Portrait retouch

[Cron]

Found this old color negative when I was shifting though photos to scan. The self-portrait is shot against a blue background using natural light from a window.

I wanted to make the photo more dramatic so I chose a desaturated color palette and black vignetting.

I basically had two masks (one for the whole face and one to prevent eyes, nose and mouth to darken too much). I used the blue channel information to shape the face a bit more prominently too. I'm quite happy with the added depth effect.

For local corrections I used mainly spot healing brush and frequency separation + various blurs + airbrush. I think I overdid the smoothing just a tiny bit on the cheek...

Any comments/suggestions will be helpfull

[nop]

no suggestions, only playing with d&b..

Regards

[Cron]

Originally Posted by nop

no suggestions, only playing with d&b..

Regards

Nice I like the way you enhanced the shape - the original is pretty flat.

Myself, I would've maybe left some blemishes in too to make the look less edited, but the shading is very good.

[j4str]

it looks good except i think the face, to the left of the nose mostly, looks kinda white washed out, loosing all shape

[briones]

The depth added in the second is fantastic. Looks really sculptural now. Personally though my knee-jerk reaction was that it became a bit too heavy on the vignetting. Great job overall.