Haku

Lovely portrait of this Hawaiian beauty.

Nice looking portrait with a natural smile.  Not sure what happened to her skin, but it looks over processed to me.  It looks like a porcelain doll or too plastic.  I'd back off the skin smoothing. 

Keith - a lot of makeup for the performance, and only the lowest level of skin smoothing used.
I guess I can clone in some acne scars... 
The dance company  bought the rights to this image, and a whole series of the dancing,  for their advertising, so maybe it's not too bad...

Sandy

Beautiful portrait.  I am guessing that it was not shot in a studio, so good job finding the nice light and background.  Her skin does look more like a studio portrait than a candid shot (like those advertisements for retouching software).  The amount of retouching is very personal choice, so I guess the "customer" will have the last word. 

P.S.  Thanks for your forum post about the skin software.  I tried it, and liked how you can control the smoothness and details independently, and the way it works with smart filters in two different layers, so you can add masks for even more control. 

Sandy, while I her beauty and smile are wonderful , I think the smoothing is a little over the top. The color looks great. A very nice portrait.
--P

 Wayne, no studio here - just perfect afternoon light.

 When I see a potential image, in addition to what I see in front of me, I envision what it could become if simplified and all the "distractions" removed.  With Photo Art, I try to re-create that impression and simplicity. I think birds are the most graceful things God created, and they, especially,  really inspire me to share my vision.

I take images of a lot of different things, and look for the potential Photo Art rendering in all of them. You can remove messy BG's, and leave only the objects of interest, then pull out the spirit and soul of the image.

I recognize that Photo Art is not mainstream, but I do wish people here would be a little more interested in seeing the magical images that have been created. Patricia's gorgeous flower (WP win) a couple weeks ago is an exquisite, stunning example. It's like freeing the inner beauty that is there if only people can be more open-minded.

Sandy

Sandy: that's definitely a Wow image! I really like the subject which has great detail and is placed against a clean, oof background. This one deserves a place on your wall. Congrats. Richard

IMHO this is a WOW image!  Not much else I could say, congratulations on selling the rights to the dance company.  thanks for sharing.

It does look a bit "plastic" or "magazine add-ish" - but it does work for me, as an artistic license. No problem with that!