Opinion needed on retouching

[nebulaoperator]

Hello everyone,

...and another retouching from. I would really appreciate your opinion. Thank you neb
http://www.flickr.com/photos/3750244...in/photostream

[plugsnpixels]

Oops, NSFW, good thing I'm home! ;-)

I assume the B&W on the first image is the retouch? Please tell us about your technique. I see the background changed and she picked up a bit of contrast. The tones of the face are soft in both, so the smoothing was not the biggest need. There is still stray light on her chest and arm which I think is distracting and would choose as the main candidate for the retouch.

The rest of your gallery shows more obvious and successful retouching.

I see you've got one of those topless-yet-very-modest shots. Why do models always do that-? I don't get the point. Then there's the biker tat chick who should have been more modest! ;-)

"Fairy tale of autumn" and "DSC_0113" are very well done.

[nebulaoperator]

Hi plugsnpixels,

I suppose it is very simple retouching I have done.For the veins I have used mixed technique D&B mixed with IHP. Though the are not very visible but when B&W they stand out. Nipple was moved up by marque tool selectional on separate layer shifted with wrap toll. Same thing applied to slimmed right arm. Background from above her neck was strip of photo on the left selected the 45 degree rotation and free transform scaled up then blended . Burned the bright part of the hair. D&B body to give a bit of shape to it. I have also worked on the face adding some light reflection on the forehead, completing the features on the face. before turning image into B&W I popped out hue/sat adj. layer -80 sat +20 lightness + soft blend mode. Then adjustment B&W reds negative yellows positive. Then diffuse glow , gradient map. I also wanted do something in grayscale in duotones but have very little or next to nothing knowledge about it.
I like topless modesty if I have to mention that. Not too much exposed, classic shot nothing new but still appealing in my opinion.
Isn't it up to photographer why they do that?! Maybe one of those shots topless modest shot is part of routine.
Tat was the biggest distraction to me as in the whole frame it did not fit by any means to me.
Talking about straight light I was hopping every minute while working on photo if I only had some creative shadow plying on her body. In my opinion this photo was limited in that.
Thank you for your comment nebula