help me make this groom more handsome!

[pete_s.]

<p>Thanks RT. I just paint them out with the spot healing tool on a different layer and then lower opacity. It's pretty quick, at least with a wacom.</p>

[hayward]

<p>Here's my 60 second retouch. I converted to B&W, duplicated the top layer, applied gaussian blur, erased the top layer at the eyes, and hair, and used the blut tool on around the eyes...</p><div></div>

[les]

<p>Here is mine 60 sec. retouch.<br /> As usual - the beauty is in the eye of the be(er)holder :)</p>

[kate callahan]

<p>I'm not a big fan of overly smoothed out skin ... especially on a guy. But there are two things I do on almost every picture ... and that's lighten up the dark circles under a person's eyes (and we all seem to have them these days), and add some shadowing under the jaw line and chin. Just a few strokes with the burn tool under the chin and you can literally make a person look about 10 pounds slimmer. Here's my 30 second try.</p>

[kate callahan]

<p>sorry ... I'm not sure why it's not letting me upload. Maybe it doesn't like my photoshopping ; )</p>

[les]

<p>It doesn't seem to work...<br /> http://www.photo.net/photo/10547792<br>

http://www.photo.net/photo/10547889</p>

[les]

<p>Let's try again...</p><div></div>

[dan_south]

<p>Lots of nice interpretations! I think that RT Jones and John Crowe's look the best.</p>

[tom_mann1]

<p>...and if you allow the use of the liquify tool, you can do anything from slight jowel tightening to turning the guy into someone else. ;-) (before on top, after is below).</p>

<p>Tom M.</p><div></div>

[Alex]

<p>Here is mine.Without reading every post mi impression is the teeth did not help the image along along with the angle. I guess is one of those pictures.<br>

Here it is a quit take from me.</p>

<div></div>

[bensgalguerra]

<p>Couldn't help it.</p><div></div>

[mila-g]

<p>I think the thing that is bothering this groom is pretty obvious.</p><div></div>

[tom_mann1]

<p>Alex - Nice job. It looks like you morphed the shape of his face in a similar way to what I did, but you modified his eyes less than I did. This retains more of his original character. I like it.</p>

<p>Benson - *very*, *VERY* funny! Nice job.</p>

<p>Mark - Hair line</p>

<p>As I said, once the door is opened for morphing, the sky is the limit w.r.t. what you can do to the subject. The real questions then become:</p>

<p>(a) Are you comfortable working with PS at this level?</p>

<p>(b) what will he and the bride be comfortable with,</p>

<p>© can you perform the desired changes consistently on all the wedding images that show the groom (ie, so he doesn't look like a different person in each picture), and</p>

<p>(d) How much time/effort do you want to put into this, or, put differently, how well are you being paid. ;-) . Doing such changes well can be real time sinks.</p>

<p>Tom M</p>

[paul_reklaitis]

<p>The REAL question is - What does the CLIENT want???<br>

Did you ask the groom what he thinks are the imperfections that need airbrushing?<br>

We've seen many photographers provide different examples of airbrushing. Some good, some bad, and some funny! But until the groom can provide details about what he wants airbrushed, we might be changing something that he likes. I once had a client complain about the color of his shirt, something that no one here has changed. <br>

Can you provide details of what the groom wants changed?</p>

[manuel barrera houston,]

<p>Other than a few red spots and whitening of teeth and eyes, the original was fine, looks better than the others. I guess you could tweak the reds to remove some if you so chose to.</p>

[personal screen]

<p>Just a thought... Since the groom is worried about his acne (although probably with no real reason), I wonder if he would be happy to know that a photo of it is being seen and studied by a worldwide audience...</p>

[StuartMoxham]

<p>Here is one for you.</p>

<div></div>

[StuartMoxham]

<p>Here is noe more</p>

<div></div>

[StuartMoxham]

<p>And the last one</p><div></div>

[tom_mann1]

<p>Paul, excellent point about asking the groom ... and the bride ... and their families ... and their pocketbooks. ;-)</p>

<p>As you undoubtedly saw, in the first sentence of the 1st message in this thread, the OP stated, <em>"...this groom asked me to airbrush out <strong>all imperfections</strong> ..."</em> </p>

<p>Unfortunately, when someone makes a blanket statement like this to me, I know that there's almost certainly going to be a long process of finding out exactly what he considers to be an imperfection, and then educating him in what's feasible, what different levels of retouching will cost, why the cost for some types of retouching is so high, why we can't press a button like on the TV shows and instantly perform cosmetic surgery, etc. In addition, there's always the very real possibility that while the groom might like a certain look, the bride or one of the families may hate it. </p>

<p>This is where people and business skills can be more important than technical skills.</p>

<p>Tom M</p>

<p> </p>

[polo verdejo]

<p>Here's one, hope it works</p><div></div>

[tony_killen1]

<p>I honestly don't think that any of these have really improved him, and some have made him look very odd (the refrigerator-white scleras of the eyes, for example).</p>

<p>He's not a bad looking guy. His teeth need some work. Looking at the photo, his hairline is receeding a bit, but changing that is going to completely change his appearance. If he has acne, I sure don't see it. He could lose 10 kg, but that's not a photography correction.</p>

[ianivey]

<p>I agree that, as the photographer, I would want to ask the groom specifically what he means by "all imperfections." It's great to provide a photo in which you've made changes the client told you he wants. It's not so great when a client notices you've changed something about his appearance that he did <em>not </em>see as an imperfection: it makes you appear judgmental about his appearance.</p>

<p>I'm pretty sure (partially to lighten the mood) that I'd show him the Brad Pitt example and say, "Fix all imperfections? Yep, I can do that for you. Here's what it'll look like -- tell me what you think?"</p>

<p>Then, assuming time and opportunity, I'd load a shot of him into Lightroom, and ask him to point out specifically what he wanted "fixed." Often, a groom will have one specific thing in mind (the tooth? the hairline? a mole/cyst?). I can then edit in Photoshop to show him how I would "fix" that problem or problems.</p>

<p>After fixing what he wanted, I'd alt-click on the original layer to show before/after, to emphasize the magnitude of the change. Most people seeing themselves edited will minimize their expectations once they see how unlike themselves they look after major alterations. This is especially true when they know how much it would cost to alter every photo in a 400-photo wedding set in a like fashion. Then, assuming he asked for several "fixes," I can turn off layers that have the most drastic changes and do before/after again until we agree that the result is within reasonable limits.</p>

<p>Finally, I'd save and move back to Lightroom. I would do this entire process to demonstrate subtly the time it takes to make changes like the one(s) he's requesting, which helps him understand the price of anything more than very basic changes to a few close-up shots.</p>

[tdigi]

<p>Consider picking up Niks color effects pro. Dynamic skin softener or glamour glow work well for bad or wrinkled skin. </p><div></div>

[bradwilliams]

<p>Hi Fiona,</p>

<p>Have you ever heard of kelbytraining.com? It is a great site for learning <em>lots</em> of retouching techniques. It also includes a plethora of other videos on photography-related topics. I purchased a one month subscription back in October of 2009 (which runs $24.95), and learned a lot in that month. The videos range from beginner to advanced, are taught by professionals, and easy to follow. There are two or three different video courses that cover exactly what you are asking about (skin retouching, teeth whitening, etc.) I would highly recommend it.</p>