nebulaoperator wrote:
Do you make your own decisions how to get that look or get some tips from fellows retouchers , google?

It was through analytical observation of the glossy look in other retouchers work (as well as just shiny skin in general) and by testing myself against some of Amy Dresser's before/afters (see this post and this post for details as to what I mean by this). I'll flatten the arm/boob so it looks more like an arm.

Pari Retouch wrote:
Just a thing that distracts a bit to me is the eye brows of the female, they got too bright maybe.

Thanks, I totally forgot to take care of those. I was either going to lighten them (or remove them) so that they look like a stylistic choice or darken them enough to look natural. Right now they're kind of in the middle which makes them distracting. Nice catch.

MP Retouch wrote:
It was through analytical observation of the glossy look in other retouchers work (as well as just shiny skin in general) and by testing myself against some of Amy Dresser's before/afters (see this post and this post for details as to what I mean by this). I'll flatten the arm/boob so it looks more like an arm.

Thank you for links.  I am considering to get this one :RetouchPRO LIVE "Pointy Man" with Amy Dresser. And for others would recommend this one if you after this kind of retouching.

PJKRetouching wrote:
This is amazing I have been trying to create tricks to making a glossy look on skin, so far I only know how to add shine to skin.

Gloss seems to be much harder to achieve for some reason and it's probably because gloss looks really smooth on skin but to keep it looking real you have to keep texture from the skin under the glossy highlights which is the real challenge

All though your image doesn't look glossy it looks more like the models are intensely moisturised glossy is more shiny with a lot less colour

Yeah, I really shouldn't have named the thread "glossy" as it's actually "shiny." Glossy is a reflection of the environment on a smooth surface. Shine is a reflection of the light source that isn't limited to smooth texture. The method I used (painting white on the highlights) actually removes some of the texture from the highlights making the subject look smoother in a way. If you'd rather have your shine razor sharp, just use the blend if sliders to bring back some of the texture.

Ashish Arora wrote:
Your highlights look fake- there is too much color in them, watch that Mike!

Thanks, that's a really useful tip. Much appreciated.

Ashish Arora wrote:
And I would suggest you use Color Range to fill on Normal Mode than Overlay painting- looks fake- spot on! I mean use them both, right now you seem using only or more so the latter.

I didn't do any overlay painting except for the iris. I did all the dodge and burn with curves and then I topped it off with the selective color filled with white (on normal) trick. Are you saying I should do more of the fill with white as opposed to the d&b?

MP Retouch wrote:
I didn't do any overlay painting except for the iris. I did all the dodge and burn with curves and then I topped it off with the selective color filled with white (on normal) trick. Are you saying I should do more of the fill with white as opposed to the d&b?

Ooh did you change the image?

I believe you can do a mix but there is a lot of fill required to really obtain those shiny silvery highlights- they look closer to reality and more convincing but that is my opinion.

Its all about experimentation and getting it nailed- love the second one you posted- the portrait of the wrinkled man- that's where you nailed it!

Ledo retouch wrote:
I look forward to the videos, I remember a thread from months ago on
getting the "Jill Greenberg look" the one of the older man seems very
much that style, I think you did good work on them all

nebulaoperator wrote:
Thank you MP for sharing such a great work with us.  Tell us what was the hardest part of this retouch?  Did you use a reference image while working on it? I suppose you were testing your RAM'S limits too:)

Thanks. At first this retouch was an oversize to emulate her color toning so I used one of her images as my reference while I tried to match the color. Once I got the color close, then I went in and let loose, experimenting for hours trying to bring out as much depth as I could while preserving the transitions. When I was in that stage of the processing, I stopped looking at the reference and took the coloring in more of my own direction (a little more saturated and blue). 

nebulaoperator wrote:
I suppose you were testing your RAM'S limits too:)

I actually have a pretty powerful PC, but I have a habit of duplicating the psd once I get enough layers or I decide I want to experiment with a new direction. If my adjustments then don't work out, I just close the psd and resume where I was before.

Ashish Arora wrote:
Ooh did you change the image?

I think Imight have misunderstood what you were saying. By "overlay painting" did you mean d&b using an overlay 50% grey layer? I'm not sure what you mean by "change the image."

Ashish Arora wrote:
I believe you can do a mix but there is a lot of fill required to really obtain those shiny silvery highlights- they look closer to reality and more convincing but that is my opinion.

Your tip about the highlight needing to be less saturated really blew me away, thanks. It really improves the realism of the shine by a great deal. I also tried painting some of the background color into the shine (to see if it would look like it was reflecting the environment) but couldn't get it to look very good, so that experiment didn't succeed. Again really appreciate the feedback.

MP Retouch wrote:
I think Imight have misunderstood what you were saying. By "overlay painting" did you mean d&b using an overlay 50% grey layer? I'm not sure what you mean by "change the image."

Change as in replace the first image of the glossy male model.

Well, yes painting in overlay mode- with or without 50%- that doesn't cause any change other than helping visually to see your own paint map kinda.

MP Retouch wrote:
Your tip about the highlight needing to be less saturated really blew me away, thanks. It really improves the realism of the shine by a great deal.

Exactly. Highlights have less saturation because they are highlights, try burning a highlight- it will appear to be more saturated (visual)

Highlights are also sharper- so you can play with that too. Your second image looks better that way.

MP Retouch wrote:
I also tried painting some of the background color into the shine (to see if it would look like it was reflecting the environment) but couldn't get it to look very good, so that experiment didn't succeed

Ooh background color? Depends what sort of environment is it. Try this, it should work for your image:

Sample the lightest color from backdrop, new layer- fill with color so you have 100% opacity now clip to highlights layer and reduce opacity/play with it until desired result is achieved.

MP Retouch wrote:

Amazing work!
I'm completely floored by this transformation, and cant wait for the tutorial as well.

-Lulie

MP Retouch wrote:
I'll flatten the arm/boob so it looks more like an arm.

Still looks like a long flattened boob.
By the way wrinkled man is amazing. Eyes in my opinion is the heart of this portrait. He looks devilish and  you intensified and expressed  it through the man's eyes. He actually reminds me of Jack Nicholson in Shining. Well done  MP.

Ajain wrote:
This processing is really nice especially the first and the third picture. Looking forward to the tutorial

+1

MP Retouch wrote:

Would be great if you could tell us something bout the Light, that was used to capture the raw shot..

as i see its only one light above the head 45 degrees / octa/softbox type?

MP Retouch wrote:


Here's another experiment:

The only parts I really don't like about it are the way the hands are really warped/fake looking, the smoke looking a little confusing, that one distracting clump of hair, and the text on the cup that I was too lazy to paint out. If I was going to try to fake a super-wide-angle/fisheye in Photoshop again, I'd take another picture looking down at the cup/hands and then use that as the starting point for the warping.

Try to curve a bit the smoke and the transitions are too hard in it....aaaand when you make highlights on the face, make them on the hands too, they now seem flat to me.

About the beauty - I think that the blue kills it a bit. Watching the gif I think I wouldn't change the bg actually, may be just play a tiny bit with the hue and sat. Or if you want it to be blue - cut down the sat because it's fighting the saturated face in front, though the combination (brown/orange and blue) is really nice.

Sanonjr Photography wrote:
I think the blue bkgrnd is killing it a bit, but the overall image is good. I think the key for this effect is in the natural look of the image with the glossy punch  and playing with the contrast . WAITING FOR THE TUT.

+1

Sanonjr Photography wrote:
I think the blue bkgrnd is killing it a bit, but the overall image is good. I think the key for this effect is in the natural look of the image with the glossy punch  and playing with the contrast . WAITING FOR THE TUT.

Thanks. I agree about the blue being too strong. I want to keep somewhat of a blue because I find the white/blue/tan color scheme appealing so I have to figure out a way to make it less gaudy next time. Tutorial is in progress. Turns out it's harder than I thought to explain my way through all the psds without becoming a stuttering mess.

Grazian wrote:
Would be great if you could tell us something bout the Light, that was used to capture the raw shot..

as i see its only one light above the head 45 degrees / octa/softbox type?

You're pretty close. It was a large shoot through umbrella (with a sheet over it for added diffusion) at a 45 degree angle from above and then a small softbox from below.

Sofia Zasheva wrote:
Try to curve a bit the smoke and the transitions are too hard in it....aaaand when you make highlights on the face, make them on the hands too, they now seem flat to me.
About the beauty - I think that the blue kills it a bit. Watching the gif I think I wouldn't change the bg actually, may be just play a tiny bit with the hue and sat. Or if you want it to be blue - cut down the sat because it's fighting the saturated face in front, though the combination (brown/orange and blue) is really nice.

Great advice thanks. Especially about the highlights on the hands - didn't even notice.

MP Retouch wrote:
Here's another experiment:

The only parts I really don't like about it are the way the hands are really warped/fake looking, the smoke looking a little confusing, that one distracting clump of hair, and the text on the cup that I was too lazy to paint out. If I was going to try to fake a super-wide-angle/fisheye in Photoshop again, I'd take another picture looking down at the cup/hands and then use that as the starting point for the warping.

Aside from what you mentioned, I would make the shoulders closer to symmetrical. Perhaps smoothing out the curve for the shoulder on camera left.

It might be better to just shoot the shot on the angle you are going for, because my eyes say somethings are off when looking at it. Such as how you see the top of the shoulders and coffee mug, and the neck cranks up to look at the camera.. I don't know if that is much help up thought you could make something of it

Also, I think what might be making the smoke look confusing is how it is unnatural to see coffee steam go higher than a few inches above the mug. You could try making it go up her nose, and really sell the message hehe

Grazian wrote:
1st one,hair and dress looking to contrasty , their looking like "put on top" but the high key processing is really nice effect, maybe a softer edit on hair and dress

Thanks, I see what you mean.

Lulie Lens wrote:
Aside from what you mentioned, I would make the shoulders closer to symmetrical. Perhaps smoothing out the curve for the shoulder on camera left.

It might be better to just shoot the shot on the angle you are going for, because my eyes say somethings are off when looking at it. Such as how you see the top of the shoulders and coffee mug, and the neck cranks up to look at the camera.. I don't know if that is much help up thought you could make something of it

Also, I think what might be making the smoke look confusing is how it is unnatural to see coffee steam go higher than a few inches above the mug. You could try making it go up her nose, and really sell the message hehe

Thanks for the feedback. I mentioned the fact that I'd take another shot looking down at the cup and body and composite them together. The reason I'm trying to figure out how to do this in Photoshop instead of just using a fisheye or super-wide angle lens is simple - I don't own one! If I was going to make a habit out of doing shots like this I'd invest in one, but just for the occasional gimmicy shot I'd rather do a composite in photoshop than invest the money.

Everything else you said I agree with, especially the smoke.

To those still waiting for the tutorial - I've almost finished it. Sorry for the delay. There have been some technical difficulties. I'll post the link here when it's done.

I have some more images to throw your way:


(photographer: Tawny Horton)
Not much to say about this one. I guess I like it. Nothing amazing. I should have made the hairband symmetrical. Maybe also made all the metals either silver or gold.


before/after
The part that bugs me is the highlight on her cheekbone. It looks ugly - like it was partially blown out or something. I should have either retained more texture or went with a harder transition. You might also notice the slightly warmer coloring in the before/after. This is because I had second thoughts about the overall coloring after I had saved the before after and changed the larger version. Which look more appealing to you?


before/after
I ended up doing so much lens distortion work and adjustments to her shape that the background was majorly jacked up(Yes I made her proportions thinner. I'm evil.). I'm aware the original background added to the concept but I didn't want to spend the time finding another background to replace this one with. The part that I really hate is the way I made the fabric look like it's bulging around her stomach. I can't believe I didn't notice this until now. I also now feel like I should have done more smoothing to her chest to make it match the texture on her face. Newbie move.

MP Retouch wrote:
I've got a couple more experiments to toss your way. The feedback I've been getting from this thread has really been helping me.
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-EZ38mDDMpvU/T … ompmed.jpg
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-EMADvzJmAGI/T … tycomp.jpg

I wanted to say something about those two that bothered me:
In the first image I'm losing her face. I see hair, dress and no face. It's too desaturated, the whole skin but the balance of highlights/shadows is nice I think.

About the second..I like the skin but don't miss brows, lashes, lips.. because it looks like you didn't care enough.

And btw, the last third photo that CM talked about. I just think that the crop is not fine. I'd losen the saturation in the blue bg and make that triangle between her and the fabric part of the bg (and make it a bit darker because it's logical to be in shadow there). Or.. lose the hand...

MP Retouch wrote:
Appreciate all the great advice. Just dumping another attempt in here.

This is the image I'm using in my (incomplete atm) youtube series.

So where are these videos I love to check them out great work by the way....

Julian Marsalis wrote:

So where are these videos I love to check them out great work by the way....

@Julian: MPretouch's Youtube channel