Before Shots or After Shots?

[gleff]

I took these two photos at this years ARIA Awards and decided to do some experimenting in Photoshop tonight in softening the skin tones.

Open to critique. Also, which do you like better, the Before shots, or the After shots?



Before


After


Before


After


Geoff

[Oz_Beachside]

Hi Geoff,

What are you trying to acheive here?

I dont know the first character, but certainly, Peter Garret's treatment is too soft.

It looks like you have applied a softener all over, but eyes, teeth, eyebrows, lips, dont look very natural when softened.

Perhaps experiemnt with the "Healing brush", with the opacity at 50%. Its a nice way to soften feature, like harsh smile lines, or say the wrinkles in front of #2's ears.

Back to my first question, I dont think this treatment is suitable for these people. these are not "soft" men.

I learned to differentiate the use of the SHARPEN, BLUR, DODGE, BURN, HEALING AND PAINT BRUSH, each with different characteristics for "enhancing" people. Try each of these out, and dont forget to experiment with the "variables" of each.

[gleff]

Hi Geoff,

What are you trying to acheive here?

I dont know the first character, but certainly, Peter Garret's treatment is too soft.

It looks like you have applied a softener all over, but eyes, teeth, eyebrows, lips, dont look very natural when softened.

Perhaps experiemnt with the "Healing brush", with the opacity at 50%. Its a nice way to soften feature, like harsh smile lines, or say the wrinkles in front of #2's ears.

Back to my first question, I dont think this treatment is suitable for these people. these are not "soft" men.

I learned to differentiate the use of the SHARPEN, BLUR, DODGE, BURN, HEALING AND PAINT BRUSH, each with different characteristics for "enhancing" people. Try each of these out, and dont forget to experiment with the "variables" of each.

I was essentially trying to get rid of blemishes etc but I get where you're coming from. Being rockers I guess they would look better looking that way.

You're right about applying it all over but I guess I jumped the gun. I thought both looked okay I'll experiment further.

This is fun with my new Cintiq

[ATJ]

I prefer the "Before" images in both cases. They have far more character.

[mattyjacobs]

I can see what you're trying to achieve with Kram's (#1 & 2) forehead, if you could isolate it to that area only, I think it would be great.

[Nnnnsic]

I wouldn't be trying the PP as heavily as you're doing it. It looks very CG and not in a good way. With younger people, a degree of PP is useful with softening the skin and making them seem more like they glisten (though don't overkill it as a lot of people do) but the older people just look... odd... with this sort of work done.

Personally, I'd leave them be unless they've got some acne or cosmetic work they want removed in which case you'd want to replace the patches of skin with their own skin to make it seem consistent.

[macka]

Definitely 'before' shots.

After shots make their skin look pretty odd to me. Not natural.

[Killakoala]

I think trying to make either of them look better than they do in real life is a near impossible task. Nice try though.