Time for another critique!

[Sflowers55]

Hey everyone,
Thank you for taking the time to critique another retouch. My plan is to upload an image a week for the month of December. I feel like getting this feedback has been extremely helpful in improving my skills and understanding of retouching.

I am using an image this time from one of the classes I am taking.

For this image I focused on:

• cleaning up the skin
• evening out the skin tone
• adjusted the skin color to decrease redness
• slightly adjusted minor features for symmetry

How did I do? Does her skin color look better or too yellow?
Any critique is welcome! I am here to learn!!

What would you have done differently?

Thanks again for the help!

[skoobey]

Re: Time for another critique!

Skin is cleaner, but it is a beauty image, and I would go further. Facial lines are still pronounced, especially around the mouth, and area under her eyes looks too bright in contrast to her cheekbones. I'd take out the hair strands above the ear and pointing outwards, or push them in, in line with those covering the ear. Shadows on the body are also quite harsh, and so is the neck texture.

[Sflowers55]

Re: Time for another critique!

Skoobey,
Thank you so much for taking the time to critique my image, I truly appreciate your comments. I will definitely keep them in mind when I am retouching for beauty.

In beauty retouching, should I always soften shadows? You mentioned that her body shadows are quite harsh, should I make sure to lighten them whenever I can?

[skoobey]

Re: Time for another critique!

"Make it pretty" is the only rule. Basically, it doesn't matter the subject, image should look beautiful, so if it's beauty, or picture of a bug, or whatever. Making tonal transitions even is the main task DNB is used for.