This stems from this quote:

Patchouli Nyx wrote:
What would be SUPER helpful to me,  is to have a moderated discussion about good retouching vs bad retouching.


I mean I can see it when someone is a horrible retoucher, but for those of us who are PS noobs or moderate beginners, it would be helpful to have a frank discussion about how to differentiate the various levels of PS retouchers.


With photographic examples.


I agree that hateful critique threads aren't useful....but then again neither is having all threads lacking any critical discourse.   


How can people learn if everything is supposedly a good shot or retouch and we don't know better?

and so here I will place some raw files that people can play with, these will be for use in a discussion thread that will be started and linked here https://www.modelmayhem.com/po.php?thread_id=472825 by retouching and posting in that thread you are agreeing to 1) possibly having your work complemented, criticized, questioned, discussed and debated and 2) discussing what you did and the steps you took to get there. 

We are offering these select images to be used so that many people can work on the same images to show their interpretation and variations.

lets start here this is two files one canon one nikon, very similar shots, take your pick, they are both raw format. 


its about 40megs: right click and save as:
http://www.StephenEastwood.com/crap/delete/cannik.zip


I will add more, and if anyone has any files in any genre  they would offer up, message me (with "file inclusion" in the title) to include them here. You must have copyright to the image and permission from the model to do so, that is non negotiable.  Also, be aware that the purpose would be to use for a learning exercise and that the images will be downloaded and used for that purpose, I expect some may like to have permission to use the final product in their retouching portfolio, and that is something that would require all proper credits given of course.  If that is an issue, perhaps you should not supply an image for this purpose.

anyone who needs to convert these to a DNG to pen in an older version of Photoshop, here is a link to the DNG converter http://www.adobe.com/products/dng/ Mac and PC

also bibble www.bibblelabs.com  both mac and pc compatible.

Stephen Eastwood
http://www.PhotographersPortfolio.com

adding these for download as well, they should be up shortly at this page  (Sorry these are Canon files only)

http://stepheneastwood.com/mm/rtf/samples/

they will include the raw and if available a retouched file in the zip.







  which is a tighter crop  of this whole shot



and if there is enough interest in any of these shots I can upload the raw of some as well  http://www.stepheneastwood.com/crap/delete/pr_v1

reserved

Images Offered up that are only subject to retouching critiques:  What that means? Read this https://www.modelmayhem.com/po.php?thre … st10266317

Provided by
PhenMas
Mayhem #853545
Photographer  https://www.modelmayhem.com/member.php?id=853545




http://www.stepheneastwood.com/mm/rtf/p … mas001.jpg



http://www.stepheneastwood.com/mm/rtf/p … henmas.jpg



http://www.stepheneastwood.com/mm/rtf/p … as_001.jpg




http://www.stepheneastwood.com/mm/rtf/p … as_001.jpg