Automobile photo retouching

[atstockland]

Im retouching a few images of cars. The two things I am having a bit of trouble with is fixing/replacing/creating the highlights along the length of the car and removing distracting reflections(yet keep the car looking "real"). Ive put a lot of time into working on creating nice highlights using the clone tool....as well as coloring areas in with a brush, and using masks and blending modes but I just cant get happy with the end result. I can see where I have worked on the image.
I have included three files, a before, and after that I have worked on, and a layer I used to paint in some color to cover up reflections and control highlights...

Any suggestions, ideas, tutorials, etc would be extremely appreciated.

Thanks so much

Adam

[palms]

Hi Adam and welcome
unfortunately your images are too small for viewing could you redo them a bit bigger here is a link for some help if you need it
You will find then people will be able to offer you some/more advice

http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/ima...ed-images.html

Palms

[atstockland]

Thanks for the help.....Ive updated the images.

I have had a bit of success, but still dont feel like I have it...

[Mike Abbott]

Adam,
The main issue here is that the paint finish on a car is reflective (as you realise ). Your work so far removes the existing reflections, but doesn't replace them with something else. Hence your car looks like it's painted with matt paint
Look at the original. The bonnet reflects the windscreen, the illuminated roof of the tunnel, the lights of the roof etc. You need to create new reflections which are *believable* in that situation. At the moment you have none. Hence it doesn't look real.

[plantphoto]

Mike is right.
After cloning out the old reflections you need to add some hilites back in otherwise it will just look dead and unnatural.
Simon