I like the first one for reality and the third one for that air-brushed quality. The second one is too light for my taste.
The one on the left. The others look fake and a little uncanny.
That’s much improved - I’d even choose it over the unretouched version (the only one on the original array that wasn’t creepy as hell), now. Looks like a slightly younger version of the same guy.
As to the original array - the original far right one didn’t look…real - not like a manipulated image, but a real image of a non-real person. He looked like a badly rigged up puppet, around the mouth.
(without reading the other replies)
The first one - it looks the most natural while still looking pretty good. The last one takes the “soft lighting” look too far, he looks almost blurry and it’s clearly unnatural.
Hmm. Seeing them all together, it’s pretty obvious that #1 is the real guy. #4 maybe looks a little closer to his actual appearance. But I think in isolation, #2 looks both more realistic and more attractive than #4, which looks a little too “made-up” and plastic-y. Although I agree that #2 could use a slightly more saturated skin tone, particularly on the lips, and maybe fade the changes around the mouth just a touch to make the smile warmer.
What he said. She? What Blue Mood said.
Without looking at comments - The left. Best colouring. Right is way too smooth and middle is to ‘stark’.
Not a big fan of retouched portraits - I prefer au naturel, warts and all. Given that, my preference is strongly to the one on the left.
The one on the left is the only one that looks like people. And I happen to *like *people.