Critique me please!

[Sflowers55]

Hey everyone,
Thank you for taking the time to critique my retouch. I have been practicing a lot and really need to start getting critiques on my work. I really want to improve and get to a higher level. I know I can't do that unless I get help from people who know what they are talking about.

I have been using free images from the web to practice on and this was the first image I retouched with a close up of skin. I dodge and burn as well as frequency separate to get the skin even. How did I do? Am I going too far?

Any critique is welcome! I am here to learn!! Teach me your ways!

What would you have done differently?

Thanks for the help!

Steph

[shift studio]

Re: Critique me please!

It looks pretty good. I'm sure some of the know-it-alls here will disagree

The purple light though- it bugs me - it would be nice if it had a smoother transition. Also I can't understand why its missing on camera-left side of her nose?!?

--shift studio

[shift studio]

Re: Critique me please!

Also, I'd like to see a bit more shape where cheek meets upper lip.

[klev]

Re: Critique me please!

shiftstudio and I never agree, but I think the before version looks better. This to me looks like technical practice, which is perfectly fine. There is however a multitude of undesirable things. I wouldn't show this in a portfolio or on your site.

First off the lips are saturated to the point of losing detail. You will want to learn to spot this. You can see it all over the lips, in the bright spot on the nose, and on the bright portion of her face. The original has detail. The retouched version has no detail. If you saw it printed, it would jump out right away.

The eye makeup looks splotchy in one part, and the saturation really makes it noticeable. When you cleaned up around the eyes, the transitions became quite harsh. The eyes themselves don't have enough shape to stand up against so much contrast in the makeup. The lines around the mouth feel a bit overdone, as do some other parts.

I guess the point is that you could do a much better job with the details. They could be much more uniform rather than overdone or seemingly ignored.

[shift studio]

Re: Critique me please!

Looking again (on my phone), I see there are some areas without detail, and some shape that's been over-smoothed. Generally, you need to enhance shape or at least keep it. There should be texture everywhere, if it's bad or missing, sample from elsewhere in the image. When I say texture, I mean small texture.
Also looking again, I see the pink is make-up. Try to get it uniformly applied. Decide what the transition should look like, then make that happen.
Also the tip of her nose needs fixing.
Hope this helps.
-- Shift Studio.

[Sflowers55]

Re: Critique me please!

Hey! Thanks for all the in-depth critiques, they are exactly what I was looking for! I really appreciate you both taking the time to look over my work and offer up your advice. This is really going to help me improve my retouching technique as well as improve how to think about what should and shouldn't be done. Thanks again! I am excited to learn from you all!