Portrait Retouch - Opinions requested

[Travis]

Hey y'all!

I did a portrait retouch last night for the president of the company that I am contracting for. He had skin cancer and had to have the entire bottom portion of his face removed, the forehead skin pulled down to cover it, and his nose reconstructed using a portion of his buttocks. The top half of his face was white and the bottom half red. The scan itself sucked because it was dusty and had a monster cyan color cast.

Needless to say it was one of the more challenging retouch jobs that I have performed. I left some of the splotchiness and wrinkles to maintain the character. Let me know what you think. I've already shown it to the client and they are pleased (actually they placed the order on the spot) but for my personal growth, let me know if there is anything else that you would have changed, corrected, etc.

Below are the original and the retouch. Thanks!

Original Image
http://owney.smugmug.com/photos/226683343-M.jpg

Retouch
http://owney.smugmug.com/photos/226683427-M.jpg

[JimW]

Travis,

Your retouch looks first rate to me. Except, the red looks too strong overall. So I checked the numbers in PS (cmyk), and sure enough, the magenta is higher than yellow in face and background too. Smugmug's fleshtone help page is useful. Search fleshtones or pleasing fleshtones.

Great job on the retouch though. That looks like it was a really tough one.

Jim

[Travis]

Travis,

Your retouch looks first rate to me. Except, the red looks too strong overall. So I checked the numbers in PS (cmyk), and sure enough, the magenta is higher than yellow in face and background too. Smugmug's fleshtone help page is useful. Search fleshtones or pleasing fleshtones.

Great job on the retouch though. That looks like it was a really tough one.

Jim

Interesting observation because I spent a hour last night balancing the fleshtones to get the numbers right. I took samples from both the forehead and the chin since they were 2 extremely different colors. Now that you mention it though, I may have reversed the Cyan and Magenta. Doh! I will have to verify tonight. Thanks for the input!

Edit: I went back and checked. The 2 points that I selected had C: 14, M: 38, Y:46 but the tones were all over the place since his face was composed of 3 different types of skin due to the grafts.

[LiquidAir]

The top half and bottom half of his face are two very different colors. I actually just saw the same thing (to a lesser degree) in a portrait session I did last week. My solution was pretty simple: drop a curves layer on top, fill the mask with black and then paint with a white brush over the red portion. I just rough the mask in on the first pass. Then I sample the two different colors and adjust the curves to match them. Its really pretty easy to refine the mask and the curves settings until the color variation vanishes. For this portrait, I'd adjust the lower half of his face to match his forehead and use the Blend If sliders to protect his shirt and jacket.

[gregneil]

I agree it looks fantastic. My first instinct was to think it was a little bit too red also. Maybe instead of trying to change the color balance, just bringing the overall saturation down a tad might make it so it doesn't appear overly red?

I've also tried the tips on the smugmug fleshtones help page and had good success with them...

[Travis]

The top half and bottom half of his face are two very different colors. I actually just saw the same thing (to a lesser degree) in a portrait session I did last week. My solution was pretty simple: drop a curves layer on top, fill the mask with black and then paint with a white brush over the red portion. I just rough the mask in on the first pass. Then I sample the two different colors and adjust the curves to match them. Its really pretty easy to refine the mask and the curves settings until the color variation vanishes. For this portrait, I'd adjust the lower half of his face to match his forehead and use the Blend If sliders to protect his shirt and jacket.

Great idea. I'll give it a shot and see how it works out. Getting skin right is tough enough without the skin coming from multiple sources!

[Travis]

I went back and reworked the colors as well as the background and extended the canvas to add enough space for canvas gallery wrap. I appreciate all of the input and I'm happy with the final outcome. Here it is....

http://owney.smugmug.com/photos/226959358-M.jpg

Not shabby for a man of 90 years with major skin grafts. :thumb Thanks for all of your assistance!!!!!!!

[Owen]

Looks a bit green now..

[Icebear]

Superb job. I do agree that your last iteration is a tad green, but both the "red" and "green" are masterful jobs. Personally I like "red" better. Looks robustly healthy. After I look at skin for a long time, I just can't see the colors any more, and have to leave off for a few hours. Drives me crazy.

[Travis]

Thanks y'all. I was going for a tad more yellow/gree in the redo for 2 reasons... 1. it actually does look more like his natural color and 2. This portrait will hang beside one of wife that was printed by another photographer and has a slight greenish tint to it. It sounds wierd but decided it was better that they look similar than to fully correct his. Go figure....

I really appreciate the C&C! Thanks again,

[tlee]

Excellent re-touch. I am about to go crazy trying to "fix" skin tones myself. It's much easier dealing with flowers and bugs!!