Lighting Issue

The original image is the one above, I liked the look of the photo. Her makeup is seen well with almost half of her face hidden which was the original look. The way many artist do this is with lighting but the majority of these artists are male so I had chosen to use her hair as well as he lighting, this is to make her look for feminine I was looking for as artists in this genre hide a lot of their in photoshoots like the examples below;

So when I came to edit this photo I had a problem with editing the lighting as the whole photo is dark not just her face. This became a bigger problem when trying to keep the photo natural looking whilst editing the lighting and not making it look artificial.

The Dodge Tool

The Dodge tool allowed me just to lighten parts of her skin without making it look overly editing but the problem with using this tool is that it began to make her skin look blotchy and when I tried to overcome this it made her too pale. Even though I want her to look her natural colour, I would rather want the photo to look natural.

Using Brightness and Contrast

Using this was manual because when it is done via Auto it looks too artificial and small grains start to appear across the background. This makes it look overly edited but when I done I manually the contras didn't match soft enough with the brightness. The overall image when using Contrast and Brightness became too harsh when looking at the image overall.

Using Levels 

Using the Level worked well, in fact it was the tool that I ended up using in the end. The Auto worked and it lightened the whole image. Instead of altering the contrast of the image. It also kept the model looking natural by making her face look more exposed but not too pale like the dodge tool. It also lightened the background of the image especially around the darker part of her face that became the first problem when it came to editing the image.