Improving technique

[krrmtchll]

Hello, I'm new to this forum and just wanted to check a few things before asking too much advice from you all.

I've seen some amazing photo-retouching through this site and forum, but my own photoshop experience is rather limited. I'm teaching myself through adjusting my own photographs but have really come to a dead end with one of my series.

Here is my link of the display i'm planning for the 4 photos (I'm aware they need editing seperatley) http://fc02.deviantart.com/fs23/i/20..._krrmtchll.jpg

If anyone can offer advice or direction to improving a re-touching technique that would be great. The prolem with the series photos is that the white balance in the photo stage was off and so they are fairly under-exposed. I'm also struggling with making skin look flawless and smooth.

Any advice would be wonderful

[jam1212]

krrmtchll,

You can definitely post them on here. Just attach it to your message or upload them to an external site and link to them. That way we can better know how to help!

[krrmtchll]

thank you for that. I have added a link now

[0lBaldy]

Used Imagenomic Noiseware with selective masking to retain some detail
Did a hue/Saturation layer on each frame to sort of match the first frame

~Original~Noiseware~

[jam1212]

I like the concept. Luckily, none of them are too far gone to cause you too many problems. A simple curves adjustment will fix the exposure problem quite easily. (if you shot .jpg) If you shot raw, just bump up the exposure in Adobe RAW. Either way, it shouldn't be too much trouble. As far as the skin is concerned, you might want to consider dodging and burning (D&B) It's a good way to get flawless skin without losing detail. Just search around these forums for D&B, there are hundreds of threads about it already.

If you really want to improve your technique, check out Adobe Photoshop Restoration & Retouching by Katrin Eismann. It's considered by many to be one of the best books on retouching. It might take you a bit to get up to speed, but I guarantee it'll improve your retouching skills. Hope any of that helps!

P.S.

I'm at work right now, otherwise I'd have posted some example work. I'll do that when I get home tonight.

[namphoto]

right now, if this is a series, id highly recommend that all four use the same or reletive white balance, that last pictures just throws me off. after that, the tutorials section on retouch is amazing.

[krrmtchll]

Thanks for all the advice above, I hadn't been using dodging and burning for improving the smoothness of the skin so will most def. look up tutorials in that department.

I understand that the fourth photo poses a problem as the colouring is so different to the others and understand that this is something I need to sort out so there is a sort of 'narrative' between the 4.

OlBaldy your re-touching has shown a great difference and really restored my confidence in saving these photographs! thank you.

[krrmtchll]

If anybody would like to take this on as a project let me know and I'll post the four images seperatley... I'd just love to see what can be done and am happy for you to use them for your own personal work if need be.