Critique please

[TMRT]

Hi,

I'm new to this forum and I would appreciate a critique of the following retouch. I'm not new to photoshop but I'm trying to develop my retouching skills further. At the moment, I'm just practicing/using random free images I have found online. The credit for the original photograph in this case is for Isaac Ruiz.

As I said, I'm new here so I hope I've posted everything here correctly. Any thoughts/comments greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

Before: http://i1070.photobucket.com/albums/...psykj5zs4j.jpg

After: http://i1070.photobucket.com/albums/...psuwybht4i.jpg

[skoobey]

Re: Critique please

It would be nicer if you retouch the fingers, neck creases, even out hair shape? Your dodging, or airbrushing has bled onto the lips. In general it's super smooth, but I think that's the result of airbrushing, at least it looks like it is.

[TMRT]

Re: Critique please

Hi Skoobey,

Thanks for the response. A fair point about the neck creases more, that's something I overlooked. In respect of the lips, there is definitely no bleed into the lips as it was masked off. I did, however, reduce the saturation of the lips a little as, to my eye at least, they looked a little too much. I think taking the saturation out of the lips a little has brought it closer to the skin tone, perhaps?

In respect of the hands, I did work on these - darkened a little (they were too bright in original), added tone to match the rest of the body and smoothed them out a little. The problem I found was the hands looked too unreal if I worked in them too much, so I tried to find a medium.

Yes, it does look pretty smooth, although that was the look I was trying to achieve in this particular image. Perhaps it's too smooth?

Anyway, thanks for the response.