Give me something to retouch!

[Alpha]

Ok. I wanted to go for a very clean look. Try this on for size. There is some very minor texture artifacting at high magnification, but it should print cleanly up to 11x14.

 

[Alpha]

Bah. I need to clean up the nose slightly.

 

[Alpha]

She's absolutely beautiful, by the way. Lucky man!

 

[Iron Flatline]

She's absolutely beautiful, by the way. Lucky man!

Thank you, thank you... can you believe that's the mother of my three children?

Did you work off the JPG or the RAW file?

I like what you've done. As a husband I see her differently (and a LOT more frequently) than others. As such, one of the first things I notice is the unusually strong shadow under her left eye (the right one, looking at her.)

A pet peeve of mine was that my photograph displays a strong difference between her neck and chest in terms of saturation. It seems as though her neck is quite nice, but the red somehow came out pretty stronlg toward the top of her chest. This is partially true in real life, but the lighting and camera really popped it, and I was wondering if there's a way to blend that.

Also, you seem to have introduced some red, and so I look at her (unsharp and cropped) hands and knuckles, and see some strong reddish coloration. Most men look at skin, but women tend to notice hands - she would be unhappy if her hands looked "worked". Her fear is "Butcher's Wife's Hands", if you know what I mean.

Ignore me if I'm nit-picking, but you seem to be open to specifics and honing your craft.

Speaking of... considering I know NOTHING about retouching... what tools are you using? How are you going about some of this? I read your threads on LAB color, but how are you removing the blemishes? Hence the question if you worked off the JPG...

Thanks for this effort Max, I appreciate it.

 

[Alpha]

Ok. Let me make sure I've got everything...

-Remove shadow under eye
-Remove red from skin
-Touch up hands

Is that it?
I'll repost w/ a brief walk-through of the corrections when done.

It looks more red here than it did on my other computer. I'll keep a close eye on that.

 

[Iron Flatline]

Two and three are the same - I think the red cast will fix the hand issue. It's soft anyway, so it's a color issue, not much else... and frankly, after closer inspection, I'm not sure it's a total issue. But why not go all the way...

Speaking of going all the way, I'm dust. Italy lost to the Netherlands tonight, and we compensated with a lot of Grappa (I was wearing the Blue tonight).

I'm off to bed, it's going to be a rough morning.

 

[Alpha]

Did you notice I removed the wrinkles from her sweater? That part was not very fun.

Edit: Replaced old image w/ new.

 

[Alpha]

Ok. Unless I start over I won't touch another thing or she'll turn into plastic.

Here's a brief run through.

1) Tiny exposure adjustment in RAW
2) Convert to Lab
3) A/B curves
4) Heal out skin imperfections and shadows in face and neck.
5) Add texture back in w/healing brush set to multiply, and texture sampling from original.
6) Heal/Clone/Paint out stray hair
7) Remove wrinkles in sweater using clone, heal, and liquify
8) Mask eyes; brighten and color.
9) Mask hair; L channel curves adjustment, A/B curves to add more color, paint in golden highlights (No color dodge in Lab), blend hair back in.
10) L channel USM

As a side note, at 100% zoom, undoubtedly the sharpest part of the original is square in the middle of her cleavage.

 

[Iron Flatline]

As a side note, at 100% zoom, undoubtedly the sharpest part of the original is square in the middle of her cleavage.

Why do you think we have three kids?

Great job - esp. the sweater. It creates a very different sense of curvature.

I had darkened the lips in my version (simple burn) but I prefer your natural version, it shifts the focal center straight to her eyes. I will sharpen the eyes before print.

Good work on the skin at the chest, thanks!

...now I will go digging for another one

 

[Rachelsne]

I was wondering what you did do remove shadows, was it cloning on my pic?

 

[Alpha]

On the chest it was all painting. On the face it was a mix of healing and painting.

 

[Arch]

i'v checked the thread a few times... just some observations...

In Rachelsnes' edit i still think you have too much red there, mainly in the shadow areas and the hair. There are also some strange things going on, you missed a clone area on the left side of her neck and on the right arm (on my monitor) i can make out the brushed patch... you either need a softer brush or blend the edit more. However, overall it is a good edit for a brief alteration in PS.

With Iron Flatlines' there again was too much red yesterday but the corrected version is better now. Good edit, and a great model image to work with.

Iron you are a very lucky guy, but im sure you already know that!

 

[Alpha]

How dare you come into the thread without posting anything!

Just kidding. Thanks for the tips.

 

[Rogan]

i like this picture of myself but the shadows are a mess and theres hair all over my face inbetween my parting

(no mean hair comments please )

would love to see what u can do!

 

[Alpha]

I should have been more clear in my original post. I'm a photographer, not a magician.

I could run noise removal on that shot 'till kingdom come and it would still be grainy after lightening the shadows.