Fixing double chins

[DJ Dubovsky]

Carrie
Loved your 3 phase restoration examples. Really shows the different approaches. Great job.

Don Jean and Walt, excellent jobs as well. I think we are fostering alot of digital plastic surgeons on this site.
DJ

[carrie]

Thank you, DJ.
I, like JeanB, neglected to read the whole thread before doing my retouch, oops. But since I retouch for a living I'm programed to grab the image and get it done FAST. When done I have to log in how many minutes it took; chin.jpg = 20 + $

The electricity at the Lab is STILL knocked out today,
no work....boohoo.

Carrie

[DJ Dubovsky]

Don't worry about that. It's still good to see the different approaches even if they are the same there are still some differences and each person has their own style of doing things.

Yeah, I loved those power outages when at work. Sure was nice to have an unplanned break sometimes. Sounds like you live in California or Florida where electricity is subject to change without notice.
DJ

[carrie]

Unfortunately not DJ, I recently moved to Kansas City, the power is out due to an ICE storm, but happily not at my house-smile.

[stuart h]

DJ "digital plastic surgeons " indeed! I've just been doing some work on shots of a plus-sized model. The irony is the agent wanted the model sculpted to look "more acceptable". This desire for perfection is lunacy! Anyway, I didn't tell her that of course...:o

The difficulty with this sort of stuff is getting it to look realistic rather than freaky. Paulette, your work was an inspiration!

Here's what I did with the jawline, basically through transforming a selection of the original chinline, cloning & airbrushing, building up shadows of different depths.

[DJ Dubovsky]

Stuart
You did a great job making it look natural. I like how the sweater doesn't cling tight to her neck.
I agree with your assesment on our struggle for perfection. It's a difficult fact to deal with at times and far worse for women than men for some reason. It hurts to see young girls starving to themselves to look like a super model not realizing that the supermodel was digitally sculpted to look that way. It would seem we are creating people that can not possibly exist when even the skinniest model is slimmed down to a size of 6 feet tall but only 85 pounds. No matter what we say to the contrary, looks do matter. It's a fact of life that isn't about to change any time soon unfortunately.
DJ

[paulette conlan]

Stuart
Really liked the way you did the chin. I think that what makes it work is the shadow. Technically it is excellent work.Now however that we are able to do these things, the question is should we. Or, more importantly how will our subjects feel about our digital plastic surgery.Picking up on what DJ wrote about this quest for perfection, I am struck by the the almost robotic look of many of the models who appear in print ads.They all look like they just had their monthy bo-tox injection. I don't know why this trend came into being but so many of them look unreal. Actually it's starting to bother me that when I see a photo of myself now that will be viewed by others I can't leave it alone anymore. Or for that matter, I can't even take a picture of a cat anymore without fussing around with it! But I'm proud of one recent piece of chinwork I did for an almost 90 year old lady. She just loves the picture and thinks that it's one of the best pictures she's had taken of her in recent years! See below. Viva digital restoration.
PC

[Sharon Brunson]

I like that, Paulette. It's very subtle.

[DJ Dubovsky]

I agree with Sharon. Excellent work Paulette.
DJ

[stuart h]

Paulette
Your chin work looked really natural & I think the subtlety was the key here. Good stuff.
What you are asking about the moral issues surrounding what we do...well, that's a whole can of worms!
My view is that painters & photographers have been doing this stuff for a long time, partly to express themselves creatively & partly to satisfy the vanity of the subjects. The sad truth with fashion models is they are often incidental to the shot, whether that is the clothes or the scene. They are almost reduced to decorative props. I have sat with agents that talk about the models in the most unbelievable ways...she's this, she's that, those will have to go etc. It's a harsh business that cares little if at all for the people.
As for family photos, right at the start of this thread Rick commented that the reason for the sculpting was to act as an incentive. Can't think of a more wonderful way of being able to help someone!

[DJ Dubovsky]

HI Jak
Welcome to Retouch Pro. Yes it is a great site for info and great people.
I think you did a great job on the chin. You also gave the collar a bit of a hang instead of tight to her chin which I think gives it more realism. I think you have solved a problem area you had by the looks of this image. Good job. Look forward to more forum posts by you in the future.
DJ

[June Curtice]

Don, this is exactly the retouch problem I'm dealing with right now. Will look forward to seeing your progress. My client's photo offers a slightly better angle but it's still very time consuming work.

[Balky]

Hey, guys!

Take a look :-) I tried and I think something came out of it

[Balky]

here

[jaz]

Originally posted by Rick
That's going to be a tough pic to work with to be perfectly honest with you. The angle and type of picture are critical when it comes to doing something like that.

I'm very anxious to see the results, though. Definitely do a before and after and I'll study the pic and see if I there is someway to do it, though.

Best of luck and let us know please.


Rick

Over on the Zuga forum, Clay Blackmore (an amazing portrait photographer) displayed a picture of a woman who's double chin was "fixed" using the liquify/warp filter in photoshop. Katrin Eismann has a blurb about this in her book as well...