Ok, here is my first try with a portfolio-level image.




and a close-up




Now that I see the image again, I forgot to activate the eyelashes layer -.-.

I had some troubles with the area of dry skin under the eyebag zone in the cheek. Tried to clone that area with adjacent texture, but it ended up looking too fake for my taste, so I just ended up dnb to lower the contrast and done some cloning. Anyone have an advice for this kind of skin?.

anyone?? -.-

I think the starting pic has no good lightning.
The rule of thumb is: garbage in - garbage out.
Result to my eyes is overdone, to soft.

it looks like you painted under the texture layer......keep in mind tones when you do so.....it start to look plastic really quickly

you will probably learn and develop the most with bad shots so take this as lesson. I think you should redo and focus on basics; d&b, clone/healing & color (which I think you will develop a good eye for down the road). Learn to retouch without using blurs and that includes blurring layers in split frequencies techniques and such (don't do that with images you want to showcase your work, revisit that stuff later on when you develop your eyes more. I wouldn't recommended it at all if your trying to go pro, just my opinion though).

Thanks for the feedback, gonna redo the image in a couple of weeks.

I used some selective blur in a couple of the LF layers when I got frustrated with the time it was taking to do the dnb. I tried the blur and saw that the result was similar to what the dnb was achieving in a couple of hours, so I just took the short way....

Almost has a CGI feel - the skin is a bit too smooth, and the face seems a bit thin.

Perhaps instead of smoothing out the skin - remove the major blemishes, and clean up where the lighting is a bit patchy, but leave a bit more of the skin variation in.

I think I wouldn't have reduced the wrinkles as much - (eliminate them on one layer, and then brush them out slightly on a layer mask, so that they're not as prevalent, but still visible).

I like the cleanup on the hair - gives a nice shape.

I do not have a email address from you to send photos for test retouching
i do no how to put on MM for retouch
Thanks
Doug