Retouching - Michaela Young

Retouching a picture is time consuming and sometimes controversial, but it is often necessary to a point to capture your subject at their best. Below you will see my retouched picture and the original that I started with.

Retouch

The pose and drape used in this picture are ones we use for the yearbook pictures for Harrisville. They have asked for a very specific type of picture so that all will match. I thought this type of pose and the subject that I chose would make for a good retouch because the removal of acne, smoothing of skin, and detailing the hair structure along with the sleek drape would create a dramatic final product.

I worked on the following in this picture:
Whitened irises - 30% opacity
Widened her left eye
Colored her lips - 30% opacity using overlay to keep texture
Whitened teeth - 40% opacity
Removed fly away hair and larger sections that stuck out - cloning tool
Cleaned up skin and smoothed it - worked with the spot healing tool, healing tool, cloning tool, and dodge and burn tools. It was a trial and error project with many Ctrl Z steps. I varied my % of opacity and switched between normal and overlay modes. The shiny parts were hard to work with. I also find the nose to be a problem because you don't want to lose the shape.
I also removed the clasp on her necklace because it was laying on her chest instead of behind her neck. I used the clone stamp tool for that.
Hair lightening - this was not a great step. I had one area that I didn't and still don't like. I ended up losing texture and had to spend a lot of time trying to recreate it.
Lasting, I did a diffuse glow, gaussian blur, and black vignette on edges. I know the diffuse glow is a little much, but I liked the feel of it.

Original