What is wrong with this retouch?

[RetWannabe]

Would anyone please critique. Been struggling with this image for second day now. What would you differently? What bothers you most? I am ready to throw in the towel.

Before: http://img683.imageshack.us/img683/7...lsemifinal.jpg

Retouched: http://img832.imageshack.us/img832/2...hsemifinal.jpg

[Wolfman]

You did a pretty good job of keeping it looking natural......maybe cleanup the hairline along the area the right temple and maybe tone down the bumps on the skin on the left side under the eye.... all in all looks pretty good..... walk away from it for awhile and come back and look at it.

[Wolfman]

You did a pretty good job of keeping it looking natural......maybe cleanup the hairline along the area in front of the ear and maybe tone down the bumps on the skin on the left side next to the eye.... all in all looks pretty good..... walk away fro awhile and come back and look at it.

[Daviskw]

All I can see is a slight reduction in luminosity...a loss of color in the eyes and too much darkening on the chin under the lips. I also think it would benefit by warming.

Butch

[RetWannabe]

Thanks guys. I might have a bit of a struggle with the color and luminosity bit, I don't have a good eye for those 2, but I'll keep trying. I can see what you mean about the chin.

@Wolfman, I started out with the image looking like this: http://img340.imageshack.us/img340/3329/firsttry.jpg, then started to have doubts. I showed it to a lay person (a non retoucher) who really disliked it. Thing is the photographer did like it and wanted a copy for the model. So what would you have changed on this one?

[kyo]

The first issue I have is actually the beard.. it's too perfect. Hair doesn't grow that way.. it isn't perfect and exact. It looks like perhaps a bit too much cloning, I can see patterns.

The overall skin tone seems wrong.. it's dark and dull. It's also a bit green.

You changed the color of his eyes, why? His eyes appear yellow.. which isn't natural.

There is no catchlight in his right eye (left side of the image).. which is the photographers fault, not yours, but it bothers me when I see images like this. (others may not care)

The shadow on his left eye (image right) is very sharp, you might want to soften the edge towards the nose. I know you were removing the bags under his eyes (or at least reducing them) which tend to have fairly abrupt edges, but when you tone them down and leave the edge your eyes know the skin should drop back there, but the shading/tone says it doesn't.. so instead it looks like there is a crease along the edge. Soften and blend it into the nose and it should look a bit more natural. (be careful here, as too much will make the image look soft)

The skin you did a pretty good job with, still looks 'model real'.. a term I use for skin that looks real, but we all know is a bit too perfect for a normal person This is ideal for most fashion/model type stuff these days, nice work.

and yes, I'm being extremely critical.. the image looks pretty good overall.

Kyle

[toolonglegs]

Men are hard I find...retouching them without making them look like they are made up,make up may be fine for models...not so great for sportsmen etc.
Less is more for me.
I retouch everything skin wise on one layer...then when I am 100% happy I usually reduce the opacity to bring back some of the reality to a hard mans face with the original image.
So while I like you retouch...for me it would depend on who he is / what the pics are for.Don't like his neck crushing original pose thou...lol.

[RetWannabe]

Kyle, I don't mind the extreme critique in fact it is what I need. OK so that is your opinion about my first attempt. What the first image I posted? This is where I tried to remove some of the perfection. I changed the eye color because I noticed he was wearing contacts and I thought they might be tinted they looked more red than hazel so I decided to go with green. I am still having a problem seeing the 'green' in the image but I did say I have a bad eye for color.

All in all, it is all my fault. I didn't do the research. Should have picked up a few men's fashion magazines and studied them for a couple of weeks then I would have known what I was doing. Instead I approached this like I would a female face.

Anyone else have anything to add?

[Wolfman]

Originally Posted by RetWannabe

Thanks guys. I might have a bit of a struggle with the color and luminosity bit, I don't have a good eye for those 2, but I'll keep trying. I can see what you mean about the chin.

@Wolfman, I started out with the image looking like this: http://img340.imageshack.us/img340/3329/firsttry.jpg, then started to have doubts. I showed it to a lay person (a non retoucher) who really disliked it. Thing is the photographer did like it and wanted a copy for the model. So what would you have changed on this one?

What did the layperson not like about it?

[RetWannabe]

The lay person really, really didn't like the beard. Said it was way too perfect. So I messed it up a bit (that would be the first image I posted).

Do the eyes look yellow to you? And can somone help me with where the image is too green. Is it the skin overall? I think my monitor is calibrated but you never know.

[RetWannabe]

@Kyo, Color correction attempt (I hope), removing the green:http://img694.imageshack.us/img694/5...hcolourfix.jpg. Is this better.

I purchased a copy of Esquire magazine, going to study that tonight. Will also look at the men's perfume posters at the mall tomorrow.

[kyo]

Originally Posted by RetWannabe

Kyle, I don't mind the extreme critique in fact it is what I need. OK so that is your opinion about my first attempt. What the first image I posted? This is where I tried to remove some of the perfection. I changed the eye color because I noticed he was wearing contacts and I thought they might be tinted they looked more red than hazel so I decided to go with green. I am still having a problem seeing the 'green' in the image but I did say I have a bad eye for color.

All in all, it is all my fault. I didn't do the research. Should have picked up a few men's fashion magazines and studied them for a couple of weeks then I would have known what I was doing. Instead I approached this like I would a female face.

Anyone else have anything to add?

My comments were to the first image you posted.

If you want I'll mark up a version to show you what I'm talking.

Kyle

[RetWannabe]

@Kyo thanks that would be great.

As far as the dullness of the images and lack of luminosity, well, I think I finally saw the light! This is my final attempt: http://img641.imageshack.us/img641/7...touchfinal.jpg

[kyo]

So when I saved the image, I realized part of the issue.. you saved the image in Adobe RGB.

This is fine normally, but for web display, sRGB is the only universally browser friendly color space. Most browsers don't know how to handle adobe rgb, and assign different colors than what are actually there.. often making images greenish.

The image was a bit on the green side still, but not nearly as much. The luminosity in the new image is much better, and the color is as well.

It's still a bit green however.. I shifted the whole image a hair towards magenta (color balance works fine for this).. then did it again with just the beard. This warms the image a bit and gets rid of most of that cast.

I changed the tint on the eyes as they were still a bit yellow for my taste.. somewhere between what you had and the original eye color.

I then stamped a few places in the beard that repeated a bit too much for me.. mainly just in spots to break the perfect lines of the hair and make it a bit more natural.

http://nothingtoseehere.info/critique.jpg

Kyle

[RetWannabe]

Many thanks Kyle! That bit about saving the image in RGB was especially invaluable. I think I have been making this mistake all along with all the other images as well and couldn't understand why they looked so dull compared to when viewed in photoshop or bridge. I am going to delete several of my web images now and resave them in sRGB. And, yes your image does look a lot better than mine does on the web. I was also happy to see that you didn't make too, too many changes to it, which suggests to me that I didn't do a very bad job of it overall

Thanks again.

[Daviskw]

For what its worth from me I think you did an excellent job... You had all the hard work done. But if someone posts a picture asking what is wrong we can always find something...lol

Butch

[RetWannabe]

Originally Posted by Daviskw

For what its worth from me I think you did an excellent job... You had all the hard work done. But if someone posts a picture asking what is wrong we can always find something...lol

Butch

Thanks Butch, for encouragement.

[kyo]

It's kinda fun getting to point out the tiny details with an image instead of having to critique basics.

Kyle