Skin Retouching

[jessicaporter1]

I spent about 6 hours on this photo yesterday. I was primarily Focusing on her skin. let me know what you think!

Rollover version here: http://porterretouching.deviantart.com/#/d3ac1tc

[Wolfman]

Generally pretty good, but I would have gotten rid of the shine on the left cheek or subdued it and when you masked out the background it left some dark edge along the area approaching the right shoulder and very slightly along the left side of the neck.
The texture of the skin might need a little smoothing out also... not too much and now I also see some red blotch on the area just under the left side of the lip.

[MBChamberlain]

Hmmm...

Generally OK, but it's got a couple of glaring problems. First, the eye makeup makes her look tired and about 5 years older than she is. I suggest removing most of the under-eye makeup and lightened the shadow on the upper lids.

She is clenching her jaw a bit, so recontouring the jaw makes her look a little more relaxed. While at it, fixing a couple of flexed muscles in the shoulder as well, plus correcting for the hunch in the neck will give you a much more natural feeling photo.

A couple of hot spots in the skin that could be toned down, including toning down the highlights on the lips.

Finally, tweaking the exposure and contrast a bit, along with evening out the tones in the shadows will make the photo feel a little less flat.

Overall you've done great work on a lackluster photo. It only really needed about another ten minutes. I agree with wolfman that it could use a little bit of smoothing and would add that it needs a bit of sharpening, but I did not attempt that in this quick version because of the size and compression ratio of the original.

Keep up the good work!

Cheers,
Michael

[jessicaporter1]

Originally Posted by MBChamberlain

Hmmm...

Generally OK, but it's got a couple of glaring problems. First, the eye makeup makes her look tired and about 5 years older than she is. I suggest removing most of the under-eye makeup and lightened the shadow on the upper lids.

She is clenching her jaw a bit, so recontouring the jaw makes her look a little more relaxed. While at it, fixing a couple of flexed muscles in the shoulder as well, plus correcting for the hunch in the neck will give you a much more natural feeling photo.

A couple of hot spots in the skin that could be toned down, including toning down the highlights on the lips.

Finally, tweaking the exposure and contrast a bit, along with evening out the tones in the shadows will make the photo feel a little less flat.

Overall you've done great work on a lackluster photo. It only really needed about another ten minutes. I agree with wolfman that it could use a little bit of smoothing and would add that it needs a bit of sharpening, but I did not attempt that in this quick version because of the size and compression ratio of the original.

Keep up the good work!

Cheers,
Michael

Thank you! I agree with you. I think i need to get to that point where i need to take a step back for an hour or so and come back to work so I can see everything I missed. It can get pretty tedious staring at abstract pours for hours on end. =)

Thanks again!

- Jessica

[MBChamberlain]

I generally work with a 5 day image cycle... The shoot is day 1, then I let everything I shoot sit for at least a day before I look through them, which keeps me from trashing good photos because they aren't what I was expecting to get. So day 2 is sorting and raw processing.

Then the retouch cycle, work on the image on day 3, then sleep on it, pull it up day 4 and fine tune it, usually backing off the smoothing, tweaking color and contrast, and fixing any missed blemishes.

Day 5, I prep for delivery, giving the images one more once over and either preparing for print, or getting print ready versions ready for the client.

I only shorten this if I have to, but I try not to go any shorter than 5 days, this keeps your head from getting bogged down... This doesn't mean that you need to take tons of time though, I'm attaching both shots from my 2010 Christmas Card shoot, one is the card shot and the other is a shot for the makeup artist to use in her portfolio. Not including the photoshoot, I think I've got an hour tied up in these two shots, but it was 6 days between shoot and going to press.

[antifire]

Seriously? Wow. That is crazy good work. How do I learn to do this stuff (new guy)?

[jessicaporter1]

Originally Posted by antifire

Seriously? Wow. That is crazy good work. How do I learn to do this stuff (new guy)?

just practice practice practice... i have been experimenting and learning since i was 16. It is a defiant skill that is built up. I still have a lot to learn too!

- Jessica