Judge my PS skills

So in the past I've generally stayed away from heavy editing in PS, mostly because I've not done much of it in the past, and Lightroom does such a great job that I haven't seen a huge need. I never learned how to really use Photoshop to it's fullest and I'm not saying that I have now, but I did some heavy layering etc to this photograph.

Needless to say, I'll be using PS a whole lot more now that I have learned some techniques, I think it really made a huge difference in the photograph.

So now comes my request,

I'm wanting your opinion, is this photograph believable? I did a lot of adjustment to it, but tried to be as conservative as I could (a lot of steps, but very light on them all). I'm hoping the PS doesn't show too much, the model will notice, but I think it's flattering. But if you hadn't seen the original would you think this photograph to be retouched?

I'll post the original and then the version I edited heavily. The first one has just had basic global adjustments made in Lightroom.

I can describe my method for touching up this portrait if anyone is interested, but most of you probably already do this sort of thing easily.

SLC

Lightroom version

Final version (Photoshop CS3)

Thanks!

CrackedButter said:

Hadn't noticed the smoothing of the skin, I'd have preferred it in there since I dislike airbrushing.

Click to expand...

This and Digital Skunks comments are perhaps what I was looking for. If you can't tell, my objective was met.

SLC

CrackedButter said:

No i think you're wrong, I did state the differing sizes were a problem and your adjustments to the skin though slight are a problem now I've noticed it. The forehead is far too shiny and it shows now when comparing it to the hair next to it.

Please remember as well you're also asking us to compare two low quality images online when really what you need to do is print both of these with a good quality printer and ask people what they think while it is in their hands.

I would be more inclined to pay more attention when looking at a print because most people's attention will be focused on it more so than a person with music blaring and multiple tabs browsing various sites. So don't take much stock in people's opinions from an internet forum, print the images. I did view these on a 13" screen without being able to make a side by side comparison after all.

I printed an image today, AO size from a 35mm neg to make sure it looked good enough, viewing images on a screen sometimes isn't good enough. The damn thing cost me $54 as well.

More to the point, what is wrong with the first image anyway?

@Orpheus1120 - Why are you removing the freckles?

Click to expand...

Mostly the first portrait when viewed at full resolution has some very pronounced pores in the skin of her face. I wanted to soften those up a bit hence the skin smoothing. Apart from that I was fairly happy with the photo and the model was thrilled, even more so with the edited version.

What I was trying to get at and what I commented to crackedbutter about, was the fact that he/she didn't notice the airbrushing on the skin at first. I was hoping it wasn't too obvious and apparently it isn't. This was my first attempt at doing anything but global edits to a portrait.

Thanks for the comments, I'll incorporate your observations into future work!

SLC