is this photoshopped too much?

i think it looks too fake but the only skin editing tutorials i could find taught me how to use "surface blur" but i dont know if that will always suffice. did it come out okay this time? suggestions are all too welcome thanks

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TBH, It makes her look younger. I wouldn't say fake looking only because I don't know what she looks like in person. If I had personally known her then maybe it would look fake.

I would say that it does look okay. The most important part is if she thinks it looks okay because it is of her. Slightly too dark also

If you ask me it's a little over done. It's obvious editing has been done. If done right, edits should look pretty much natural and the viewer shouldn't be able to tell.

Good start though and good technique. I would just tone it down a little.

tharmsen wrote in post #7587324
If you ask me it's a little over done. It's obvious editing has been done. If done right, edits should look pretty much natural and the viewer shouldn't be able to tell.

Good start though and good technique. I would just tone it down a little.

Agreed.

I think you did a good job.

On her face isn't to bad. Where i see the problem is on her hand, there is no surface. I think you could do more here with just the healing tool, that would maintain the character in her face and hands. Sometimes the texture of a persons skin tells a story about that person adding to the feel of the shot. Save all the PP for glamour shots.

what techniques do you guys use in photoshop? i've heard of cloning, but is that a technique in cs3?

The fingers look fake. Rest looks good.

ngrohosky wrote in post #7588963
what techniques do you guys use in photoshop? i've heard of cloning, but is that a technique in cs3?

For fine control over lines and wrinkles, I use an overlay (like you would for burning). There's a good tutorial on exactly this at: http://av.adobe.com/ru​ssellbrown/SoftDodgeSM​.mov (Don't get put off by the car, the second half of the video is exactly what you want, I think). Cloning is basically copy/pasting parts of the image onto other parts to hide things (or to make it look like you married triplets ). It's usually horrible, horrible, horrible for this kind of thing. The healing tool is OK for small blemishes, the overlay method above is good for lines and wrinkles, and smoothing/liquefying is ok for changing the texture of the skin, but you can usually see its been done.

thanks for your help

droberts wrote in post #7587403
On her face isn't to bad. Where i see the problem is on her hand, there is no surface. I think you could do more here with just the healing tool, that would maintain the character in her face and hands. Sometimes the texture of a persons skin tells a story about that person adding to the feel of the shot. Save all the PP for glamour shots.

+1, couldn't have said it better myself.

you have strong glamour post-processing skills though for whenever you may need them.

thank you very much

When I do stuff like this I usually duplicate the background layer and work on a copy, that way you can adjust the opacity of the top layer to make your edits look more natural. Just make a copy of your background and edit that, then adjust the opacity to allow some of the b/g to show through your edit, that allows you to strike a balance between the original and the edit and that makes the result more realistic and less obvious that it has been processed. Hope that makes sense!

yeah, +1 on the opacity of the 2 layers (above me)

i think the face is a bit overdone too (under the nose etc), and especially the hands (she has no joints and her fingernails that should be relatively sharp have no texture)...

Looks cartoonish to me.