Critique & Advice Please..

[markc78]

firstly I appreciate any advice that can be offered ,

basically I've been studying retouching for the past 2 years through a range of courses & resources incl. this great site & have developed some strong skills

I am now really eager to get out there & make a career of it but it's slightly unclear to me how to do this when I've no previous work or refs etc aside from an in process portfolio of images acquired from the net etc such as the samples attached

I'd like to get some feedback on the work attached (1st I went for a standard retouch , 2nd a more subjective finish) here so I can really assess if I am ready for pro work & also to offer my services to any interested photographers etc in exchange for the reference & use of finished work in my personal portfolio, I can provide more samples if required .

I have shown portraits here but am happy to retouch pretty much anything..

Also if anyone can suggest any good resources for finding & contacting photographers etc that would be great.

Thanks , Mark
London , UK

[lucija]

very nice work... maybe, on the first photo desaturate just a little bit the white in the eyes and saturate iris (or darken it... ) the skin is really nice and smooth :-)

[markc78]

thanks lucija , I suppose I err on the side of caution with eye whitening as it can easily go too far & flatten out the whole eye , also iris pointer noted , cheers

[mikedimples]

I'd like to see full size number 1. I can't give a full critique because these are such small size images, but I can give you my initial thoughts.

#1. This is far too heavy for a basic retouch. Usually when you're looking at a model as heavily retouched as this, you're looking at a conceptual beauty ad. If the black levels were slightly darker, the skin wasn't the same saturation throughout, pops of color (eyes, not eye-shadow, unless it's an eyeshadow ad) and there was still some detail left in the cheeks, I could see this being a real beauty add. Your two years of study show, it's beautiful work -- just a bit too beautiful for basic retouch.

Work on smoothing skin without losing detail. It's obvious that's she's been retouched in the first picture; nobody has skin that smooth. Read through the forums about non-destructive skin smoothing. There's loads of different ways, and I'm sure you already know quite a few of them. I'd recommend going to Lynda.com and subscribing for one month, watching all of their retouching videos. What software do you use?

My attached version has the suggested corrections, which is moving the image towards conceptual beauty.

Usually basic retouch consists of blemish removal, spot lightenihg, color correction, curves, and teeth and eye desaturation (brightening in severe cases). That's being generous.


Picture #2

What did you mean when you said this one was subjective? The image is focusing on showing the subjects qualities? I'm going to be honest, this one doesn't really look retouched. If you wanted grungy, like she's a sexy model on the street, just the stray hairs aren't enough. It looks like an oversight, rather than intentional. The bright eyeshadow pulls our eye away from hers. Our eyes are attracted to saturation, so make saturated areas important ones.

Image #3

Close. I know what look you were going for. Why this image isn't working is because her eyes, lips, and nose lost their detail when you pumped up the exposure. Her eyes should be super sharp, the focal point of the image, followed by her mouth and nose.

Picture #4

When you brought up the middle tones in the image to give it that soft, low contrast feel, the stray hairs above her head were accentuated. They should be removed if you are going for a professional look (in this image at least). Looks like you applied some kind of soft blur, even over the mouth, eyes, and nose. Whenever you apply a blur, mask it out and then paint it in selectively.

Keep up the good work! As long as you are open to critique, keep posting stuff, and keep doing more retouches, I can see you becoming an amazing pro -- you're just not quite to that level yet.

[markc78]

cheers mike , just to clarify pics 2 & 4 from left are the untouched versions ,also pic 1 is a full beauty retouch but at the end I intended to simply keep it true to the originals intended style , but the 3rd pic I took it a few steps further & tried for a higher contrast edgier look etc (attached below is the retouch w/o these extra steps) but I take your point that I lost a bit too much detail around nose etc , Thx again ,Mark