Critique needed

[Mer-Cee]

Hello Community,

its me again..


here is one of my latest retouching images (before/after) i would like to share with you.
but this image is NOT done yet and i know i still have to learn alot.

please give me your constructive critique and suggestions.

what i did so far and wanted to make sure if i am on the right track:

Frequency Split Healing
Cloning
Dodge and Burn
Curves and Masks on eyes , hair and overall contrast
Sharpening the skin and eyes with smart sharpen

one question though, how can i even out skin tones?


http://i1273.photobucket.com/albums/...ps662dcf70.jpg

Regards
Cervantes

[DJSoulglo]

Re: Critique needed

I'd say take what you did and then put it on 50%. She looks like an alien, not human anymore. No more detail in the skin, etc.

Why are you sharpening the skin and eyes? Were they not sharp in the shot?

To even out skin tones, just select patches of the skin and even them out with some curves. Can take a little while. Also do a search for "Inverted Hi-Pass". That works, but with that one it's even more important that you only do it VERY sparingly.

You should (as a rule) not see that the image has been retouched. When it starts looking fake, you should pull back. Zoom out. Look at something else you like. Skin should have pores.

Good luck.

[Mer-Cee]

Re: Critique needed

thank you for your comment..

strange, that there is no details in the skin.. maybe i uploaded it wrong..

thanks for the tip regarding Invert-HiPass and patches to evening out the skin.

[voidsource]

Re: Critique needed

There is a way to cheat and add fake pores and make it still look good. I know i ran into a video that showed that. It involed the add noise filter and the emboss filter and i think the blend mode was set to overlay. The layer was a 50% grey fill in before all that. Then u would mask it out and mask in wherever you felt you need to see pores. but other than that i think the shine on her is overdone. She started to look plastic; Maybe tone it down somewhat. Overall its a good start in my opinion.

[Mer-Cee]

Re: Critique needed

@Voidsource... thank you...

there is one thing i dont understand, on my monitor i see the pores and retouching the skin i set the opacity at 50%...maybe i need to reupload the image in a different format.