Emmy's Portraits (C&C Welcome)

[DGMPhotography]

Hello TPF!

Here are a couple of shots from my portrait session with Emmy. C&C is appreciated.

I know people are probably going to complain about the skin in some of the photos. I'm still trying to figure out how much retouching I should be doing.

1.
2. I really like how my post work turned out in this one. I used a combination of lens blur and tilt shift blur filters to create an almost lens baby effect. I like it. Didn't do much retouching on this one.
3.
4.
5. Darkness...
6. I know most people, including myself, hate selective coloring. Honestly not even sure if I like it here, myself, but this is at least the least I've hated selective coloring in awhile. I know I went a bit overboard on the skin here, though.
7.
I started fiddling with gradient map layers in Photoshop, and I rather like the effect. It's like a hue/saturation layer combined with dodge/burn.
8.

 

[chuasam]

Whoa Tiger! Easy on the sharpening and smoothening
Hide and reveal layers and compare before and after...it's okay to dial back some of your adjustment layers to like 50% opacity.

 

[DanOstergren]

You're getting better with the skin. I would maybe reduce the amount by a little bit on all of them but the 2nd photo, which I would actually do a little bit more dodging on the splotchy skin on her cheekbone.

 

[tirediron]

Agree with the comments above; overall, a good, solid set, but dude... selective colouring???? Really? You KNOW better than that!

 

[Designer]

#6 would be my pick of the lot if it was just B&W, or at least dial WAY BACK on the SC.

 

[DGMPhotography]

Whoa Tiger! Easy on the sharpening and smoothening
Hide and reveal layers and compare before and after...it's okay to dial back some of your adjustment layers to like 50% opacity.

Thanks for the feedback everyone, and Chuasam, I actually never go above 50% opacity with my retouching layers, lol. So perhaps I should go even lower.