Off with her head!

[jetrim]

Had so many problems with facial expressions in the "Mindy" shots that I decided to cut her head out of the frame completely. This shot started out as a simple crop...then some sharpening...then some glow...then... 9 layers later I wound up with something completely different from my usual "style" and I'm trying to decide if it has enough merit to hold on to

[Anbesol]

looks a tad extreme, but I see where you are going with this. The textures in the jeans and wall look excellent. But her skin looks a little creamy, especially on her arm and the sides of her forearm. The extra contrast on the knuckles makes them look almost arthritic, I'd soften up the tones in the hand. I like the crop as is. Good work.

And black nail polish?

The thumb looks sort of strange when you look at it, but might look stranger not there....

Excellent title btw.

[LeeIs]

too funny that you cropped her head off cause you didn't like her expressions haha. sorry dude, but that's hilarious.

this shot is waaaaaaay overdone i think. ok, it's not way over done because of how unreal it looks but it's way over done because i see artifacts creeping in. like pixelation etc.

i don't mind over done images if they survive technically. but when pixelation and stuff creeps in that's when i don't like them any more.

[armando_m]

The processing makes this to start looking more like a rendering than a photo

[Greg McCary]

I agree with Anbesol. I really like the composition but think you could back off of the processing on the skin tones. Just personal taste though, this is easily magazine/billboard quality.

[gahspidy]

Funny shizzz. ... I do love the crop and her best assets being brought out is a smart move. Thats the way it is , and your good for having the sense to focus on whats strong.

I love the processing on the clothing, but do agree with others that the skin tone has become a problem with it. Perhaps process it again on a dup layer and erase some of the effect away from the skin. Experience tells me that the skin tones will look even more dramtic and problematic in print.
Excellent, really. Just back away a bit from the processing on the skin.

Well thought and framed.

[jetrim]

Thanks for the input, guys! This doesn't mark any drastic change in style or new direction in PP for me, it was just a fun experiment to see how far I could push things (obviously not *quite* as far as I did :lol The pixellation issues probably stem mainly from the massive compression required to post this as an attachment. The original .jpg file size for 800x531 was 768kb so it was compressed by more than half, surely leading to loss in the transitions between color tones. That said, looking at it again after a day or two, I agree the skin is way too "cooked" but I have this saved as a PSD file so it's not a big deal to go back and rework the masks and opacity of the various layers

[PhilF]

Jet ...masking booboos near the top areas.