Amber: Revisited

Every now and then I like to revisit some of my previous photoshoots. Today I decided to revisit one of these pictures from Ambers many sets. With the knowledge I have now regarding retouching and what not, I wondered... how different would this picture be from the original one that I retouched back in June (5 months ago!).

I went through the motions that I now apply to most of my images, first running a curves layer to brighten the image up. Then taking care of the big things first like the blotchiness, dark spots, big things that needed to be healed up. Then I ran through the layers action to separate the skin using spatial frequencies. After most of the uneven tones as well as the little blemishes on the skin had been taken care of, I spent lots of time dodging and burning the remaining uneven portions of the skin, paying attention to transitions of light and shadow (I used to do this quite arbitrarily). Then I made sure to sharpen, darken certain portions with another curves, bring out the eye color and eye lashes, dodge and burn some more, etc... all the remaining little things that I don't think about but depending on each image needs. Lastly, I used output sharpening from Lr to bring out the details at the output resolution of 1024 pixels on the long end.

Here is a June vs. October comparison at the same resolution (click on each for 1024 pixel version):

June


October


I'm not sure how I feel. The pictures are different to begin with but primarily I'm not sure if I'm completely happy with the October retouch. There's something about the resizing that I'm not happy with particularly as it applies to the sharpness...

Camera info: D3/24-70mm f/2.8G @70mm, 1/200th, f/9.0, ISO200

Strobist info: AB800 into a beauty dish from camera upper right. SB-800 placed on the ground in front of camera for hair/rim lighting.

Model: Amber McNeil MM#1188271

Makeup: Krystal Almanza MM#902517