A D&B Retouch, Advice?

[twitch1977]

Hey guys,

I've been lurking a lot lately and thought I'd post an (attempted) D&B retouch. Things seemed to be going ok with it but somewhere in the D&B process the train got off the tracks. The skin has almost a blurred look in places and the entire picture seems like it's gone flat, epsecially if it's viewed at a lower resolution all the texture is gone.

I've tried to fix it up with a soft light layer to bring some shape back to the face but it's hasn't been all that successful.

Anyhow I'm hoping someone might take the time to look at the .psd and give me a few tips. I think what I'm not understanding is how far I should be taking the D&B as far as evening out the skin tone. I need to find a way to do it but still retain the shape of the face and keep it looking natural.

This is the picture:
Original

My Attempt

Anyhow here is a link to the full resolution .psd file (RAR'd) which is approximately 50MB:
http://rapidshare.de/files/47891575/_MG_8157.rar.html

I have a resized version of the .psd 1200x1000ish which is a lot smaller here:
http://rapidshare.de/files/47892096/...small.rar.html

Any comments on how I can do this a bit better is appreciated!
Kurt

[igot2pman]

You over did the dodging. the picture didnt have much skin texture to begin with and you removed her wonderfull freckels. Reduce the dodge layer to 34% and you bring some of the original back in.

Hope it helps,
-Keven

[namphoto]

I didn't look at the PSD because my laptop don't have it (I know I know I know...), but you don't need to redo the entire face you know. there's plenty of good skin in there that you can leave alone or minimally retouch.

[d00dle]

very clean. still look natural. just need sharpen i guess. u can somewhat keep her texture. I do a little trick here with highpass layer of her before dodge (basically, hide dodge layer, make selection, copy all, then paste) on top and layer mode to soft light. went overboard a little so yall can see it.

http://img43.imageshack.us/img43/364/picture1gbg.png

[twitch1977]

Thanks for the advice guys, on the next run at D&B I'm not going to go so heavy with it and try and focus more on just the problem areas rather than trying to get a complete uniformity of the skin.

I tried pulling back the opacity of the dodge layer and I see what you mean about bringing back some of the needed texture. Maybe I'll try bringing the opacity of it down to around what you suggested then try refinishing it from there.

I have a hard time doing the dodge and burn without losing the 3 dimensional look of the face, I think I need to pay more attention to keeping the shadows around the nose, chin, cheeks, intact. (Not just in this picture specifically but in general.)

I like your sharpening sample too I much prefer it to mine, it really helped define the highlight regions and keep the shape of the face. I'm definitely going to try that out when I get home.

Thanks guys, can't wait to revisit this one now!
Kurt

[Godmother]

Originally Posted by twitch1977

Thanks for the advice guys, on the next run at D&B I'm not going to go so heavy with it and try and focus more on just the problem areas rather than trying to get a complete uniformity of the skin.

I tried pulling back the opacity of the dodge layer and I see what you mean about bringing back some of the needed texture. Maybe I'll try bringing the opacity of it down to around what you suggested then try refinishing it from there.

I have a hard time doing the dodge and burn without losing the 3 dimensional look of the face, I think I need to pay more attention to keeping the shadows around the nose, chin, cheeks, intact. (Not just in this picture specifically but in general.)

I like your sharpening sample too I much prefer it to mine, it really helped define the highlight regions and keep the shape of the face. I'm definitely going to try that out when I get home.

Thanks guys, can't wait to revisit this one now!
Kurt

No, don't listen to them, thats clean and PERFECT, u didn't do ANYTHING WRONG - well... bring back the freckles! freckles are beautiful, they are a trade mark not flaws!

NOW u just need to D&B with bigger brushes to make the shadows and highlights more interesting - PERIOD

HAIR: Get rid of the flying hairs

NECK: has skin too u know... it's not just about the face.

About skin texture - PERFECT PERFECT PERFECT and don't let anyone tell u otherwise

xx

Keep it up!

[Der_W]

To get more of the 3-dimensional look you're missing you could have a look at this link: http://beautyandthebudget.blogspot.c...hy-makeup.html
It shows several techniques to highlight/darken certain areas in order to get a good shape of a face.

[Markzebra]

and try and focus more on just the problem areas rather than trying to get a complete uniformity of the skin.

Try to make a distinction between TEXTURE, and natural tone - the way that light describes the forms. Far too much overall, but you have completely annihilated form.

[Calbeee]

oh i got a question, what should i set the hardness for the brush just to be safe?

[namphoto]

wow. so I just loaded your PSD file, good stuff, good stuff, let me tell you in the PSD file it looks a lot better than it does uploaded. any who, I spent a good amount of time just starring at it, couldn't get what was totally off. After a bit I went to work on another file but it accidentally covered the bottom half of your retouch and then I saw it. At first I thought it was just the stare of the model that was so blank that made me think hmm this is weird.. but then after my accident I saw it (it's still a blank stare but its a great retouch), it was the mouth. you have no drop shadow underneath the lips and loose definition of the chin and lips. Other than that, it's a great retouch.

Some other things I would say is in the color layer, I wouldn't recommend doing it the way you do, it just isn't very accurate IMO. Create a curve layer in color mode, adjust the separate channels to get the tone you're lookin' for.

Work more on the hair and as godmother says, the neck. Other than that, great job.

[twitch1977]

Wow I didn't expect to get this much response. Thanks everyone!

I know the neck and hair isn't great, I was getting kind of frustrated at the way the face was turning out and never quite made it that far. When I was working zoomed in I was happy but when I'd zoom out it looked so flat.

Originally Posted by Markzebra

Try to make a distinction between TEXTURE, and natural tone - the way that light describes the forms. Far too much overall, but you have completely annihilated form.

That's exactly what I need to do, pay more attention to the way the light is defining the face and make sure I maintain and enhance that. I'm happy with how the skin itself turned out, it's just the dimension of the face I'm not happy with.

Originally Posted by Calbeee

oh i got a question, what should i set the hardness for the brush just to be safe?

I really followed Nienna's lead from her tutorial vids, I'd use a brush with about 20% flow, I went with 0% hardness then 15-25% opacity.

Originally Posted by namphoto

At first I thought it was just the stare of the model that was so blank that made me think hmm this is weird.. but then after my accident I saw it (it's still a blank stare but its a great retouch), it was the mouth. you have no drop shadow underneath the lips and loose definition of the chin and lips. Other than that, it's a great retouch.

This was a sister of a friend I was doing pictures of and in a lot of them there seemed be some slight disconnect with the eyes, almost like she was looking just real slightly to one side of the camera. I agree 100% there needs to be a bit of a shadow under the lip.

Originally Posted by namphoto

Some other things I would say is in the color layer, I wouldn't recommend doing it the way you do, it just isn't very accurate IMO. Create a curve layer in color mode, adjust the separate channels to get the tone you're lookin' for.

I'll try this next time, I've never tried doing it like that.

Thanks for all the comments I really appreciate them. I'm on holidays next week so I'll try doing up a few more pictures and putting some of this into practice.

T

[dcm100]

nice work, a little too over the top, but very well done none the less. I downoaded the psd file, pulled back on a few of your layers and it was much more natural looking. I agree with godmother, that you must keep some freckles in the mix along with the neck and some hair work.

The hardest part of becoming a pro is restraint, and not making it to slick, which is an amateur mistake. I used to do it all the time....ha!

You definetly have a good eye for detail, keep up the good work and just pull it back a tad. It is not always easy, believe me I know, I have been doing this professionally for many years in LA.

I like to let the image "brew" for a while before I look at it again after the retouch and submit it for approval to the client. It will give you a new perspective on the image, but then again it is up to what they want!

Hope this helps.

Jeff