I've been rather curious as to what all goes into the retouching you experts do. All I have is photoshop seven, but I decided to try my hand at it.

I searched up something on Deviant Art to mess around with and got to work, basically.

Two and a half hours later...I got the finished result.

I'd like some feedback on it, please. I know it's nowhere near perfect. There are a lot of flaws that are easily visible to even me, but I tried and I'm pretty darn proud of the results, seeing as this was my first time (don't worry, I'm not quitting my day job).

Any critiques? Suggestions? Or should I stick to taking my clothes off?

Original: http://unknownrecords.deviantart.com/ar … -153176528

My edit: http://i46.tinypic.com/f106xy.jpg

Not bad. I'd clone the stray hair on her cheek and do some burning and dodging to add some dimension to her cheek. It's a long learning curve, if you enjoy editing you should keep experimenting. There is no reason you cant be great at taking your clothes off and editing too.

Ahaha, thank you.
The dodging and burning is...taking some work. And I don't think I have the patience for it at the moment, but I'll take a shot at it a little later.

Not bad for your first one!  I like the overall look, but it just needs a bit more fine-tuning.  I don't like that some of the black is blurred on the edges- it would be very striking with all the edges clean and sharp.  It's obvious you blurred the skin, but I think it kinda works for this photo.  Just make sure that the blur is only on the skin- mask away things like the makeup "tattoo", her eyebrow, eyelashes, etc.  The contrast of pale/blurred skin on sharp makeup and hair could be pretty cool.

Nice for a first attempt, Im liking the way you re-worked the lashes, nice job. Im not crazy about the skin blurring though.