Retouching - Lighting/Skin/Background

[phatso]

Thanks for looking over my images, again from a test shoot i did last week. Been trying to sort out my retouching.

On this one i was trying out liqify, skin tone correction, skin smoothing, blended her hair colour a bit and then added the digital background

Please could you let me know what you think of this image?

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4024/4352721111_f68b7d7304.jpg

Original for comparison:

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4048/4352720543_c0ec4f2228.jpg

[chrisu002]

image is ok but the background is very 80s

[Roy Mathers]

In order fully to appreciate what you've done, it's better for you to post the original so that we can compare. I agree with Chris' comment about the background, by the way.

[phatso]

hehe yeah its very cheesy but i happened to have it to hand to try out a full digital bg as instead of just cleaning up the one i shot against.

[navydoc]

Do you think the shot might look better if you removed some of the fly away hair too?

...just a thought.

[phatso]

Thanks again NavyDoc for the advice and well done edit.

[disjecta]

I like it better with the original hair. I'm finding your choice of backgrounds to be conflicting with the main subject for attention. I would suggest you really tone it down to just a suggestion of a glow around the subject, similar to what you see in many portraits. The photo is about the girl after all.