Retouching Examples-Too Much?

[movingex]

http://webpark.ru/photo/shop2/index.php?i=1

Before and After examples

Note that you have to click the image to see the 'before' image.

You be the judge.

[OTRphoto]

Don't know if it's just too late... but they don't look too overdone to me. Just seems to be some basic camouflage that I do on alot of stuff as well...

[ngoduyviet]

Not overdone, just enough. Good PS work btw.

[movingex]

Originally Posted by ngoduyviet

Not overdone, just enough. Good PS work btw.

Oh this is not my stuff, I wish it was. Just a link someone else posted on another site.

[jeffkohn]

Some of the are definitely over-done, to the point of being dishonest.

What surprises me is how many of the images are retouched to fix bad photography, especially bad lighting.

[Duffy Pratt]

For me, I basically think that this is a good example of a bad thing done very well. It's a bad thing because I typically hate this type of beauty/glamor retouching. I like skin with pores and wrinkles. And I like other "imperfections". In these examples, the retoucher is highly skilled at performing these operations. I just he (or she) would use his powers for good instead ;)

Duffy

[z-monster]

Ok, quite a few of those before shots scare me.

I'm gonna have nightmares.

[fstops]

i think 1 and 2 are overdone. i like to keep some of the wrinkles rather than erase them completely. i notice most the cosmetics you performced during post-prod could had been easily taken care of with a good stylist on set (i.e. shinnies, uneven skintone, fly away hairs etc.).

[Detonate]

There is no such thing as over-done.

[LWimages]

I like them. I believe the editors achieved what the final outcome was supposed to be according to his/her spec.

[Adrienne B]

I don't think there's too much airbrushing at all, but I really dislike how the post processing of models and celebrities generally makes them much skinnier. What a horrible image to be sending out.

[Duffy Pratt]

Originally Posted by Adrienne B

I don't think there's too much airbrushing at all, but I really dislike how the post processing of models and celebrities generally makes them much skinnier. What a horrible image to be sending out.

I agree. But I would take it further. The use of photoshopped images to sell cosmetics and anti-aging creams is at least as bad. More and more, the ideal that I see in magazines and advertisements is a caricature of a mannequin or a Barbie doll.

Duffy

[mangosli]

I wish I had those Photoshop skills! I didn't look through all of them, but on the ones I did look at I was still able to see a lot of skin texture which I liked. I know some may view it as dishonest, but it is nothing that portrait artists haven't been doing for centuries at their client's behest.

I do agree about using stuff like that for advertising being unethical. I'm glad that the cosmetics company I worked for for 11 years actually used real people as their models, wrinkles and all. I was also in charge of efficacy claims and did quite a bit of before and after photography (how I got into photography) and I can tell you that most major companies are extremely rigid on making sure lighting conditions, head positioning, time of day, etc. are strictly controlled so that the results you see are only the result of product performance and not lighting tricks like you see with some of the fly by night companies.

[luis_relampago]

Photoshop is an important part of the photography, you can always enhance the mood and work on the composition, correct the flaws of stuff you don't wish to show give it a great look as we can see here in this examples. I think is the job of the photographer to create great images of his subject, to enhance his/her good features and hide his/her bad ones so we can make our client feel better about him self and photoshop give us the tools to do it. The only time where you don't want to do too much of PP is in photojournalism and that's my humble opinion.