First, I have searched threads here regarding skin retouching and d/b, but I have a picture I can't seem to get right! The picture is good, but on one side I get gray skin close to the shadows! Maybe someone here can help me to achieve balanced skin? When doing d/b I get more grey tones...why?

On the first picture there are before and after! The second one is only after if you want to try out only that area and the third one is the whole face! It's the left cheek with the shadow there....


Credits for the picture: JAZS ...

Cheers

Gerry

Dodging and burning will enhance the color already there. You original photo needs to be color corrected.

If I'm wrong, I'm sure a pro will correct me :)

Thanks for replying, Bill!

So by that you say that the picture has a slighly wrong color tone? So only adjusting the picture with curves BEFORE I start to D/B will help this area to become balanced with the slightly lighter are to the right? Without getting white dodging marks?

Gerry

Yes, the original color is off. The Photoshop color picker shows very high cyan and more magenta than should be. The 'average' skin tone should have approx equal magenta and yellow, with yellow a little higher than magenta. Cyan should be approx. 10% of that.

Use you preferred color correction method. If you did your d/b on separate layer(s) you can still color correct the original below it.

If you d/b was done to correct the luminosity, yes, it should reflect a lighter tone of the new skin tone (without the greyish tone... because you've color corrected it)

See here for some useful info:
http://www.smugmug.com/help/skin-tone

Gerry, the shadow area is less saturated than the normally expose part. Lightening or darking without correction will just give you a lighter or darker shade of gray.
One method (there are many) to try is:
- Opened the image in Camera RAW and used the Vibrance slider to increase the saturation of the weak areas.
- Duplicated the background layer and using Image>Apply Image, applied the Red channel of the Background layer to the new layer in Normal blend mode.
- Changed the blend mode of the new layer to Luminosity
- Ctrl+Alt+Shift+E to create a new merged layer
- Added a new blank layer on top of the merged layer set to Color Blend mode and using a soft brush painted over the shadow with a color sampled nearby which was lighter and normal skin color.
- Added a new layer on top filled with 50% Gray and set to soft light blend mode. Painted with a 10% opacity soft white brush to kighten the remaining shadow area. May have overdone it but only spent a couple of minutes on it.

Regards, Murray

Okey, thanks! I have done this, but still the part where it's very light on the the left cheek, all the way to the left with the hair...it's that area that bugs me now...it's so light in difference from the area under the left eye...how to fix that now?
I'm lost.... :(

man, this is tricky! The skin with the gray is dark from the beginning, but by cloning it away I feel that is to go towards a drastic step! how can you really make that area the same as the lighter part? when you dodge it, it get's kind of blurred and white/gray even after color correction...

OMG! I'm so newb! :D

Cheers

gerry

I follow Chris Tarantino's method found in Katrin Eismann's book. If you're using the neutral layer technique to d/b, sample the color from the good skin and paint with that on the neutral layer to offset the color shifts. It works great. Of course I did that extremely quick to show that it works. With careful execution, you can turn problematic areas into nicely looking skin.

Another way to correct the color in those shadow areas is to select that area using "Color Range" and add a feather amount, then open up Channel Mixer and select the Red channel as the output channel and slide the Red slider to increase the amount of red, thereby reducing the Cyan. Then Target the Blue channel and slide the Blue slider to the left to add back some yellow. I got even better results by preceding the Channel Mixer with an Apply Image move with the Screen blending mode to remove some of the darker Cyan. Then you can Dodge and Burn away.

I also agree with Pixel_Monkey about the Chris Tarantino recommended way - I use that as well to great effect.

man! Thanks for that advice! What I did was...

-new 50% gray layer
-chose a new lighter color
-the blend mode on the BRUSH set to lighten! Worked VERY well I think :D

look at the picture there...the skin is not 100% retouched yet, but the balance is getting better IMO....

PIUH!

Cheers and thanks!

Gerry

Looking good so far...

Sorry guys ... she looks a bit too "pasty faced" for my taste.

I ran Essential Layers and adjusted the skin tones to 80-20-20 LAB. Lightened the shadow by brushing with some "good" skin (color mode) from the lighted side of the face.

A far more natural looking result, IMO.

What do you think?

Stosh

too red imo? and what do you mean with "pasty faced"?



Gerry

struggling with this picture! it looks simple too me, but when trying more and more I still can't get the hang of it! :(

the picture is not finished yet...I think maybe the color is off!

any advice here? does the chin look good?


cheers

Gerry

Hi Gerry,

I fooled around with this photo a little, and this has one of the strange combinations of colors that is hard to adjust. Your second one does look off. The lipstick for instance is too orange. I think that your first one is closer to the correct color. Look at the lipstick again, and the turquoise color in the necklace. I had the same trouble you mentioned when trying to adjust it, even when using the neutral layer method. I didn't have time to continue to pursue it, but sure would like to know what the answer to this one is.

Dave is quite right. It is too orangish. I took your retouched version and did some color correction on it to give you an example of what it should look more like.

To do this I went back to the original RAW file and made some changes in the Camera RAW dialogue box. I moved the Tint slider to the left and Exposure Slider to -0.50. Then I opened it in Photoshop, resized and dragged a copy over your version and set the Blend Mode to Color. I selected that shadow on the right cheek, opened a Selective Color Adjustment Layer, removed yellow and black from the yellows and added some magenta and cyan. I then opened a Hue/Sat Adj Layer and took down the yellows in that shadow some more. Finally I opened another Hue/Sat Adj Layer to take down the general yellows a little more, dodged that shadow on the right cheek so that the transition wasn't so harsh, sharpened the eyes and that was that.

Syd

I used channel blending.

An RGB luminosity blend using the Blue channel followed by an LAB overlay blend masked by the L channel.

Then some judicious sharpening, Shadow/Highlight, and minor retouching.

Regards,

Michael

i adjusted the colors in lab mode using apply image setting to overlay
then used a hue saturation layer to tweak the final settings

Thanks, guys for taking your sweet and important time to answer my humble question! I think the answer lays in syd's post! multiple color corrections...


gerry

i couldn't get the skin color right either. =) Just playing around. That is a cool trick to paint color back on the D&B layer. Thanks for the tips.

Jim