Help with pageant photo

[TxWildflower]

Hi, I am new and this is my first attempt at retouching a photo. I am doing it for my daughter's pageant photo. Can you please tell me if I am doing OK? It looks good to me, but I didn't know how to use layers and so I don't know if I could have done better if I had known more about what I was doing. Please tell me what might look better. It is supposed to be sort of a "glamour shot" like what MAA does. I know it doesn't come close, but I want to learn. I will post the original and my attempt. Thank you all so much.
TxWildflower

[TxWildflower]

Here it is. I hope.

[KenB]

I really like the crop you gave this. I hope you don't mind but I gave this one a try also. I made my vesrsion a little softer than your's. One thing I noticed about your's also was the double catchlight in her left eye, I removed that and I didn't crop mine either. I liked the original background so I didnt mess with that.


Ken

[TxWildflower]

I don't mind at all. I really like the softer version. I changed the background trying to lighten up the overall mood of the picture. I don't seem to be able to do much with her eyes without them looking "fixed". I just know that if I keep studying this site, I will learn how to do it. Thanks for taking the time to help.
TxWildflower

[feivel]

looks like your plane of focus was on the back of her hat, and that's a bit of a problem because even in soft shots at least the eyes should be in focus
would suggest duplicating the layer
sharpen the top layer paying particular attention to getting the eyes right
layer mask on the top layer, fill mask with black
paint with a partial opacity soft white brush over the eyes, nose and mouth, to selectively sharpen them

feivel

[TxWildflower]

I will give that a try. I am very unsure about using layers, I know that I can't really mess up my original, so I guess I need to just jump in there and experiment. Thank you very much for the information. There is so much information on this site, I sometimes get confused about where to start.
TxWildflower

[G. Couch]

If you want a "glamour shot" look I would really encourage you to learn about layers, blend modes and masks. You can do an amazing amount of softening just by duplicating the background to a new layer, setting the blend mode to "Screen" and then applying a Gaussian Blur.

That's basically what I did here...with a few more layers and tweaking of various areas. Also, correcting the skin tones is another good way to get an image to "pop". With Caucasian infants and young children, there will usually be an equal amount of Magenta and Yellow, with very little Cyan and Black. I did not do a very good job with the skin tones in this example. (just a quick attempt) but it should give you an idea of how correcting the skin can really help brighten a portrait.

By the way, welcome to RetouchPro!

[TxWildflower]

Hi Greg,
Yes, that is exactly what I am trying to learn to do. Thank you so much for giving me a starting point. I think if I make myself go a little slower, and not try to do it all at one time, I will get it. Thank you again.
TxWildflower