Any feedback will be much appreciated.

[krakenspraken]

Hi everyone, I did try to enhance a photo from the Internet.
Did I do a "good" job on the eyes?
How about the lips does it look natural?
What I can do better to push this work further?
Work still in progress.
Thank you so much for taking some of your time in checking this post.

Before

After

 

[Rich54]

I think your retouch came out very well. The eyes and lips look good. You cleaned up most of the blemishes on her skin, but she still looks natural like a real person and your image is not overly blurred or plastic looking, which can sometimes happen when people take things too far. If it were me, I'd make two further changes. (1) the area surrounding her mouth has more of a yellow tone than the rest of her face, which tends toward red... and to me is a bit too red in certain areas. I would even that out using a Hue/Saturation adjustment. (2) I would soften the crease around her neck.

I took your "After" image and made those two refinements.

 

[krakenspraken]

Thank you so much, I will try that out. Appreciate it really.

Just a quick question, what kind of tools should I use to remove the eyebags (The black thingy under her eyes)?

 

[Rich54]

Just a quick question, what kind of tools should I use to remove the eyebags (The black thingy under her eyes)?

There are many ways you could approach it. In my opinion the best way is a technique called Frequency Separation, which allows you to work separately on the skin color/darkness vs. the skin texture. But it's somewhat involved and takes practice, and I don't know your level of photoshop skills. If you're interested, go to YouTube and search Phlearn Frequency Separation. Also, do a Google search for Lee Varis Skin Tutorials where you'll find a website with about two dozen interesting skin retouching tutorials.

In this particular photo, her eye bags are minimal (I wouldn't even use the word 'bags') so other methods can work well. I removed them with the Patch Tool and then a Curves adjustment.
With the Patch Tool, replace the slightly mottled skin texture with a smoother skin texture sampled from just below the eye bags.
For the curves adjustment, increase the brightness of the overall image about 10% more than you think you'll need, and change the blend mode to Lighten. Then completely fill the layer mask with black, at which point you're right back where you started. Select a soft brush and change the Fill to something very low---around 15%. Now slowly paint in the layer mask with white over the darkened areas under the eyes and carefully build up the brightness without it looking fake and without any obvious borders or transitions with the rest of her face.

 

[krakenspraken]

Thank you so much, it did help me a lot and I now know what to check.
If 10 is the highest photoshop skill level and 0 is the lowest. I believe I do am at number 2. Barely holding and just new to photoshop.
I just want to master the skill of retouching any image while looking natural.

Thank you Rich54, appreciate your help and feedback.

I did soften the crease around her neck.
Before changing the settings of the Hue/Saturation, I did try to make a selection on her head.
Is this the right thing to do?


Tried to play with hue/saturation but I think it is a little bit off. What do you think guys?

 

[Rich54]

Skin retouching is a particular interest of mine, as well. I corrected the red-yellow skin balance using a Hue/Saturation adjustment, but I applied it specifically to the red and yellow channels using the techniques explained in this video: (The first 3 minutes discuss RGB color space, but then he gets to the specifics about how to use the Hue/Saturation adjustment in a precisely targeted way: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tv1gHs6who

Making a selection of her head first is fine, but I generally don't bother. After I've done all my Hue/Saturation adjustments, I fill the entire layer mask with black. Then I take a soft brush and paint in the mask with white to apply the corrections only to where it's needed, avoiding the eyes, lips and teeth. If you set the Flow of the brush (I mistakenly called it "Fill" up above) to around 35% or so while you're painting white in the layer mask, you can apply the Hue/Saturation gradually, with varying intensity, over different areas of her face, to give you greater control over the end result.

 

[krakenspraken]

Thank you sooooo much for the help. I will post a updated version of the image above later today.

 

[krakenspraken]

First of all thank you for the help and here is the final product.
What you guys think?
Did I over do it?
Is there anything else we can do to make this image more beautiful or is this enough?