HELP! Help with Liquidfy Tool for fat face double chin

[LaDonna]

I need help with slimming the bride's face and neck. I can't get a favorable result. This bride was really hard to shoot. I THOUGHT I could fix her in photoshop. Boy was I wrong!
I tried the distort and liquidfy method, but could not do a good enough job. After my poor job, I had to then suggest to the bride that she remove the extra piece in the center of the dress which makes the dress look odd. The dress fitted her like a potatoe sack. Once again, I figured I would give her some hips and trim her face down.
I know that reconstructing can be time consuming, but I need to take this picture to the lab in the morning.
I will keep working on it just in case i can't get any help here. Thanks in advance. Any assistance any of you could provide will be greatly appreciated.

[Byron Gale]

LaDonna,

Do you absolutely have to edit her? I mean - is this not an accurate image of her?

If you must flatter her at all, maybe you could try narrowing the entire image by 5% or so without the distortion being too obvious...

http://www.pixentral.com/hosted/1Qep9tewRePdYyJAILKOw6YPSSPUI_thumb.jpg (http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1Qep9tewRePdYyJAILKOw6YPSSPUI)

Byron

[mljrbg]

I don't see anything wrong with the picture. This is who she is and these pictures should represent her on her wedding day. I think you took a nice shot and she should be very happy with it.

[LaDonna]

See attached picture. I personally like that I can not see the front of her neck.
I wondered if it was just me but when I saw her again today for the second time, her face seems fat in person, but it looks a lot more bigger on the picture I took.
When I present this picture to her and put it on display at the wedding, I want it to look the best it could. And I want her to be happy with it too.
Thanks for all the immediate responses. I just hope with your help we could come up with something.

The -5% makes her look way thinner at the bottom which make her top part of her body look even bigger.

[frank abramonte]

LaDonna, if you must just use the smudge tool set a brush size of 9 and strength of 45. Use short strokes blending from outside in. Don't overdo it.
OR, you can leave it the way it is.

The -5% makes is the wrong move.

http://www.pixentral.com/hosted/1i59vGwgHgi3RNyonc3tjNgv5SSaT_thumb.jpg (http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1i59vGwgHgi3RNyonc3tjNgv5SSaT)

[LaDonna]

Frank,
Thanks for your response. Did you make any changes, the image is too small for me to recognize. If you made any changes, can you email me the finished image at lsw2@cox.net

Is smudge tool you are referring to, is it located under filter>distort> liquidfy and the finger icon?



LaDonna, if you must just use the smudge tool set a brush size of 9 and strength of 45. Use short strokes blending from outside in. Don't overdo it.
OR, you can leave it the way it is.

The -5% makes is the wrong move.

http://www.pixentral.com/hosted/1i59vGwgHgi3RNyonc3tjNgv5SSaT_thumb.jpg (http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1i59vGwgHgi3RNyonc3tjNgv5SSaT)

[LaDonna]

Frank, I have located the smude tool. I am working in PSE5. I do have PS7 too. Is the brush soft? Will I be using this brush to make the neck smaller/narrower or to remove the creases?

Thanks again.

[frank abramonte]

LaDonna, I posted the same size photo you posted on pixentral.

You can use a softness of about 45% adjust it depending on results your getting.
Your not making the neck narrower, what you are doing is blending out he wrinkle (fold) in the neck.
Enlarge the image on your monitor so you can see clearly.
If the brush size is moving too much color then reduce it so it doesn't move blobs of color. Blend just enough to remove the light fold.
Check if the photos below help you.


http://www.pixentral.com/hosted/1VY02yrTszU37sOKd8G2DiV39WyLiT1_thumb.jpg (http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1VY02yrTszU37sOKd8G2DiV39WyLiT1)

http://www.pixentral.com/hosted/1alEY2Lpnq8njbFJPHuV04ZMP9FksT_thumb.jpg (http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1alEY2Lpnq8njbFJPHuV04ZMP9FksT)

[LaDonna]

Frank,

Thanks for your help. I will try your instructions.

[frank abramonte]

Frank,

Thanks for your help. I will try your instructions.

Just take it easy and gentle on the smudging. If it doesn't look right start over (undo the last step) because it's difficult to correct a mistake. Your striving for a smooth blending of the dark into the light ending at the dark under the chin.

[nu2scene]

The liquify tool is something I just started playing with recently too. It's cool what it can do, but it is difficult to master I think. Here's my attempt at the picture.

http://www.pixentral.com/hosted/1STx7ULTD7MLCjsASXzBE9VYBzqN1x_thumb.jpg (http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1STx7ULTD7MLCjsASXzBE9VYBzqN1x)

[LaDonna]

Nu2scence - Do you think you could email your image to me just in case your looks better than mines.

I have finally called it quits. I even cloned the neglace to fit her neck. Do you think it's too much? See my attached image. It's a little light, but the lab normally print too dark.

I can't thank you all enough! - Elements Village is a wonderful world to be in. I have always gotten feed back, some good and some bad, AND definetly HONEST. Thanks again.

[ladybug]

I think it is a lovely picture.

[frank abramonte]

LaDonna, I think you did a perfect job. I don't know what you pay for a print, but if it's not too expensive why not submit a few alternative versions and choose the best for additional prints.

One last suggestion is to select the face and neck and lighten it a bit so it's more even to the arms. I used Brightness/Contrast.
I slid the lightness slide to +21.
You can use whatever adjustment that you like.

http://www.pixentral.com/hosted/1m4HgETvuG0imwJItHdnFbc0noIS0_thumb.jpg (http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1m4HgETvuG0imwJItHdnFbc0noIS0)

[nu2scene]

Hi LaDonna, after I worked on the photo I deleted it. I didn't think to hold onto a copy. But I think you can either right click the pic in pixentral and save it on a PC? I use a mac, and I can just drag it off the page to my desktop and it saves that way.

Alternatively, if you send me a higher res file, I can try it again.

[LaDonna]

Frank,
Just when I called it quits - good point though. Lightening process could be - select area, duplicate layer and maybe go to levels or saturation.

I wished I had logged into Elements Village sooner. I am now out of town and on my way to print picture.

I do have one more question. Regarding the other picture below of the bride with her daughter, what would be a simple process to ensure the bride's skin tone in the picture by herself matches her skin color/tone in the picture with her daughter?

As you probably noticed, I like the other picture better, because it's a more focused picture.

[LaDonna]

Thanks to Frank, Nu2scene, Judy and Lady bug - this is what I call team work!

[frank abramonte]

LaDonna:
Unfortunately making corrections this way evolve over a period of time so your always spotting something more you can do.
I still think the version your printing is good.

Using either the Lasso or Polygonal Lasso tool select the bride's head including the hair.
NOTE: If you hold down the shift key after selecting the head you will be able to select the arm, therefore you can adjust both at the same time.
I adjusted them one at a time which gives me better control.
Go to Brightness/Contrast and apply a +45 brightness and +5 contrast.
Now Select the bride's arm. Here I used Match Color which I don't think is available in Elements (I use Photoshop).
You can lighten the arm using the Brightness/Contrast, or Adjust Fill Flash or even Levels.
Try each of them and choose the one that gives you the result you like. I chose Match Color because it gave me what I thought was the best result on the arm.
Please Note: You may want to tone up or down from my post as all monitors will view the photo differently.
It's important that you don't make the arm to prominent, it should blend in with the photo same as the little girl's arm does.


http://www.pixentral.com/hosted/1iJYrMiUF4UfhrXMqc7jFnRAHHrld0_thumb.jpg (http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1iJYrMiUF4UfhrXMqc7jFnRAHHrld0)

[Daviskw]

Hi there...good work above as usual...I just went a little to the extreme...It all depends on what you are looking for.

In the example below I did two procedures.

The first I made a selection along the outside of the arm to the neck and halfway through the arm.

I duplicated the background then put the arm selection on its own layer at the top of the pallet.

I moved and transformed as desired to narrow the arm and neck...see the gif below

Then on the layer below I cloned the old arm out with the clone tool and using the healing brush I blended the arm in at the center where the sharp edge of the move showed.

The second procedure was to remove the double chin.

I opened two levels adjustment layer..one I lightened the photo...then inverted the mask to hide the adjustment.. the other levels I darkened the photo then inverted that mask as well to hide the adjustment.

I then picked a soft white brush...reduced the opacity of the brush to about 30 percent.

I then zoomed in some...decided where I wanted to lighten or darken and painted on the masks as needed. If the color shifted..like under her mouth...I used a blank layer set to color mode selected a good color to correct the color shift.

Butch

http://www.pixentral.com/hosted/1N6vX0OM0188qTEgVPLS76laIP5Ry1_thumb.jpg (http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1N6vX0OM0188qTEgVPLS76laIP5Ry1)


http://www.pixentral.com/hosted/1Q3XPazC1bW1nK2QpB3yMAQ4exYy1_thumb.gif (http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1Q3XPazC1bW1nK2QpB3yMAQ4exYy1)

[frank abramonte]

Butch, nice work as usual.
I tried to keep the corrections as simple as possible. Had a feeling that LaDonna didn't have that much experience in retouching.
Do you do liposuction?

[Daviskw]

I could sure use some...lol

[LaDonna]

Thanks Butch,
After all your extremeness you did get a great result. However, because I am pushed for time, I hope I get a similar result by following Frank's instruction for the skin tone.
Better yet, I will try like hell to take more time in setting up while taking pictures. 9 times out of 10, if I don't like what I see while I am shooting, I WON'T like the pictures once I transferred them to my computer. This is a valuable lesson for me especially since I don't have much time during the course of the day.

Thanks again. - I value you all opinions. That's why I am back at home to fix picture once AGAIN (Smile) and then will go to the lab. THANKS A BUNCH.