need critique help on first posting

[ontwolf]

I am fairly new to retouching although I have fooled around with it on occasion till recently.

the following is a picture of my stepdaughter and grandaughter I wanted to convert an everyday picture into a portrait and give it to my wife for xmas . Please don't hold anything back as I want to learn by my mistakes and your expertise.

I am using cs3
I did good levels adjustment layer
I extracted her using path and extraction filter
I straightened photo
I healed and cloned many areas
I dodged and burned many areas
I worked on eyes and lips
I smoothed skin by adjustment layers and high pass method
I added some noise to give texture back
I adjusted skin tone in rgb with sampler info in cmyk mode and curves adjustment layer
I made background with clouds filter and used hue/sat adjutment layer for hue
I did another good levels adjustment layer.


I worked

[TommyO]

Ontwolf,
It may help to also know what look you were trying to achieve. The overall transition is very nice and I think your wife will like the new image. I especially like the color choices as they provide good contrast to her skin color.

As it stands though, it looks very soft, almost artistic. There is not much skin or facial feature detail left. This could be your intent, or it could simply be due to the healing and cloning. If you want to bring some of that detail back, be careful not to work on the underlying layers, as it may play havoc with the colors and later changes. You may have to copy some detail from one of the underlying layers, place on top, and then blend in using luminosity and various blend modes.

[ontwolf]

Thankyou Tommy. I appreciate your comments. your right in the artistic look, I am trying to avoid this. I think I made the mistake in trying to aquire perfect skin tones and not took the time in the detail. hence the soft look and the lack of detail.

You mention copying some detail via underlying layers and various blend modes.
Would high pass do give me the same effect or is the luminosity and various blend modes the best for this look?

Again thanks for your comments
John

[igot2pman]

Good job cleaning it up. I find it interesting. The main faults I see are the nose and smile lines. The tip of the nose just seems too soft. I can’t tell 100% but I think at that angle she has some nostril showing. And the smile lines I think should be left alone or just slightly dodged.

I agree with Tommy0 in adding back the details. Many methods for this. But if you find that there is no detail there...from what I can see there isn’t much...

Try this if all else fails for texture:
Make a blank new layer>>> blending mode: soft light>>> Filter >>texture >>Texturizer... >>Texture: sandstone>Scaling: 50, Relief: 5, Light: bottom left>>> Make a layer mask and fill black (to hide)>>> Paint with white (to show) {use med opacity brushes}>>> Adjust opacity of the layer if you over do it. <see below for correct>

This will add a nice skinish texture. You can also change the blending mode to overlay, vivid light (really punched the effect), etc.


This is just nit-picky... but you might want to make the necklace one color. Right now it looks a two tone white and yellow gold. I see it was like that originally and maybe it really is like that...but looks weird to me.

Hope this helps,
-Keven

[ontwolf]

Thanks Kevin:

Thats why I really love this site, so many people to share their methods. That was another of my concerns that the nose was too soft.

Again thankyou
John

[igot2pman]

Not a problem.

Just a note...I forgot to add the 50% gray layer in the above. I corrected the error and it should work now.

Here it is again but the correct way:

Try this if all else fails for texture:
Make a blank new layer>>> blending mode: soft light>>> Edit> Fill> 50% gray >>> Filter >>texture >>Texturizer... >>Texture: sandstone>Scaling: 50, Relief: 5, Light: bottom left>>> Make a layer mask and fill black (to hide)>>> Paint with white (to show) {use med opacity brushes}>>> Adjust opacity of the layer if you over do it.

-Keven

[ontwolf]

Thanks Kevin:

Your help and all those is what makes this site work

Thankyou again
John

[ontwolf]

Thanks to TommyO and Igot2pman for their help I think I made improvements to picture.

I added detail back into picture as per Tommys suggestion
added more texture via Igot2pmans suggestion
made color of necklace 1 colour
used hubbas tutorial on dodging and burning to add some highlights and shadows

Thanks again guys, your comments are encouraged and hopefully will not stop

John

[igot2pman]

You can really tell the diff. A lot better.

Good job,
-Keven