Hey all!  Would love a critique on this image I recently finished.  Here is a link to a before/after rollover.  See Before/After Rollover

very good job Paul, rollover shows a lot of work. The model has her eyes
so far over, but saw that's how it was shot. The hair is now so neat at her
neck it seems strange that there is a longer lock behind her ear.

Thank you! I kind of liked the shape that the left over lock of hair made behind the ear so I left it but not after a lot of consideration.

I also decided to take out the bokeh effect on the background. I felt like it cheapened the look of the image a bit.

good job

I like her "real" nose more...  I do not know English enough to describe my opinion correctly, but it seems to me that model's nose line (nose back) is now unnatural especially when it contacts with model's forehead...

Afterr seeing the rollover WOW!!!

I really don't like the nose now, the original is much better
she looks like a boxer who's been punched a lot, or bad avatar (straight from forehead down) (there's no bridge there anymore) no contouring, it's been made to  look really flat and much smaller, but the nostrel is still the same size
love the hair though

I cant stop mousing over the before and after photo... its mesmerizing! wow!

for the look you were looking for, well done. Surely a lot of work.

I especially like the entreatment of the hair.  However, there are some artefacts bottom left corner on her back that have been accentuated by your treatment.  Great work though.

How do you draw hair? Do you mind share a little bit of workflow. What I do is clone, smudge, draw, clone-draw. All combined together. What I am very curious is how or where start ,,making,, hair?
Great work I know how much work you put in for this retouch and how much skills.
Have you considered prolonging her eyes a little bit? I have seen some one did that thing on prolific photo and effect was worth it. Just an idea. By the way did you have any thoughts on continuing that wavy hair pattern at all?
Great retouch and pink is very adorable background here.

nice work, I loove the colors. I am not too keen on the hair though, the neck area is too clean, a little overdone for me and too much inverted high pass that shows in the highlight. I would have tried to round up her chin too as you pulled in the throat, it looks a tad long for me, but that's only a matter of tastes I guess.
nicely executed.

Absolutely gorgeous!

Hello all!!

This is my image from my old account (that for some reason I haven't deleted yet). 

As for some of the hair comments/questions, most of it is actually grafted from a completely different image (and model).  This image really was just for practice so I probably pushed it a bit farther than would actually be done...a sort of test of my own strengths so to speak.  There was actually no inverted high pass done on the hair as well.  I am also not a fan of the hairline along the neck haha!  It was just so messy compared to what I did to the rest of the hair I didn't know what else to do, but I definitely agree it's too "clean".  I would definitely had approached it differently in hindsight (and will do so in the future). 

Also...I don't like her back as well.  I suppose I got a bit lazy towards the end of practicing lol

All very good learning experiences haha!  But thanks for all the comments!

i really love those ultra light stray hairs coming out sporadically along her hair line, I think it could use more of them to be honest

There's no doubt it's a quality job, but maybe it's TOO perfect. When every hair and pore is perfectly arranged and all flaws & irregularities removed, it starts getting into that uncanny valley/mannequin territory.