...here I was proud of my glass, and all the tasty fine details on Amber's face, when Margaret tells me that moustaches are not a desired thing by women.
So, I cloned out her 'stash and cleaned up some additional stray hairs. Wow - what a face, huh?
Thank you for that thoughtful comment, Bulent. You accurately highlight the conflict with all post-processing: "Do you strive for technical excellence, even if it stops resembling the subject you photographed?"
I have always been careful to keep skin 'alive and real' with visible pores and the differing textures found on cheeks, chins and foreheads.
For portraits (in fact, for most photographs) it is difficult to decide where to stop during post processing. The easiest is to stop where you say "looks to be done". Unfortunately, that decision has no definable rules; it is entirely intuitive. Another approach is to do always the same post-processing operations for all similar photos. That is probably what most studios do. For an enthusiast equipped with not only good hardware but with very powerful software, one is tempted use the available tools. Then, ending up with an image that looks neither "final", nor "perfect" is a likely outcome. Yours is certainly not like that. However, I remember having seen the "mustache" on the earlier portrait and I did, kind of, like its presence. It was part of her nature and it was a nice detail that made the image "alive" unlike so many commercial model photos (plastics!). She (your portrait) still looks beautiful. However, if I was asked to choose between the two versions, I would not hesitate to vote for the earlier one (although I liked the removel of the stray hair!). Oh well, have a nice day :)
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