Critique - 1st attempt

[Quantum3]

Originally Posted by PeterWright

Ok - I am a sucker for punishment but here is another one from scratch..

Any improvement ..

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2692/...15b2c700_o.jpg

This one looks much better. But the skin tone looks a bit green in some areas and the skin tone looks too matte (probably the make-up). The lips looks too similar to the skin color and the eyes are too sharpened. However, you did a nice job keping the pores of the skin. You will be doing good jobs in short

[PeterWright]

Originally Posted by Quantum3

This one looks much better. But the skin tone looks a bit green in some areas and the skin tone looks too matte (probably the make-up). The lips looks too similar to the skin color and the eyes are too sharpened. However, you did a nice job keping the pores of the skin. You will be doing good jobs in short

Hey - thanks :-)

I looked at the skin colour so long I think I lost any objectivity..

Matte - she was actually a bit shiny oddly enough so it is funny I went too much the other way..

[flexmanta]

Looking better. Im going to focus mainly on your dodge and burn. It looks like you did D&B the low signal. I don't know if you can notice, but there are some color shifts. This is normal as, in rgb, colors change hue when changed their value (the real color wheel is not really a radial radial gradient as we've been taught).

A way to correct this is to paint in color mode on a layer to correct the stuff that changed color.

Also, there are areas that still need d&b. When d&b'ing you need to decide the amount of softening that you want for that skin. D&B can be used to correct flaws leaving a perfect but realistic skin, but it can also be used to create an unrealistically perfect skin (always better looking than filtered skin). Now, the thing is that you need to be consistent with the intensity of your d&b throughout the whole photo. Say you have 2 pixels. One is 20 in Black, and the other one is 40 in Black. An extreme d&b would be to make them both 30. If that's what you want, do it on all the skin. The other way is to make one 25, and the other one 35, that way there's still a highlight and a shadow, leaving a realistically looking, say, pore... just not as volcano deep as it was before.

Im also going to comment on the eyes, but for that im going to make a little example that will make you FEEL what i mean instatnly (it's about the begginer's stage being something about TASTE and not so much about technique)

[PeterWright]

Originally Posted by flexmanta

Looking better. Im going to focus mainly on your dodge and burn. It looks like you did D&B the low signal. I don't know if you can notice, but there are some color shifts. This is normal as, in rgb, colors change hue when changed their value (the real color wheel is not really a radial radial gradient as we've been taught).

A way to correct this is to paint in color mode on a layer to correct the stuff that changed color.

Also, there are areas that still need d&b. When d&b'ing you need to decide the amount of softening that you want for that skin. D&B can be used to correct flaws leaving a perfect but realistic skin, but it can also be used to create an unrealistically perfect skin (always better looking than filtered skin). Now, the thing is that you need to be consistent with the intensity of your d&b throughout the whole photo. Say you have 2 pixels. One is 20 in Black, and the other one is 40 in Black. An extreme d&b would be to make them both 30. If that's what you want, do it on all the skin. The other way is to make one 25, and the other one 35, that way there's still a highlight and a shadow, leaving a realistically looking, say, pore... just not as volcano deep as it was before.

Im also going to comment on the eyes, but for that im going to make a little example that will make you FEEL what i mean instatnly (it's about the begginer's stage being something about TASTE and not so much about technique)

Flex - you are spot on..

I did find that the low freq layer and larger brush was easier to control and so did most of my work there - the problem with the small brush/high magnification on the HF layer is that I find it very tough to get any balance. I will work on an area (say a cheek) and look to balance out the pores in that area, but when I zoom out I have all these very small white streaks... so then I go back with my black brush and work, but then I lose all my balance and end up with white and dark streaks ;-)

For the colour layer - can you give me more in terms of how to do this and what colours are needed on this image ?

Thanks ..

[flexmanta]

Ok, for the color part. See, there is this spot on the forehead that has kind of a halo around it that looks way more orange than the inside. Typical effect of d&B large areas. Try using a soft light db layer instead of overlay. One of the many ways to correct this is to create a new layer for all your color shifts and set it to color mode. Then, sample color from a color correct area, and paint on the area to be corrected. A lot of retouchers will hate me for having said that. But that's just an easy quick way. For correct colouring small areas most retouchers will use the selective color and correct reds and yellows increasing decreasing CMYK values. You can eyeball it if you really trust your monitor, or you can precisely monitor color samplers with the info pallet.


Now, about the eyes, see attachement. Nothing wrong with what you did. There is one thing about the begginer's stage, as i said before, that one needs to skip as soon as possible, and no, it's not the technique learning process which is very important. It's the taste part. Let's put it this way... say you dream of a girlfriend with sailor moon chic eyes... not cool for retouching. Screams I WILL PRESS EVERY BUTTON I CAN TO MAKE THOSE EYES POP! And you risk your photo to be used for a youtube tutorial.

[PeterWright]

Originally Posted by flexmanta

Ok, for the color part. See, there is this spot on the forehead that has kind of a halo around it that looks way more orange than the inside. Typical effect of d&B large areas. Try using a soft light db layer instead of overlay. One of the many ways to correct this is to create a new layer for all your color shifts and set it to color mode. Then, sample color from a color correct area, and paint on the area to be corrected. A lot of retouchers will hate me for having said that. But that's just an easy quick way. For correct colouring small areas most retouchers will use the selective color and correct reds and yellows increasing decreasing CMYK values. You can eyeball it if you really trust your monitor, or you can precisely monitor color samplers with the info pallet.


Now, about the eyes, see attachement. Nothing wrong with what you did. There is one thing about the begginer's stage, as i said before, that one needs to skip as soon as possible, and no, it's not the technique learning process which is very important. It's the taste part. Let's put it this way... say you dream of a girlfriend with sailor moon chic eyes... not cool for retouching. Screams I WILL PRESS EVERY BUTTON I CAN TO MAKE THOSE EYES POP! And you risk your photo to be used for a youtube tutorial.

Ok - colour, noted and new version with changes made..

Eyes - LOL ! Lesson learned ... very funny..

New version with further HF D&B, Colour corrections and eyes softened..

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2788/...e863699a_o.jpg

[balcar]

I found some tutorials on retouching that worked great for me - http://www.christyschuler.com/retouching.html

[Quantum3]

I think the latest retouch you did is getting better, but the skin looks too matte and the face too flat. I used to comit that mistake too. I know this is not the best way to put it, but you should think that D&B is like a shovel and the skin is like earth. So you take out earth to put it in other area of the face, so all will look in proportion and you can add more earth in the areas that you want something being prominent, such as the cheekbones. Like sculpting or like the bump maps in 3D.

Here is a fast attempt of global D&B over your pic, so you can compare and see the difference I'm talking about.

[PeterWright]

Originally Posted by Quantum3

I think the latest retouch you did is getting better, but the skin looks too matte and the face too flat. I used to comit that mistake too. I know this is not the best way to put it, but you should think that D&B is like a shovel and the skin is like earth. So you take out earth to put it in other area of the face, so all will look in proportion and you can add more earth in the areas that you want something being prominent, such as the cheekbones. Like sculpting or like the bump maps in 3D.

Here is a fast attempt of global D&B over your pic, so you can compare and see the difference I'm talking about.

Wow - that really hit me..

Your work up is just so much darker and contrasted - I understand exactly what you mean so thanks for the example.

Can I ask - did you do most of this work on low frequency or pore level high freq, or both ?

I would like to try to understand how you got here..

[flexmanta]

Peter, there is a PSD file by Amy Dresser that shows a great example of carving. Download it. It's fully layered and you can find it here on the first post.

http://www.modelmayhem.com/po.php?thread_id=332161

[PeterWright]

Originally Posted by flexmanta

Peter, there is a PSD file by Amy Dresser that shows a great example of carving. Download it. It's fully layered and you can find it here on the first post.

http://www.modelmayhem.com/po.php?thread_id=332161

On it - thanks, will do..

[Quantum3]

Originally Posted by PeterWright

Wow - that really hit me..

Your work up is just so much darker and contrasted - I understand exactly what you mean so thanks for the example.

Can I ask - did you do most of this work on low frequency or pore level high freq, or both ?

I would like to try to understand how you got here..

Grabbed your pic and added 2 curves layer, one for dodge and one for burn set both to luminance in order to avoid too much saturation and color shifting when D&B'ing. I guess you know that technique, it's the same than using a grey layer in overlay/softlight but much more powerfull and flexible as far as I see. Just paint the way you want the light to be, some drawing skills are needed to do it, but the picture it self tells a bit about the light direction, so you can start there. Then I applied a Degrunge technique, in order to soft a bit the mess and added a gradient map set to color at 40% opacity and masked in the skin, which is the faster and accurated way to color correct it, in my opinion. I was attempting to add some magenta to her cheekbones in order to add a bit of natural tones, but I forgot it.

Sharpened with the Highpass technique (dup the layer, set to Linear Light and Highpass it to around 0,5px and play with the opacity).

Hope this help,

Mart

[PeterWright]

Originally Posted by Quantum3

Grabbed your pic and added 2 curves layer, one for dodge and one for burn set both to luminance in order to avoid too much saturation and color shifting when D&B'ing. I guess you know that technique, it's the same than using a grey layer in overlay/softlight but much more powerfull and flexible as far as I see. Just paint the way you want the light to be, some drawing skills are needed to do it, but the picture it self tells a bit about the light direction, so you can start there. Then I applied a Degrunge technique, in order to soft a bit the mess and added a gradient map set to color at 40% opacity and masked in the skin, which is the faster and accurated way to color correct it, in my opinion. I was attempting to add some magenta to her cheekbones in order to add a bit of natural tones, but I forgot it.

Sharpened with the Highpass technique (dup the layer, set to Linear Light and Highpass it to around 0,5px and play with the opacity).

Hope this help,

Mart

Thanks Quantum - may I ask;

1. When you are brushing in the D&B, is this with larger brushes and at say 100% or is it in closer with smaller brushes ? This is the area I struggle with the most - finding where to paint and then creating a balanced and smooth effect, rather than stripes or bruises..

2. Why degrunge and split the frequencies after the D&B and not before ?

[Quantum3]

Originally Posted by PeterWright

Thanks Quantum - may I ask;

1. When you are brushing in the D&B, is this with larger brushes and at say 100% or is it in closer with smaller brushes ? This is the area I struggle with the most - finding where to paint and then creating a balanced and smooth effect, rather than stripes or bruises..

2. Why degrunge and split the frequencies after the D&B and not before ?

1) Small brushes for pixel level D&B such as wrinkles or pores you want to remove or soften. Big brushes when you want to paint the light to give volume to the image. For both cases, the brush opacity should remain at 100% but the flow to 1%, so you will be aplying the effect gradually. The hardness should remain 0% too. Then you need to zoom out in order to check that you don't have leaps/gaps among the tones and D&B those too.

2) The Degrunge is quite destructive and should be applyed selectively, not to the whole image. It is like a Fast D&B, but I mostly use it to smooth the tone transitions. To tidy the mess of D&B a bit. Like a refining/finishing technique.

Mart

[PeterWright]

Originally Posted by Quantum3

1) Small brushes for pixel level D&B such as wrinkles or pores you want to remove or soften. Big brushes when you want to paint the light to give volume to the image. For both cases, the brush opacity should remain at 100% but the flow to 1%, so you will be aplying the effect gradually. The hardness should remain 0% too. Then you need to zoom out in order to check that you don't have leaps/gaps among the tones and D&B those too.

2) The Degrunge is quite destructive and should be applyed selectively, not to the whole image. It is like a Fast D&B, but I mostly use it to smooth the tone transitions. To tidy the mess of D&B a bit. Like a refining/finishing technique.

Mart

Thanks very much..

[PeterWright]

Hey all - after all the help and guidance I worked another one and would welcome any critique..

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2698/...1f3b0f79_o.jpg

[flexmanta]

MAN! You've improved overnight!! Congrats!

[PeterWright]

Originally Posted by flexmanta

MAN! You've improved overnight!! Congrats!

:-) Now you made my day... (Must have been the fact that I worked on it most of the night.. apart from the webinar..)

Thanks for all your help...

[flexmanta]

Ok, allow me to suggest where you could still go on working with this image. Good think is that the skin started in a good way. Dont make it softer, it's already looking realistic but flawless (that's the idea).

There are still some spots on the skin. Those you will start to see when you stop working for a while and then come back to the image again. Also the hair... one of the most significant moves you can do on a closeup beauty shot is getting the hair to look perfect in shape first, and in shade later. Try to get rid of all individual hairs that don't follow the main direction. Also, there is one thing you need to decide about how the light works on it. Sometimes you want completely uniform light to accentuate highlights (shampoo ad hair...), and some other times you want there to be noticeable differences in color and lightness to kind of get a feline hair kind of look (don't know how to call it).

[Quantum3]

Originally Posted by PeterWright

Hey all - after all the help and guidance I worked another one and would welcome any critique..

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2698/...1f3b0f79_o.jpg

Wow, I must say that your retouch is going pretty high in just few secs! Nice work there

[PeterWright]

Originally Posted by flexmanta

Ok, allow me to suggest where you could still go on working with this image. Good think is that the skin started in a good way. Dont make it softer, it's already looking realistic but flawless (that's the idea).

There are still some spots on the skin. Those you will start to see when you stop working for a while and then come back to the image again. Also the hair... one of the most significant moves you can do on a closeup beauty shot is getting the hair to look perfect in shape first, and in shade later. Try to get rid of all individual hairs that don't follow the main direction. Also, there is one thing you need to decide about how the light works on it. Sometimes you want completely uniform light to accentuate highlights (shampoo ad hair...), and some other times you want there to be noticeable differences in color and lightness to kind of get a feline hair kind of look (don't know how to call it).

Great - hair, I struggle with hair..

How do you "shape" it ?

For strays I guess Clone ?

Shade - D&B ?

[Quantum3]

Clone tool in darken mode on the HF layer. That's a job that may take around 2-4 hours, depending on the mess on the hair. Also you can copy some patches of hair too. I odn't know too much about hair, but that's what I do with hair.

[PeterWright]

Ok guys - last one for now, got to go and try to earn some money..

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2701/...d08e0651_o.jpg

Would love to know what you think.. I put more time into the hair.