Little help on some surgery welcome!

[PatrickB]

Hello,

I am trying to retouch this pic for a small collection but what's really giving me headaches is the chin! If you look at that pic (at least it's like that to me) the first thing poppin' in my mind is: Did she have some dental surgery?

The left cheek looks somehow blown or swolen, have a look yourself. I tried some things like copying right to left but that looks exactly same.

Can anybody help fading this effect a little?

Patrick

[freelancer]

Here's a quick fix using the Liquify Filter in PS7.

[DannyRaphael]

I don't do this kind of thing much, so this was a nice challenge for me.

I basically did the select right side, flip it horizontal and replace the left side thing, attempting to disguise it a bit with some hair selected from various places and blended with layer masks.

~Danny~

[Mig]

Danny, you were so close, and that trick works, but the trick on this one, and most like it, is to make a selection of her jaw and part of her hair, then feather the selection by about 5 (in this case), copy/paste it to its own layer and then free transform it into place. You would then have to either use a layer mask, or if you don't know how to use one, then carefully erase the bad parts that didn't work out.
The free transform tool works great for this type of thing.
Her jaw does look freaky.

Cheers,
Mig

[PatrickB]

Thanks for all your suggestions so far!

I reallly like Danny's sketch, it looks most natural to me and I think this is something to aim for.

Mig, I had definitely fallen in love with that pic if she weren't my girlfriend already It's kind of too barbie-like for the thing I need it for but I definitely like what you made there, excellent sketch!

I'll post the images as soon as I'm done with them and wait for your comments

Patrick

[W. Rose]

Freelancer,
I like how you did the photo with the Liquify Filter
Would you mind posting your steps

W. Rose (Wayne)

[freelancer]

Thank you, W. Rose

I just discovered this filter and find that it can be used for enhancing photos as well as distorting them.

I used the "freeze" brush to hide all the areas I didn't want to move, leaving only a small section of the wide chin. Using a large brush on the smudge finger icon, I gently moved the chin to the left.

Here's the challenge where I first used the Liquify Filter to reconstruct Allison's face.

http://www.retouchpro.com/challenges...cat/500/page/1

I also used it to make "grandma's" face thinner in this challenge.

http://www.retouchpro.com/challenges...cat/500/page/1

I think this filter might be a handy tool for tricky situations.

Regards

[PatrickB]

Back again from another restless night

I wanted to keep all of you helpful people up to date on how this pic developed:

I started masking this jaw/cheek thingy but after some time trying I realized this picture is of such bad quality (I asked the photographer to send me the file but unfortunately the publisher people refused and the scan is plain bad) it could never be printed in any acceptable way. I had another look at migs sketch. Hope he doesn't mind I adopted his barbie style idea? So I began to handle it a little different:

- fixed the jaw with the liquifier basically by pure feeling on what looks right.
- after adjusting colors and curves I added some pink clouds as a background and added another layer with pure pink as an overlay to make the whole picture a little more pinky...
- Did some mods to eyes and other stuff
- applied a duotone layer of the image to strenghten shadows and improve skin
- created another skin layer from the original one and blurred the biggest parts so the scanner marks faded a little

The only thing still bothering me are the catchlights in her eyes, does anybody have a good idea on how to create catchlights when the picture is of such a bad quality (original image is around twice as big, still far from sharp or easily manageable)?

Patrick