Editing Feedback

[Bone Puddle]

Im forcing myself to use photoshop and learn to touch up photographs. In the past i just used Digital Photo Professional and adjusted WB, black levels, highlights etc.

Here is an attempt - Ill look forward to your insight (feedback on the original composition is welcomed as well)

Original:



Edited:

 

[sarah_19_nz]

O.K I am FAR from expert but here is my VERY quick edit in photoshop. Softened the skin a smidge, colour poppage, slight tint of lips, sharpened her earring, sharpened and brightened eyes just a tad, brightened up the shadows a touch. I think your edit still looks a tad too 'severe' still and think she looks more flattering with a slightly warmer tone, tone down the pink/orange lippy, and a sight smoothing of skin. This is just my take and take my advice with a grain of salt.

 

[amolitor]

Turn your camera 90 degrees, and get the light higher, or her lower.

The edit looks fine, except the color temperature feels a bit cool to me. The original feels a bit warm. Either could work, depending on what you're going for, though!

She's a great looking model. Pretty, but interesting to look at too.

 

[Bone Puddle]

O.K I am FAR from expert but here is my VERY quick edit in photoshop. Softened the skin a smidge, colour poppage, slight tint of lips, sharpened her earring, sharpened and brightened eyes just a tad, brightened up the shadows a touch. I think your edit still looks a tad too 'severe' still and think she looks more flattering with a slightly warmer tone, tone down the pink/orange lippy, and a sight smoothing of skin. This is just my take and take my advice with a grain of salt.
View attachment 44700

YES, yours is much better. Thank you so much - this is very helpful. I will admit, I was literally trying EVERYTHING on this one just to get a feel for it.

Couple of questions - What did you use to soften the skin? did you just do an adjustment layer mask and "paint" it on? I was afraid brightening the shadows would blow out the side of her face (image right) and be a little too harsh- but it looks like you got it right with the warmer tones and softer skin.

Man. THANK YOU. Just looking at your take on the exact same image helped so much.

 

[Bone Puddle]

Turn your camera 90 degrees, and get the light higher, or her lower.

The edit looks fine, except the color temperature feels a bit cool to me. The original feels a bit warm. Either could work, depending on what you're going for, though!

She's a great looking model. Pretty, but interesting to look at too.

Thank you for the tips. I agree its a little too cool, especially now that I look at the other edit from sarah. And thank you for the composition tip - this was incidentally, my first attempt at true "studio" type photography.

As someone else mention in another post (and I agree), the is a tad too far right. I'm curious though about lowering or raising the light, can you give me some insight as to how that will help? Im having a difficult time imagining it in my head.

and yes, she is a beautiful model - not your "typical" kind of beautiful (if there is such a thing).

 

[sarah_19_nz]

To soften the skin I used a mask yes, some gaussian blur/surface blur and painted on with a low'ish opacity. Before that I used the healing tool to get rid of the tiny blemishes/bumps. To brighten just one side I used a soft edged brush and just masked on the 'light' to one side of her face.

 

[Bone Puddle]

Awesome, thank you. I was messing around with it this afternoon and was getting some good results.

 

[frog116]

I gave it a go as well. I'm just going to be honest with you (as I always wish others to be honest with me), I feel your original edit was too cool and the lips really stand out but not in a good way. (eep!)

Here is what I did:

- basic cleanup with healing brush
- lightened shadows around eyes using dodge and clone tool on low opacity
- darkened eyebrows just a tiny tiny smidge
- smoothed out lines around mouth
- softened laugh lines
- stray hair removal
- brightened eyes slightly and darkened lash line just a bit
- dodged hair a small amount right around face
- using levels, I lightened the overal image
- darkened the background slightly and also removed the strip of light color on the far right
- ran Gavin Seim's visual razor sharpening filter on low opacity

 

[TimothyJinx]

I tried my hand at it as well. I softened her skin a bit but tried to retain her original texture. I brightened it a bit, sharpened the eyes, etc.

 

[hirejn]

The lighting is unflattering, and you can't fix that in post. The adjustment looks too cool, a bit blue. The first actually looks more pleasing to me. I'm on a calibrated monitor, so maybe that should be your first step. Other than color, I can't detect what has been retouched. Photoshop is a powerful tool for skin and portrait retouching, and I see none of that at work here. Maybe some of the highlights were brought out, but I don't see it as an improvement. KelbyTraining has a lot of Photoshop lessons. Basic retouching is not difficult.

 

[Derrel]

I tried my hand at it as well. I softened her skin a bit but tried to retain her original texture. I brightened it a bit, sharpened the eyes, etc.

View attachment 45112

Very,very close to a silk purse here with this edit...nice job, T.J.!!!

 

[ndancona]

and here's mine. I did it for a bit of practice.

 

[TimothyJinx]

I tried my hand at it as well. I softened her skin a bit but tried to retain her original texture. I brightened it a bit, sharpened the eyes, etc.

View attachment 45112

Very,very close to a silk purse here with this edit...nice job, T.J.!!!

LOL thanks Darrel!

 

[Stacylouwho]

I did a bit of adjusting in LR and I like it best BW.

 

[bianni]

Tried editing, and here's the result.