Portrait retouch--too much?

[astscraode]

try a program like portrait professional or a plugin like imagemonic Portraiture.
these will give you even skin tone and if you are really wanting to learn retouching

[elle s'ennuie]

Originally Posted by Exposures

Oh NO! Not too rude at all. The person is actually me...it is for a newspaper/business card. I feel so ugly in pictures I thought I needed some help.

I know how that feels, really, I do.

Here's my (very unqualified!) opinion: Yes, it is a bit too much. You look very friendly and sweet in your original picture, whereas the edited one feels a bit empty, like a shell without the person. (Of course, maybe that's because it is next to the original, perhaps without that context it'd feel more authentic regardless of retouching.) I'd only retouch the blemishes and the shiny bits (and maybe change the background colour, as has been suggested), but leave the neck and chin as is.

[angah]

i've made some tweaking to the pic if you dont mind. I've screen up the pic then i clean up the skin using healing brush and gaussian blur. Change the background to popup the subject using hue/saturation.

then here come the tricks. i filter the pic in liquidfy. i pull the chin down and narrow the cheek.

After that i do some shadow and highlighting.

[SaraJane]

Yeah it is a bit much bc you can tell it's been retouched bc you've lost detail in the areas you've touched iykwim.

I have PSP and it's good for retouching. Here's a quick edit, would be able to do better if I had the original size though.

[idontknow97]

Hi I am new to all this as well and was wodnering how you did the background swap thanks.

[angah]

Originally Posted by idontknow97

Hi I am new to all this as well and was wodnering how you did the background swap thanks.

i'm using colourize saturation and masking