C&C request - Senior portrait retouch

[drode]

There's is the retouching I want to do and the retouching I need to do. I keep practicing, studying and learning to develop an eye and the skills to do detailed high quality retouching.

I also have a small portrait business. In that case, I need to be efficient as time and margins are tight. I need to keep my retouching time down around 15-20 minutes per image. Lightroom helps speed up the overall development and photoshop actions to setup default freq sep and D&B layers let me get down to cleanup in seconds.

What I need now is some objective feedback on the results. Considering the short work time, did I miss anything critical? What looks good and what did I botch?

http://www.rodephoto.com/Client-Area...DJR7835-XL.jpg
http://www.rodephoto.com/Client-Area...DJR8141-XL.jpg
http://www.rodephoto.com/Client-Area...R7849-2-XL.jpg

I'd appreciate any feedback and/or critique.

[Boneappetit]

Hi drode: Being that you'll never finish a work in 20 minutes using Dodge and Burn, along with healing etc... Perhaps the degrunge technique will help, here is a link (scroll page down to take the express way) . http://retouchpro.com/tutorials/?m=show&id=213

[ray12]

I love your photography. Your subjects are very comfortable working with you and it shows in the images. Beautiful subjects and perfect exposures and great tonality in the images. I liked your depth of field in the third one especially...separates them out just great!

Your retouching is right on...I did not pick up on over-retouching and I didnt notice any real natural flaws in them on first glance...so... you did a Great Job!

Love your photography skills...Love your retouching!

PS: Just one small thing on the third one...would love to see the light to dark transition edge softened around her eyes...so the gradation looks smoother and less harsh.

Best of Luck in your business.

Ray12

[LQQKER]

Having good photographic skills and knowing which image to go with lessens the time needed in PS. If I were a client of yours, I'd no doubt be content with your efforts.


Just a few small things I noticed that may or may not be relevant to your workflow:

On the first image the males bottom lips are lighter toward the ends of his mouth and the light on the females right shoulder seems too apparent.


The second image the chin seems to be a bit rough.


The third image, the darkened area under the females eyes (right eye in particular) are too prominent and should be lightened as mentioned earlier.


Wish you the best. You seem to have a good eye for capturing the moment.