Beginner in retouching

[ejbonagua]

Hi there. I'm new here. I'm a photographer based in the Philippines, specializing in events. Recently, I've been trying to learn portraiture and fashion photography. Still a beginner, especially in retouching.
Here are some of retouches I've done using free raw images I got. Just did what I thought was right for the photo.
Critique and tips would help. Thanks!

Before:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-7...ew?usp=sharing
After:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-7...ew?usp=sharing

Before:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-7...ew?usp=sharing
After:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-7...ew?usp=sharing

Before:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-7...ew?usp=sharing
After:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-7...ew?usp=sharing

Photos by smoshkov from Model Mayhem.

[klev]

Re: Beginner in retouching

I'm writing a shorter response than usual, and I'm not looking at these too closely. I'm not sure I see a lot of direction in any of them. I see a lack of motivation or confidence in what you're doing. Otherwise you would pay some attention to toning down veins. You wouldn't just clone out lines in the neck and ignore how weird it looks. You would probably not leave teeth looking yellow or nail polish too orange. These are things that people do when they don't have confidence in their approach. In some areas you made them very slightly worse in an attempt to add contrast. I say this because you lost detail in places like the shadow portion of the hair in the image with the white dress. If that entire region was in deep shadow, it might work.

For the third one, you should really pay more attention to the way lighting works. I get that you're trying to tighten things up around the jaw, but it looks completely unnatural. You should be able to recognize that soon, if not now. If you can recognize something like that and want opinions on what might improve it, these can be tacked onto the request for critique.