So with that being said what im looking for is some honest critique and general help as to what needs to be done to better my photo and improve my skills on a whole.


Before: http://i33.tinypic.com/e0flo9.jpg

After: http://i34.tinypic.com/24qlldg.jpg

[kliph]

I think you did a great job in taking out the shiny parts of his face and correcting the color. My only negative thought was that you took too much of the lines out of his face. It looks a little too plastic to me. Maybe layer in some lines?

[Aleksman71]

just a suggestion how would look with more contrast.
http://shrani.si/f/t/GI/4vNlRfwY/image5.jpg

[TommyO]

Zanevalon,
By the way, glad you're posting. Hopefully, you will receive some constructive criticism.

Sometimes it's hard to critique an image without knowing what your goals were. We're used to beauty & glamour retouches, which have historical guidelines for steps and results. You may have been going that route on your image. But, since you haven't said so, we don't know.

So, I'll assume it's somewhere between a beauty retouch and an artistic one. I would agree that the skin is a little too smooth, too many natural tones and texture removed. It makes it look a bit plastic. But, if you wanted a bit of surreal, then that's fine.

Getting the lighting adjusted or corrected is important. If you have time, you should work on the shadows behind the subject. It's good practice and very real world to have to deal with them.

One final thing, the eye whites. They were already pretty white, either naturally or due to the lighting. In the final image they really pop; probably due to the overall contrast. This usually is not appealing to us, and would be toned down a bit.

[Zanevalon]

Originally Posted by TommyO

Zanevalon,
By the way, glad you're posting. Hopefully, you will receive some constructive criticism.

Sometimes it's hard to critique an image without knowing what your goals were. We're used to beauty & glamour retouches, which have historical guidelines for steps and results. You may have been going that route on your image. But, since you haven't said so, we don't know.

So, I'll assume it's somewhere between a beauty retouch and an artistic one. I would agree that the skin is a little too smooth, too many natural tones and texture removed. It makes it look a bit plastic. But, if you wanted a bit of surreal, then that's fine.

Getting the lighting adjusted or corrected is important. If you have time, you should work on the shadows behind the subject. It's good practice and very real world to have to deal with them.

One final thing, the eye whites. They were already pretty white, either naturally or due to the lighting. In the final image they really pop; probably due to the overall contrast. This usually is not appealing to us, and would be toned down a bit.

Thank you for responding.

To address some of the issues you brought up, When i began working on this image and most of the ones i typically do, i did not have any clear goal in mind. I guess you could say i was hoping for a beauty/glamour job. I don't really know the concepts and ideas/differences that go behind a glamour shot vs an artistic one, so more than likely a beauty retouch is what i had in mind.

The skin; you mention it is a little too smooth, with natural tones and texture being removed. When i was working on the skin i used the clone stamp tool at a low opacity and used it to achieve the look i got. I'm going to assume i "over" did it and that is why it came out the way it is. If there is another technique that i am not aware of or maybe something i could have done to get the look you speak of, might you be able to guide in the right direction in terms of guides or tutorials?

Lighting; I generally don't adjust lighting in photoshop, again because i don't really know how to go about doing that. If your referring to when the subject is shot, that is something out of my hands as I don't work with any type of models or professional equipment. Perhaps i could find some images on this site that do have sufficient lighting to practice on.

and finally the eye whites; point taken. I've always read that whitening the eye whites was something you should do, but your right and it does give an unnatural unappealing look to it. I will definitely be sure to watch this more carefully in future retouching jobs.


So with that being said, (lol my favorite saying it seems) I have read of the last couple suggestions and comments made on my pieces and will take them into consideration when working more on this particular picture and future ones. but while i am critiquing this one, does anyone happen to know or have any hard/concrete examples and/or tutorials to accompany the suggestions being made. maybe with a good visual example i will be able to see exactly what it is i am not doing properly and learn better from it.

[0lBaldy]

Zanevalon, welcome to RetouchPRO! Hope you enjoy your time here. Look around, try different things, learn, share, exchange ideas and opinions... Most of all feel at home..
You are off to a great start! Looking forward to seeing lots of your works in the future.

On your retouch, I agree with ALL of the above..

Try to leave some character lines (especially under eyes and smile lines, if there were any to start with) (I think this person should smile more to develop some.. JK)
I played with the shadow some, as Tommy rightly pointed out, and tried to keep some texture in the face.. It is important and you generally do not want softness, especially on a man. But as I look at it now, the center of the forehead is still very soft.. I toned down the whites of the eyes just a tad but darkened the pupil and brightened the highlights so they would still Pop a bit.. I toned down the glaring background some (me thinks a color change would help this photo a lot..), . Also cropped to a 5X7 to bring the picture more into proportion.

The photo seemed very soft and not quite in focus to start with so a lot of these things we are criticizing may not even be your fault.. any work done sometimes just exacerbates the softness

[0lBaldy]

LOL, now that I look at yours and mine side by side on here.... Yours is better and sharper... But I like my background better! HA!! HA!!

Edit--- Just remembered what happened!
After I Gaussian blurred at 1.5 for the background and shirt I was interrupted by the boss and reminded to go to bed sometime in the near future,... came back to the picture after disregarding all the threats and advise and forgot to mask the gentleman.. (Old age and retirement is not as great as everyone says it is! CRS Sucks!!)


PS
Zanevalon, It is much better if you do not link to images on other servers, since those links can break and that makes the forum thread essentially useless for future readers.

Attaching Files or Images to Threads or Posts

Size and quality for Attached Images!!

After you post your less than 100K version here, you could also post a link to the site that is hosting your larger version... using the host of your choice or any of these other host options:
Flickr.com (5 Meg Free) or ImageVenue.com (3Meg max, free) or pixentral.com (2Meg max, free) or photobucket.com (1 Meg max free,... 5 Meg PRO)--.

Then post a link in the thread to the site that is hosting your larger version.

[L33t]

I think color is too bold :S but It's good. Picture looks like FBI wanted :S

[ontophehe]

- just popup flash no good for studio photo
- your photo not sharp ( maybe need tripot )
- Color too much green
- skin too soft
- Model need gain weight litle bit ;-)

[Zanevalon]

Originally Posted by ontophehe

- just popup flash no good for studio photo
- your photo not sharp ( maybe need tripot )
- Color too much green
- skin too soft
- Model need gain weight litle bit ;-)

thank you for ur suggestions/opinions.

to address the issues you've brought up, i've stated before this photo was basically a picture he took of himself wit a digital camera, no profesionally lighting or anything of that nature.

on the other issues, im not really a color kind of person i do agree i need to practice getting that right. as the other's have mentioned i did take away much of his skin's texture and detail. and to address the last issues, he enjoys being skinny lol

Thank you for responding to my thread.

[ontophehe]

you are welcome, enjoy playing here...

[sidhebeauty]

I also agree with the other posters on the skin. Especially with a shot of a man, I think you should leave in character lines in the skin. As a rule, men are expected to look a little more "rugged" so I usually don't smooth as much.

When I use clone or healing tools, i select "sample all layers" and do the cleanup on a new layer. Sometimes I will focus on an image for a while and things look perfect, then come back to it and it looks overdone. (I do this less often now that I've been at it a while but better to be safe). By having the seperate layer in my psd with the blemish correction, I can mask small imperfections back in, or just lower overall opacity to bring back the natural lines and texture a bit.