Portrait retouch for C&C

[Cely]

I'm not sure if this is in the right thread, so Mods, if its in the wrong thread, I'm sorry and please move it.

Well, I am not very good with photoshop, and I decided I would give go ahead and try making one of my pictures have that 'pop' that professional retouching does.

Criticism is very very welcome. This is my first time so I need pointers. Thank you very much.

What I did:
1.Spot healing to remove blemishes and creases below the eyes
2. Dodge and burn around the eyes
3. Saturated the lips
4. Whitened the teeth
5. Selective High pass sharpening on the eyes and lips area

Before:

After

 

[robertwsimpson]

everything is ok, except the eyes... especially the whites. They look weird. I dunno, I like more natural looking portraits than most people around here, so I am sure you'll get more feedback.

 

[CW Jones]

maybe post the before picture as well? it will help see all the changes

 

[robertwsimpson]

also, I'd heal out the neck wrinkles if I were you.

 

[Cely]

Original post edited, I added the before picture.

 

[Big Mike]

I think the eyes have a bit too much contrast (the whites are too white).

A very popular thing to do, is to soften the skin...but this is also one of the most over done things. It's easy to go to far and it hard to do just right. A quick method that I use sometimes is to add a layer with Gaussian Blur, then cover it with a layer mask. Then use a soft brush on the layer mask to 'paint on' the blur in spots where you want it. Then adjust the opacity of the layer so that you can still see some detail in the skin.

I think another issue here are the hot spots on her face. Forehead, nose, cheek & chin all have bright spots...the nose spot is especially bad but is the easiest to fix.
That is certainly something I would try to fix, if I were editing this shot....but I would try to avoid it when shooting. This is where a good makeup job really helps.

 

[Cely]

Ok, Thanks everyone on the comments, I really appreciate it. I am pretty new to the post processing aspect, and your advice helps me learn a lot faster.

 

[vadim uvazhny]

Big Mike: +1

Skin is not exellent. You should work on it.

 

[DeadPixel]

All great.
skin: yes, as BigMike say, there is easy to over do it (though some people like the result, when skin is 'overpolished' - depend on what kind of result you seek - to have skin look natural, but cleaner, or to have skin like have girls on a magazine covers - (overpolished)
Yes, white shiny spots on a skin could be a bit cloned with very low density clone stamp just to add tone from normal color skin (on separate layer, so it is possible to control it later if needed), maybe take reds away off a chin, and a bit eved skin colours in general.

Just my thoughts.

 

[JayClark79]

How about softening her skin up a touch, i think i can see every pore on her face

 

[musicaleCA]

Ditto on BigMike's comments. To be honest, I think the shot would benefit most from a good makeup job. Some powder would do wonders for her skin.

 

[allhigh]

got more advise in here, say thanks to above guys.