The lips are bothering me

[Durnik20]

I am working on this for a course I am taking and the lips are bothering me. They just seem way to dark, but before I submit this I thought it would also be helpful to have it critiqued here as well so I might catch something I had missed or did not know.



I think the skin might need darkening too...I am limited to Lightroom for any modifications so feel free to critique Photoshop CS related tips but know I will not be able to implement them,

Nikon D5000
1/50s at f / 2.8
116mm
ISO 1600
Flash did not fire
70-200mm f/2.8

[laughlinc]

I think the skin is WAY too soft, especially with how sharp the eyes are....it just doesn't look natural. I'm not sure if you've used an adjustment brush or just adjusted the Clarity slider but I would bring back some of the definition in the skin. The color of his lips does not bother me at all. I would clone the lighter patch on the left side of the chin to make it more uniform though.

[MrJones]

Originally Posted by laughlinc

I think the skin is WAY too soft, especially with how sharp the eyes are....it just doesn't look natural. I'm not sure if you've used an adjustment brush or just adjusted the Clarity slider but I would bring back some of the definition in the skin. The color of his lips does not bother me at all. I would clone the lighter patch on the left side of the chin to make it more uniform though.

agreed.
it just feels like someone washed out every little detail in his face.

[jeader]

I agree with above posts and would like to add that there are some smudges on the left side of his chin...did you use a smudger or maybe the model skin tool of on one?

[zona5101]

your black and white conversion is muddy...not a lot of tonal separation, the highlights on the cheeks for example look too gray. You lighting looks good, you have a nice triangle on the short side although I would prefer the light to be higher so the shadow falls down and away from the far side eye rather than up and into the eye. Agree with the pp that the skin looks a little soft but i would rework the b&w conversion first and see if that doesn't work better with the skin the way you have it now...

[Durnik20]

I appreciate the input, The smudging (If It is what I think it is) is the result of removing a pimple the young man had there.

I agree with the skin comments wholeheartedly but am having issue bringing out definition in the skin of the face, I am tweaking the B&W conversion but it was pretty pale and even to begin with so did not give me a lot to work with.

And again I love the input so far!

[SusanH1970]

In complete agreement with all previous posters. Would you be willing to post a SOOC? Maybe we can help you with and edit you'll be happy with.

[Durnik20]

Here is the original RAW image, (though when I export it to flicker it converts it to jpeg of course, but I havent altered anything)

[SusanH1970]

Thanks for posting the SOOC. Your exposure was excellent in the original, great job! I did about a 15 second edit in CS2 (I know you have LR so don't know how helpful this will be).

Cropped.

Spot healing brush on the blemish on his nose (I left the freckles; I only remove blemishes that are temporary, never anything that's a permanent feature unless the client asks).

Gradient map conversion.

Resized and sharpened slightly for web.

[Durnik20]

Hmm I like that, and the advice on leaving freckles helps with the smoothness of the face. Here are my questions.

1. Using the gradient conversion is a noticeable improvement over just converting to greyscale, is there a way to do that in lightroom.

2. Is the skin still to bright, he had very pale skin to begin with so I dont want to darken it so it looks unnatural but could it be brought down a bit or is it fine where it is?