Trying to learn some techniques...

[Giliauskas]

Very interesting technique!

[brineusaf]

Thanks everyone for the assistance as well as the encouragement.
I'll keep practicing!

[Syd]

When I first looked at your pic I thought it was a lost cause. It looks like it was taken at midday and consequently the light was too harsh. I see you had her with her back to the sun to counteract that. Good move but now her neck is overexposed as is her right ear. Her face is underexposed and certain parts of the background stand out more than the main subject. There are colour issues as well. But the more I looked at the pic the more I noticed what a lovely smile she has and I wanted to try and think of a way to focus in on that.

This is a very quick and rough example of another approach you might take with the photo or other photos that have similar issues. You may not like it but maybe you will get some ideas from it.

First thing was to give it quite a radical crop. So most of the background went as did the overexposed side of her face. Now I was able to focus more on the part of the picture I liked the most: her smile.

Next I did some very quick work on her face just dodging some of those harsher lines at the corners of her eyes. I really didn't do too much here.

Then I darkened what was left of the background with a curves adjustment layer.

I fiddled around trying to sort out the magenta colour cast but after a few quick attempts didn't come up with anything satisfactory so I tried desaturtating it and ... hey! the smile suddenly jumped out. Also it sorted out the colour issues and simplified the whole picture. Now I liked the contrast of the dark background and the main subject.

Finally I used levels to up the contrast a bit more. You might think the contrast too much and want to soften it a bit but I think she has a very interesting face and I like the way the added contrast works with this pic.

Anyway just another idea to throw into the mix and perhaps another avenue for you to explore the next time you run into similar problems.

Sincerely Syd

[sashacooper]

This is my tutorial on a subject
Portrait Retouching: Glamour lips, Porcelain skin, Teeth form, Hairdo. Tutorial #4
http://www.half-lime.com/faq/?fid=93...a-bc01b171568f

Some of my pictures where I've used the techniques from tutorial
http://www.half-lime.com/uploads3/38...64e587d086.jpg
http://www.half-lime.com/uploads3/11...55bb917e03.jpg

and visit FAQ page on my site for more tutorials
http://www.half-lime.com/faq/