Retouching critique

[Floyd Peter]

Hi, i am relatively new too all of this and would like to ask you to critique a couple of my images. Thank you very much for your time

Floyd

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7b...ew?usp=sharing

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7b...ew?usp=sharing

[klev]

Re: Retouching critique

There are three major sources of problems. If I told you everything I found objectionable, the post would get out of hand.

Look at it right below the eyes in the first. You extended that highlight into a shadowed area. You're never going to get a flawless appearance in that region without looking weird, so you should do the least smoothing possible. Once she stopped looking a little fatigued, that should have been it. The second most prominent point of weirdness is the wrist. I would have never brightened that highlight. It looks weird.

Everything that uses masking has a problem, and that should (in my opinion) be your first goal for improvement. The outline on the second one has issues. The lips have major problems with masking. The nails have masking problems aside from the problem that they look very flat in the retouched version. The original nail color was also better. Look at more beauty images to develop a better sense for this.

The lighting on the chest is also very weird. I would have probably deepened it a bit overall and made it somewhat more even. I would have done less just above the chin. It looks weird in your version, especially because you made part of it too saturated. I should probably add that I have no idea why you darkened the background there.

These should really be accompanied by some of your reasoning. Right now I'm pointing out things that I dislike, but I'm trying to weight it toward areas where technical improvement is necessary. It looks like you started off by copying stuff you saw on the internet if I'm not mistaken.

[Floyd Peter]

Re: Retouching critique

First of all, thank you very much.

Now about my reasoning... there is not really that much of reasoning going on to be honest As you pointed out I'm just trying to use all the things that i learned/copied from internet, books and various tutorials and apply it till i think it "looks good"

For example the background darkening, that was probably just some global adjustment i made and felt like it doesn't take away anything from the background so i didn't bother with masking it out.

For the chest lighting, i completely agree, looked weird to me also, but all my attempts made it look much worse, so i decided to keep the original. But will definitely try your suggestion.

Again, thank you for your time

[klev]

Re: Retouching critique

For the chest lighting, i completely agree, looked weird to me also, but all my attempts made it look much worse, so i decided to keep the original. But will definitely try your suggestion.

No problem, and you don't have to thank me for my time. I don't even say that to people in a work context, because it implicit puts me beneath them.

Some of these things take real thought, because there isn't always an ideal solution. Sometimes details of the lighting could have been better, or details of an expression conflict with your aesthetic sensibilities. For example you turned a shadow portion into highlight on the first, and it looked strange. Coming up with a strategy there that doesn't look weird and preserves the anatomy of the face would teach you far more than copying what you see on the internet.