Portrait retouch

[Krebstar4000]

My first real attempt at a 'professional style' portrait...the original is so bad because I have terrible lighting in my apartment.





Let me know what you think. Thanks for looking

[statichash]

I like it! Much much better than the before. Good work!

[zona5101]

Nice work, not only on the color correction but under the eyes and i note a couple of other spots removed....

[yulchick]

nicely done love the results

[BigFuzzy]

It's a good job of white balance correction, so that's good.

Your PS work (particularly on the neck where you tried to remove the dark smudge) could use a bit of refining. I think it'd even be more noticeable in a larger version of the image.

Still, all-in-all a good edit of the original, keep it up.

[Krebstar4000]

Originally Posted by BigFuzzy

It's a good job of white balance correction, so that's good.

Your PS work (particularly on the neck where you tried to remove the dark smudge) could use a bit of refining. I think it'd even be more noticeable in a larger version of the image.

Still, all-in-all a good edit of the original, keep it up.

Suggestions on how to address this? I burnt and dodged and patch tooled the heck out of it I couldn't think of a way to smooth it and make it look 'naturally' consistent...

[OsmosisStudios]

Don't take this the wrong way, but there's a LOT here that should have been done right in the camera instead of in post.

[Krebstar4000]

Originally Posted by OsmosisStudios

Don't take this the wrong way, but there's a LOT here that should have been done right in the camera instead of in post.

Are you going to elaborate or just admonish? My original post did say that this was my first try at this. And what can be done in the camera when I post a version of my RAW file?

[BigFuzzy]

Originally Posted by Krebstar4000

Suggestions on how to address this? I burnt and dodged and patch tooled the heck out of it I couldn't think of a way to smooth it and make it look 'naturally' consistent...

Did you do it on a layer which could then be blended more smoothly into the original, or did you do it right on the original?
Plus, I personally don't do much dodging, I find I'm not good at it. What I'd have done in your case when trying to get rid of that dark splotch was to use the clone stamp tool to soften the edges so that the transition from dark to light was less pronounced. I probably wouldn't have tried to get rid of it entirely.. but that's purely because i'm sucky with PS. I just wanted you to know that it stood out to me, even if I'm unable to tell you how to do it best because I know sometimes we get caught up in our own work to the point we don't see the obvious. Good luck!

[Psyclop]

With a combinason of the spot, healing, patch tool and the clone stamo tool, you should
be able to get pretty good result. use a soft brush and take down the tool opacity,
Also check Software training online-tutorials for Adobe, Microsoft, Apple & more to learn how to use those tool