Please help with my portraits!

<p>I've been dabbling in Portraits lately and I having trouble getting my face retouching to look "natural". Do you all have any suggestions? <br /><a href="

<a href="

<a href="

<a href="

<a href="

<p>Post links to before/after (otherwise it's impossible to know what's going on). Then take a least a moment to type out a hint about what process(es) you're actually using to handle what kind of retouching. Otherwise you're just asking us all to guess and read your mind ... which is hard! So, give us a little more to go on, and make sure to mention what sort of end results you're actually looking for (manneguin-like typical commercial model skin? tattoo removal ...?), and you'll get some good pointers.</p>

<p>seem like deja vue...</p>

<p>they all look too plastic, like a heavy Portrait Professional plugin was use... get back 30%-40% of the effect and you should be closer to a better result.<br>

Hand should be the same color as face, the gilr in the bed her hand are too yellow vs the face (both shot).. well let say that the face is too red vs the hand that have a perfect color to be more precise ; )<br>

the guy shot have a strong majenta cast all over, and the hand are too dark, making them appear almost purple... reduce the vein on his hand a bit also, not too much, but he need it for sure.</p>

<p>Not sure what looks or effects you're going for or what you've done or tried to do to any of the above -</p>

<p>My comments therefore are based only on what I am seeing -</p>

<p>#4 - Skin tone looks red - highlights are distracting<br>

#3 - Subject blends into background - background is distracting to me - plus blown highlights on face.<br>

#2 - Skin tone is off - purple appears blue - color seems off - looks like you're going for a high key / blown highlight approach - but you stopped about 1/2 way there.<br>

#1 - probably the best of the 4 - but I'd color the eyes or boost the color in the eyes to make them pop.</p>

<p>As Matt said - I'd be curious what effects you're looking for and what specific retouching you've done / what you're looking for.</p>

<p>Dave</p>

 

<p>My suggestion is skip the retouching.</p>

<p>There are MANY techniques for achieving a smooth face - it's kinda hard to suggest one vs another as all can be useful depending on your subject. However my first reaction to your images is that they are too painterly - as if you sampled one part of the face and then painted over the rest (or something like that anyway)...that way you took away what makes flesh real, in other words the tiny blemishes, the pores etc.</p>

<p>Do a search on YouTube for skin smoothing tutorials and you should find quite a lot of them...;-)</p>

Check out the book "Skin". It's the best reference on this subject. Very good about post processing without going too

far.

 

--Marc

<p>Skin vy Lee Varis is a good book, but like many tutorial.. way over process on many image.. like for example, the older women.. around 50th or so, that after retouching look like her own daughter in the mid 30... even good retoucher can sometime go too far in there own example ; )</p>

<p>it is a excellent book, but the secret is learn how to do it, and learn how to reduce the effect for a more natural result.</p>

<p>Yeah, I'll try once more. Here's what I would do with one of your examples. I agree with the above posts about the colors and blown highlights. In this version I used the clone tool to remove highlights on her face and fixing her hair. I desaturated a bit and lightened her a little too. </p><div></div>