before/after, #3

i'm not used to retouching male models, so it's somewhat difficult to keep myself from over-retouching. men shouldn't look plastic. of course, neither should women, but that's where retouching tends to take us. i think i may have over did him just a bit, but let me know what you think. i believe i lose the right to judge my work after staring at a shot for 3o-4o minutes.

the colors are a bit off, which tends to happen when i convert from raw to jpg. i know there's a way to fix that, so i'll be repost as soon as i have the chance to reconvert. his eyes are much more blue in the tiff image, though.

the hardest part of this job was the tattoo. removing it without blending in the background hue was rather frustrating. i found that i tend to make things more difficult than they need to be sometimes. first, i tried patching, but he blended with the background. then, i tried the healing brush (the actual healing brush, not the spot heal). it worked a little better, but i was still getting the gray tint on his arm. finally, i decided to go back to basics and just clone it out. with the right hardness, it was almost too easy. typically, assuming the tattoo is surrounded by "skin pixels", patch would be the best deal, but it all depends on the shot.