More retouching to critique :)

[suchyy]

Two more:

http://suchyy.pcmaniak.pl/works/17.htm
http://suchyy.pcmaniak.pl/works/16.htm

I can't look at it in an objective way so I can't see what is wrong, but you can ;-)

All comments welcomed.

James.

[NancyJ]

There are a couple of problems with the amber one, theres an odd shadow at the top of her hair and on the right side what looks like a masking problem. Otherwise its very nice, just personal preference, I would have left her original eye colour.

The second one looks rather familiar... I wonder where I've seen it before...

The second one is less good. Its very flat and the blurred overlay has lost a lot of definition in her features. Also I see (what I assume is) careless masking around the face and body. Also her skin texture isnt too great around the base of her jaw. Her eyes are also a bit too bright - it looks very cartoony.
You can see where the arm was pulled in on the door, the grain in the door is warped. The arm also looks odd, I would pull out the top a little rather than pulling in all the flab, give her a more womanly looking arm, rather than a scrawny annorexic teenager
One last thing, I would remove the stray hairs on her face.

[Photo678]

first one is the best of the two. Good job on the shadow removal from the right of the nose....but you left the harsh shadow under her lower lip.

The second one is not nearly as good. You lost all sharpness and detail in the image. The typical rule of thumb for any higher end fashion work is to try to stay away from any blur masks unless specifically requested.

[Craig Walters]

well, i'm only going to talk about the redhead here. one, nancy is right about the shadow on her hair. looks like a clone mistake. it's a remarkable job overall, but i know a few redheads and almost all of them are similar in skin coloration to the one you did. they tend to have pale skin but very rosy highlights, as does this one. when you alter the basic coloration as you've done, you lose believability somewhat. you changed her pale skin to more of a normal flesh colored tone and changed the reddish rosy cheeks to an orangish brownish. and whereas it is an improvement in one direction, for me, it's a bit of a loss. i also agree that the original eye color was better.

along with the hair that nancy mentioned, you brought out the rest of her hair which is great, but in doing so, down on the middle right (our right), directly across from her nose are some smudges or something that dont seem to be part of her hair or the rest of the background.

i do like that you preserved the best of her skin texture, however. and i also like that you toned down the background. and for me, i dont have a problem at all with the shadow under her lips. it's a natural shadow that matches the rest of the shadow types in the image.

all in all a spectacular job! nicely done!

craig

[NancyJ]

I have to disagree about the skinton there Craig, the retouch has changed the lighting to a warm orangey/yellow colour - which is why the skin tone appears more fleshy, if you look carefuly at the rollover you will see that this is a colour cast applied to the whole image not just the skin.
I looked for those smudges accross from the nose but couldnt see anything that didnt appear to be in the original could you circle it for us?
In looking at it again this morning, I have seen what appears to be more careless masking around the right of the hair. Also, and this may be what Craig is seeing, in brightening the right side of her hair, you've also emphasised the flaws (uneven outline, split ends etc)

[Craig Walters]

nancy,

re the color cast. ok, i'll buy that.

as for the other item, attached is the image with arrows pointing to what i'm talking about. doesnt look right.

craig

[NancyJ]

nancy,

re the color cast. ok, i'll buy that.

as for the other item, attached is the image with arrows pointing to what i'm talking about. doesnt look right.

craig

Yeah, I noticed that too when I looked this morning, while looking for the smudged hair that you were talking about - its the careless masking I mentioned in my post this morning.

[suchyy]

OK, hello again Nice to see all those comments.

I will not comment on the second one, because as you said it just too blurred. WHen you pointed it out I cant disagree, i will just have to do it again.

As for the first one. Most of mistakes you mentioned I actually did in post processing I had the picture almost finished when I decided to brighten her hair. I copied a right part of it onto the new layer, set a proper blending mode (screen AFAIR) and made some corrections in order to make it look natural.. and then, i duplicated this layer to see how it would like even brighter. I was not sure about the effect to I hid the second layer for further consideration

And when I decided to ask you for comments, I opened the file, merged all visible layers and noticed the hidden one. So i looked at it again, and decided to lighten the hair a bit. So I lowered the opacity, merged again and saved a JPG file. I just forgot to correct all those things again

Now I did it and you can see the result here:

http://suchyy.pcmaniak.pl/works/po3.jpg

How do you like it ?

[Craig Walters]

MUCH better! gorgeous (do you have her phone number? )

craig

[suchyy]

;-) I wish I had, but then... you would not get it so easily

[Craig Walters]

hehehe, fair enough

craig

[Peter S]

Nice job.

Has anyone else noticed that if you look at this pic from a distance, there is a shading around the chin and mouth. Quite like a 5 Oclock shadow. This is not a critisism of this pic, I noticed this on the ones in the challenge section when it was first posted. Maybe its just me.

Peter

[NancyJ]

MUCH better! gorgeous (do you have her phone number? )

craig

not quite her phone number but...
http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/member.php?userid=8160

[Craig Walters]

nancy,

hehehe, thank you

is that a pic of dreamypix or one she took?

craig

[NancyJ]

its a self portrait she took Quite a stunner is our Amber