Retouching a Portrait

In class we learnt how to retouch a portrait on Photoshop. This is often used for advertising purposes, such as in magazines and shop windows (posters). The original image we started with was this.

We had to 'beautify' the subject in accordance with society's supposed accepted standards, and this shows how the media has altered the publics perception of what is 'beautiful'. I did this using layer masks, as I have explained how to use in previous posts, and each layer was used to 'fix' a different thing.

Here you can see that I used the Spot Healing Brush. This gets rid of blemishes and spots, as well as wrinkles, when the area is selected and highlighted.

I used burn to darken the irises and parts of the eye. I also altered the contrast of parts of the eyes as well to accentuate the natural colours and pigments in them. I also used the layer masks to highlight and shadow some of the face, to smooth out the skin.

This is my finished image that I ended up with after the alterations on Photoshop. They are minor, but the overall effect is of a 'finished' image as it is slightly smoother, and 'perfected'.