Practice Glamour retouch

[Rawessence]

Hello all!
This is a practice retouch I did of my friend. The original seemed dark and flat so I adjusted the light, smoothed the skin, applied digital make-up and replaced background. She really likes it! Hope you do. Pointers are welcome!
http://members.tripod.com/rawessence/kt-glamour.jpg

Rawessence

[Rawessence]

oops!

I don't think the server is going to allow the link to work. Here is a before and after of the picture alluded to previously!
RawEssence

[Duv]

I really like this effect. It pulls you right to that lovely face. I would have extended the rays to the very edge to convey "infinite" brightness and beauty. I did a different but similar effect with my son. I'll post it if you like. Bottom line. I really works.

Cheers
Duv

[DannyRaphael]

Ah... glad we got the image going.

Something to consider: Generally speaking you don't want a creative background to be more eye catching than than the person in the pic. That said, this is a very unique effect and you did a nice job of replacing the original background with it.

My suggestions would be crop the final image a bit so she's not right in the middle of the frame... perhaps just to the right of center.

~Danny~

[Rawessence]

You are right! I didn't think of it ! I'll try your suggestion.
Rawessence

[Rawessence]

Yes, Duv! Please post your the example you did of your son. I'd love to see it!
Rawessence

[Rawessence]

Here is another effort

I may have gotten carried away with the background of this manipulation as well, but here it is anyway! Practice makes perfect!

Rawessence

[Duv]

Here's a pic of my boy. Not necessarily a great shot but I like the similar blur effort to your work and how it picks out his eyes. You are obviously having a lot of fun. In your last work there were just two things that came to mind: Hard light/Soft Light and maybe some edge blur. Anyhow, let's all gitty up!

Cheers
Duv

[ekk]

I loved your picture with the horse. You did a nice job on the makeup of the first picture. How did you do it most of the time I can't get the color right you have a nice smooth finish

[Rawessence]

How I did it....

Thank you for the compliment:
In short, I did the following (tweaking as necessary)
1. Run Guassian Blur over portrait
2. Take a history snapshot
3. Undo Guassian Blur
4. with history brush set to low opacity, paint in foundation alternating between the lighten and darken modes

I found this technique in Katrin Eismann's Photo Restoration and Retouch p. 314. You can see the complete technique and example if you access to the book.

RawEssence

[Rawessence]

Duv's suggestion...
Here is my attempt at balancing the lighting. I used an adjustment layer and layer mask to lighten the background. Then, I made the horse larger so she wouldn't look like she was riding a pony. I hope this is a little better, though.

RawEssence

[Duv]

I hope to see your pic. By the way, I stopped off at your website and really liked the way you did the before and after of this threads original pic.

Cheers
Duv