KonstantKarma
Posts: 2,076
Asheville, North Carolina, US
Would appreciate some insight on this portrait. It's a looong way from where it started. (I can post the original tonight if anyone's interested.) I'm not a professional retoucher, but a photographer who does his own retouching to the best of my ability.
work on skin, not just face, but neck too
stray hairs
one eye looks a little droopy, partially from lighting and
partially from expression, might be the look your going for
Motordrive Photography wrote: a few quick observations, in no particular order.
work on skin, not just face, but neck too
stray hairs
one eye looks a little droopy, partially from lighting and
partially from expression, might be the look your going for
Exactly what I was going to say, actually. Additionally, there's a weird shadow (make-up streak?) going on below and to the left (from our perspective) of the left eye. Dodge that out some so that it looks like the right eye.
KonstantKarma
Posts: 2,076
Asheville, North Carolina, US
Thanks for your feedback!
Yes, the right eye is different from the left - I liquified it larger but perhaps I could do it more. I was afraid to make it look fake.
I will work on the neck and remove the stray hairs.
The shadow you're talking about is just the shadow from the flash, the fill could have been brighter and moved more toward the front I think - Too late now but I'll dodge some of the darkness out.
A couple of observations, if you pose the model so the short side of the face is to the key light, you'll get a more dramatic face with better features.
Second, the liquefy tool can be used but isn't the best option. If you only wanted to increase the iris the liquefy tool works fine, you can use it for the whole eye, but the steps to make it look good are as many as listed below and the effect is much easier to detect. To give just the basics of enlarging an eye one would use the elliptical marquee tool to select the eye (and all the eyelashes), soften the edge by using a 10 pixel feather, put it on a separate layer, use free transform (make sure the H and W are linked) to enlarge the eye, lock in the transformation, then use a layer mask and a soft edge brush to make it fit seamlessly
KonstantKarma
Posts: 2,076
Asheville, North Carolina, US
David Nelson Photograph wrote: A couple of observations, if you pose the model so the short side of the face is to the key light, you'll get a more dramatic face with better features.
Second, the liquefy tool can be used but isn't the best option. If you only wanted to increase the iris the liquefy tool works fine, you can use it for the whole eye, but the steps to make it look good are as many as listed below and the effect is much easier to detect. To give just the basics of enlarging an eye one would use the elliptical marquee tool to select the eye (and all the eyelashes), soften the edge by using a 10 pixel feather, put it on a separate layer, use free transform (make sure the H and W are linked) to enlarge the eye, lock in the transformation, then use a layer mask and a soft edge brush to make it fit seamlessly
David Nelson Photograph wrote: A couple of observations, if you pose the model so the short side of the face is to the key light, you'll get a more dramatic face with better features.
Second, the liquefy tool can be used but isn't the best option. If you only wanted to increase the iris the liquefy tool works fine, you can use it for the whole eye, but the steps to make it look good are as many as listed below and the effect is much easier to detect. To give just the basics of enlarging an eye one would use the elliptical marquee tool to select the eye (and all the eyelashes), soften the edge by using a 10 pixel feather, put it on a separate layer, use free transform (make sure the H and W are linked) to enlarge the eye, lock in the transformation, then use a layer mask and a soft edge brush to make it fit seamlessly
Definitely a much better approach in regards to resizing the eye. This keeps it from getting warped and looking weird... not to mention that it should be a lot quicker.
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