Retouching

[elsaspet]

I learned a massive new retouching technique (on this photo about 4 hours work) and would like to hear your thoughts on the before and after.
Thanks for looking and all comments and critique are welcome:

Original Photo:

....and with the major retouching

 

[JonMikal]

any chance on resizing these Cindy?

 

[elsaspet]

Sorry about that Jon. I noticed right away, but it took a minute to fix. I don't know what happened, but it should be better now. Thanks!

 

[Onyx]

besides the black and white conversion was the major retouching only chancing the width of the head and arm? You didnt use liquify(I'm guessing) because none of the pixels unded up being blurred. im guessing you duplicated the head and arm and resided the width using the transform option, and probably cloned part of the dress to cover where the arm used to be.

i think you did a fairly good job as i had to look really close. the only thing i would say you could improve is the hair on the left side(the womans right) it looks too repetative. one thing you could do to avoid the repetition is to clone with a soft edge from the right side. you wouldnt see it unless you looked for it but its the only improvement i would suggest.

 

['Daniel']

Well, her right eye is slightly too high. If you hold a ruler underneath at the same incline as her head you will see it.

I think that it's not really possible for this to work because of the reason that her face is its width. It looks like she has a narrow head, whereas it was normal before. Her face doesn't look slimmer (less fat) just thinner in general.

I think you did a really good job but what you're trying to do is exteemely hard if not impossible. But as picasso said

"I am always doing things I can't do; that's how I get to do them."

:thumbup:

 

[Onyx]

i used to do a lot of retouching for people, making them thinner or whatever. however i decided to not do it anymore because #1 they should be happy for what they are. #2 i dont want to perpetuate any stigma that skinny = better. #3 if someone didnt specifically ask to have this kind of retouching done it might make them feel like crap.

 

[elsaspet]

besides the black and white conversion was the major retouching only chancing the width of the head and arm? You didnt use liquify(I'm guessing) because none of the pixels unded up being blurred. im guessing you duplicated the head and arm and resided the width using the transform option, and probably cloned part of the dress to cover where the arm used to be.

i think you did a fairly good job as i had to look really close. the only thing i would say you could improve is the hair on the left side(the womans right) it looks too repetative. one thing you could do to avoid the repetition is to clone with a soft edge from the right side. you wouldnt see it unless you looked for it but its the only improvement i would suggest.

Hi Onxy,
I only liquified the eyes (and as Daniel said got a bit off level). For the face and arm, I used warp and then just went back in with the history blush to bring the background in. I also cleaned up the skin, dodged and burned the faces and arm, dodged and burned the hair, and did some work on the eyes (taking out the flash and rebuilding it as if I had used a reflector). I'll see what I can do about repetitions in the hair.
Oh just saw your second post. It was something she had asked for. She loved the photo, but didn't like that she was "bigger" than he was. She said he likes to feel like the protector.

 

[elsaspet]

Well, her right eye is slightly too high. If you hold a ruler underneath at the same incline as her head you will see it.

I think that it's not really possible for this to work because of the reason that her face is its width. It looks like she has a narrow head, whereas it was normal before. Her face doesn't look slimmer (less fat) just thinner in general.

I think you did a really good job but what you're trying to do is exteemely hard if not impossible. But as picasso said

"I am always doing things I can't do; that's how I get to do them."

:thumbup:

Hehe Daniel. When the guy showed me, it looked so easy!

 

[Onyx]

thats probably a different method than i would have thought of although both would have the desired effect. the great thing about photoshop is there are so many ways to acheive a desired effect.