A Study on Texture

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I pulled the previous two screen shots from a recent beauty retouch to illustrate the importance of maintaining skin texture in a final image. The first two images were taken at 66.7%, before and after retouching.

The following two shots show the image in its entirety--and hopefully demonstrate the fact that over-retouched, "plastic"-looking images are silly:

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Recent Retouch

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This was an interesting image to retouch--I spent some time analyzing the image and decided that she looked a bit scrunched, which distracted me. I focused on things that the viewer would immediately notice and worked from there: the distracting wisps of the model's hair due to the fan that was used, her posture, the amount of skin visible below the neck (which I thought detracted from her face).

I had the idea to extend her neck a bit and fix her posture, so I used the model's hair from another shot help complete the transformation.

Click each image to see larger, and enjoy!