New guy here with some advice needed...

[Paulie1108]

Just wanted to say hello to everyone and jump right in with some pictures to post and get advice. I am self teaching my self Photoshop using books and what ever videos I can find on line. My goal is to become a photo re-toucher for photographers and models. II know I have a long way to go but what do you think of these so far:
(I'm a big boy I can take constructive judgement well) So be honest...

Before

After


My goal here was to try and keep her looking as natural as I can.
Method:
I made multiple layers and mask of her eyes and surrounding area and lighten some areas (pupil, iris) while darken others (eye lashes). I had to pain the makeup on to make the original color pop a little more. I also added some color to her with a variance layer.

My goal for the picture below was the same.
Before


After

[RedneckR0nin]

Not doing too bad at all man! There are many tools you can use to touch up blemishes and beauty marks! Such as the healing brush, smudge, Clone tool, and others! Start trying to use them all slowly but surrely and you find what works the best in certain situations!

[Vafann]

I think you have done a really good job making her skin look natural, but it doesn´t look very flattering. Somehow the skin looks kind of thick and bumpy. The arms are really well done, and look very natural and have a healthy kind of glow, but the face is still a bit too coarse I think. I am no expert myself, and I couldn´t do it better, but I am just giving my initial observations.

[Paulie1108]

Not doing too bad at all man! There are many tools you can use to touch up blemishes and beauty marks! Such as the healing brush, smudge, Clone tool, and others! Start trying to use them all slowly but surrely and you find what works the best in certain situations!

Thanks I try not to use the smudge, or blur tools one photographer told me it all in the skin and not to make anything blurry fo when the pictures get blown up. I use the healing tool a lot for now. I'm going to try and learn the dodge and burn method this weekend.

@Vafann Yeah I know what you mean I think I need to adjust the lighting in light room to give the work some depth after retouching.

[RedneckR0nin]

Thanks I try not to use the smudge, or blur tools one photographer told me it all in the skin and not to make anything blurry fo when the pictures get blown up. I use the healing tool a lot for now. I'm going to try and learn the dodge and burn method this weekend.

@Vafann Yeah I know what you mean I think I need to adjust the lighting in light room to give the work some depth after retouching.

I use them sometimes but I also have a ton of plugins and filter that will sharpen up a image pretty well! That is another trick of the trade!

[Paulie1108]

thanks I just noticed I had to darken the back ground on her...

BTW what are you using to calibrate the colors on your screen

[Hoogle]

I would point you to my own tutorials. it covers a lot of techniques and work flow of this work. I am the first to admit that the tutorial work is all over done I was overcompensating for the fact I thought it would not show up on video and as I had a new codec installed it did and B I was against time in making it as to not make the videos to long. However that said with the workflow everything can be adjusted to personal preference siply by lowering layer opacity.
Hoogles Workflow
I hope it helps

[ibclare]

Hoog's tutorial is good. I would like to add to the basic above comments that In the first touch up, I think her lips look better in the original. Somehow they look patchy and the luster is gone. Also, even though it is the lighting and color, the orangey shadowing, especially on the forehead, is distracting to me. But overall it's pretty good.

[Hoogle]

If I was to touch this up as a portrait this is what I would do apart from I am assuming you have the default forum layout with white background so the border that is a dirty white would be actualy crisp white as you will see in the psd but it was just so you can see it on the forum. I have also included my psd to show you the steps I would take. It is actually a hard picture to touch up on.
Hoogle touch up.psd
You would also possibly like to remove some of the highlights from mouth to nose but I left them there as not to alter the original to much

[Paulie1108]

If I was to touch this up as a portrait this is what I would do apart from I am assuming you have the default forum layout with white background so the border that is a dirty white would be actualy crisp white as you will see in the psd but it was just so you can see it on the forum. I have also included my psd to show you the steps I would take. It is actually a hard picture to touch up on.
Attachment 9937Attachment 9938
You would also possibly like to remove some of the highlights from mouth to nose but I left them there as not to alter the original to much

That's really good and a lot better than I can do. If you were to do a models portfolio would you use the liquify filter as it enlarges the eyes and mouth a little, don't model want to stay as natural as possible?
Your work flow are very complicated to me right now but I will enjoy learning them.

Here is a picture i'm practicing on now but having trouble with her left eye as it so dark in that corner.


Your work is great you think you could make a step by step using this picture I'm really interested in how you fix the upper left side of her face.