First attempt at airbrushing

[Cubix Rube]

I had to take a portrait of my wife for her employer's website. Of course, she wasn't exactly happy with it (mainly just beacause it's a picture of HER), so I followed Mizuno's airbrush tutorial, just to see how it would come out. Please let me know what you think. What should I do different next time?

Thanks in advance!

[gonzophoto]

Can we see the orig?

[led hed]

looks too much around the nose area.

[Cubix Rube]

Can we see the orig?
She'd KILL me if I posted it! Any other suggestions? Email?

looks too much around the nose area.
Yeah...I haven't figured out how to vary the intensity of the effect locally, i.e. around the nose, but not on the chin, etc...

[rdking01]

i agree with rob specifically between the nose and cheek area might br just a liitle overdone,..... can we come over for supper now?
i bet she is very pretty without any photoshoping!! i agree with gonzo we need to see the original

[chrisvl]

[quote=Cubix Rube;2973144]She'd KILL me if I posted it! Any other suggestions? Email?
[\quote]


Does she know you posted this one?:lol:
Tell her we think she's beautiful and she is.
Took my wife quite a bit of convincing to let me post her pics.
I haven't tried the tutorial yet myself but your first efforts look really good.

[imanyabob]

It look a little overdone to me. Can you link the original?

[Attic]

Turn down the brush opacity by half again and don't go to heavy. It looks too much.

[Cubix Rube]

Turn down the brush opacity by half again and don't go to heavy. It looks too much.

Duh!! Thanks for that comment! Tell me if this makes sense...
Leave the opacity at something like 90% for most areas, but reduce the opacity to something less for areas where detail is critical, like around the nose, etc. Still get some effect, but not as much as on other areas.

I'll give that a try. Thanks!

BTW...portrait photog is NOT my specialty...I'm mainly a landscape kinda guy with the majority of my stuff.

Thanks to everybody for your advice, and your nice comments about my wife! I'll ask her about posting the orig...

[R_Metzel]

A little over done as others have stated. Depending on the picture size that will be posted on the website, you can more then likely just use the heal and clone tools. At low rez and small size, people won't be able to make out any real skin or facial details. Just a thought! Never hurts to learn new PP techniques like skin smoothing though. Not a bad first attempt. Way better then mine came out.;)

[Cubix Rube]

Can we see the orig?

Woo hoo! In the name of getting advice, I got the green light from my lovely wife to post the original!

I'm gonna try the opacity thing, and see if I can't tone it down a bit and repost.

Anyway, here's the orig...

[SlyJosh]

As metzel stated above, if you would like the image to look a little less edited you can just use the heal tool, clone, and a little bit of blur. I did a quick job of what it could look like. (hope you don't mind :) )

160171

Hope this was somewhat helpful.

[imanyabob]

Here is my try:

http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b87/imanyabob/headshot-pp-by-ima.jpg

[XPHALCON]

Just ran across this thread. I learned/found the following technique, and it works very well when trying to soften skin imperfections, wrinkles, etc .
Make a duplicate layer, and use that layer to do your healing brush, softening brush, etc. Then the opacity/fill is adjusted to make the image look more realistic. You can't get rid of all the wrinkles, but this method will soften them quite a bit, and looks more natural.

Has anyone tried this method, or have bad results with it? Anyway, hope it helps!

I could give it a try myself, but am at work right now. Maybe I'll give it a shot when I get home.

[Kristy]

You're wife is lovely.. Her hair color and eyes are such a nice combination. I had a play with it.. simply duplicate your layer and use the clone tool to soften eye circles and smooth out skin and even out shadows... then I dodged the eyes a bit and burned around her eyeliner and lashes just a bit... Next adjust the opacity of this layer to your liking... I always bring back some of the natural lines, so the person looks real, but still keep them soft... Next, flatten and did a defog... added adjustment layers of levels and brightness to brighten it up some...

I don't like the green background.. I think it's not very flattering to her skin tone or her eyes, so I duplicated the layer, and cloned out everything in the background. Next selected it with the magic wand and changed the color...did gaussian blur to soften it.. Added a new fill layer for the oval cutout, and added an inner glow to get the blue lining...

Don't know if this is to your liking, but I think it's very natural looking and more flattering.. I would crop it to a different size if I were you, but it's difficult to crop these small files, so I didn't try.

EDIT.>.. I figured out how to crop it with the 72 DPI.. so this might look better...

[XPHALCON]

I believe Kristy did a better job than me explaining the technique here. Like she (?) stated, you still want to preserve some of the natural lines of the face, and using layers is a very effective way of achieving this. Nice example.

[Attic]

Duh!! Thanks for that comment! Tell me if this makes sense...
Leave the opacity at something like 90% for most areas, but reduce the opacity to something less for areas where detail is critical, like around the nose, etc. Still get some effect, but not as much as on other areas.

I'll give that a try. Thanks!

BTW...portrait photog is NOT my specialty...I'm mainly a landscape kinda guy with the majority of my stuff.

Thanks to everybody for your advice, and your nice comments about my wife! I'll ask her about posting the orig...
I use a opacity of around 20% after first spot cloning any blemishes. Hope this helps. Do it on new separate layers.

[Cubix Rube]

Wow...thank you all so much!! So many different ways to soften an image, and bring it to life!

Kristy and imanyabob, great jobs! Now I have to see if I can duplicate your efforts on the full size image. Hope I'm up to the task!

Ron

[Attic]

I had a little go for you and came up with this, hopefully subtle enough not to offend. I didn't push curves too much.

[Attic]

Just ran across this thread. I learned/found the following technique, and it works very well when trying to soften skin imperfections, wrinkles, etc .
Make a duplicate layer, and use that layer to do your healing brush, softening brush, etc. Then the opacity/fill is adjusted to make the image look more realistic. You can't get rid of all the wrinkles, but this method will soften them quite a bit, and looks more natural.

Has anyone tried this method, or have bad results with it? Anyway, hope it helps!

I could give it a try myself, but am at work right now. Maybe I'll give it a shot when I get home.
I always use new layers to work on and yes it gives you much more control with blending. I use a new layer for each smoothing, healing and blurring procedure. I find a lower brush opacity give you far more control also.

[Cubix Rube]

OK...This is MY final version. Thanks again for all your help. After all this, I'm glad I'm more into landscape than portrait, but at least I've found that I can do this in a pinch, if need be. Please let me know what you think of my final take. Thanks!