How can I make this look better? [rez warning]

[Chris Johnson 00 T/A]

I was stuck with poor light and in an area I have never been to before, but a co-worker of mine 'has' heterochromia iridium ( she called it something else ) and I just had to take her picture...

I'm unhappy with the car over her shoulder, and I'm not the best at Photoshop...

Suggestions? Comments? Leave it alone? Help?

http://www.2000transam.com/temp/web_0713.jpg

[monkey_wrench]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v608/tatton/web_0713.jpg

[PhotosGuy]

Have you ever tried Filter > Extract? It should work well on her hair & you can put her in another background.
Then look in Post Processing at the sticky tutorials & see how to smoothen the skin on her face.

[Chris Johnson 00 T/A]

monkey_wrench: doesn't that look REALLY blue to you? It does here. I like the warm tone she has to her skin.

PhotosGuy: I'll give it a shot...

[froman98]

Her eyes are really cool!

[CookieMonster]

reminds me of the eyes of Kate Bosworth.

[CyberPet]

That's some cool eyes!

I'm sorry if I played with the image a bit... I didn't spend much time on it, so it can be improved on the original (if you like it).

http://the-halls.se/edited/duoeyes.jpg

First I thought I'd make the whole background b/w, so I made an adjustment layer and mixed channels to get a b/w picture. Then I painted with the black color on the adjustment layer to bring back the colors in her face. While I did that I thought *hmm... maybe some more blur in the background* so before I brought back all color (just her face, hair and blouse). I made a copy of the background copy and used the mask I had already made in the adjustment layer and selected the parts I wanted blurry, and went crazy with Gaussian blur. Then I went back to my adjustment layer with mixed channels and brougth back the green grass behind her and the tree's. Just left the cars in the background in b/w.

[Chris Johnson 00 T/A]

Thank you.. playing is what I'm looking for...

Like I said, I wish I had more time to take these pictures.. now I'm forced to post-process. I didn't think of the b/w background... interesting thought.

[drisley]

I think the original looks almost perfect. I really like the skin tone in Petra's version though.

[Ron Isachsen]

Put the Eyes higher in the frame. Added 1" to right side because one eye was looking that direction. Threw a little MSoo Velvia 3.0 at it.

http://roncam.smugmug.com/photos/24724501-M.jpg

[mgbeach]

cropped, did some selective sharpening on the eyes and lips, smoothed the skin a bit, and ran through Neat Image.

[CyberPet]

mgbeach, that's an awesome crop! Really puts the eyes in focus, plus the bluish color on her right makes the blue/green eye more prominent.

[Chris Johnson 00 T/A]

Wow... looks awesome mgbeach.. I need to see if I can do similar to my raw image.

Ron.. I'm getting a x from your link...

[drisley]

Mgbeach really knows his stuff.

[Sailfish]

cropped, did some selective sharpening on the eyes and lips, smoothed the skin a bit, and ran through Neat Image.

What did you do to smooth the skin? It looks fantastic!

Mal

[NEC1236]

Maybe a bad lense choice?

[mgbeach]

What did you do to smooth the skin? It looks fantastic!

Mal

I use the clone tool at a flow of 30% and an opacity of 30%, with a brush that has hardness set to 0. I change sources (alt-click) a lot. It's a bit difficult to describe, but I don't use strokes at all. It's basically a click-fest, like dabbing a paintbrush, and just building up the color. I tend to do this work on a duplicate layer and go a little overboard. Then you can lower the opacity to let a little of the original come through. That helps it from looking too much like plastic. I really liked this photo a lot. Her eyes are incredible.

[cgratti]

Took the liberty of trying this out myself.

Softened skin removed slight blemishes, sharpened eyes and lips and made the lips a bit redder, whitened eyes, cropping, and a bit of a blur on the edges.
Oh, and made her eyes the same color.

[berrylish]

that would be koo to have 2 different colored eyes. mine would be purple and blue ;)

[Chris Johnson 00 T/A]

Oh, and made her eyes the same color.

Yeah, but, that takes away 95% of the 'coolness' of the shot.

Thanks for all of the input guys. As soon as I'm done moving my house, I'm going to sit down and give this a try.

Thanks to all of you, I have something to shoot for.

[cgratti]

Yeah, but, that takes away 95% of the 'coolness' of the shot.

Thanks for all of the input guys. As soon as I'm done moving my house, I'm going to sit down and give this a try.

Thanks to all of you, I have something to shoot for.

I agree it does, but if she were to hate having eyes like that then she wouldnt mind having them changed in a photo.

[Sailfish]

I use the clone tool at a flow of 30% and an opacity of 30%, with a brush that has hardness set to 0. I change sources (alt-click) a lot. It's a bit difficult to describe, but I don't use strokes at all. It's basically a click-fest, like dabbing a paintbrush, and just building up the color. I tend to do this work on a duplicate layer and go a little overboard. Then you can lower the opacity to let a little of the original come through. That helps it from looking too much like plastic. I really liked this photo a lot. Her eyes are incredible.

Thanks. Sounds like a long process. But worth trying on a good photo.

Mal