Hi guys new to the forum, have read some great advice so a big thankyou,
Now a couple of questions of my own,

1, not using the degrunge method how can i go about getting rid of mottled skin and tan lines on this girl

2, where to go for good tutorials and tips, like the lyden website, i have done quite a few searches but keep coming up with the glitter guru tips

btw this picture is the original and i'm the photographer,

thanks in advanced:)

it's possible to use information from other channels, sometimes the "mottleding" may only show up in the red or cyan channels...

Sorry, don't quite understand, what are you suggesting? TIA

For the mottling of the skin I would recomend this tutorial:
http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=23233
Dan Margulis has some good tips on removing the blotchiness , his referance to ch. 16 was from his Lab color book.

As for where to look, you have me theres an overflow of tutorials with excessive bluring, degrunge being the best of the bluring techniques.

*Edited*
To remove the tan lines:
You basically have to match the rgb values of the untan skin to the values of the tan skin so they match up, doing this on an adjustment layer so you can feather the mask out and adjust and tweak.

I'll give it a shot when I get back from supper later on tonight,

Hope this helps

Sorry, don't quite understand, what are you suggesting? TIA

I believe he was referring to looking through the individual color channels, Red, Green, Blue or Cyan,Magenta,Yellow,Black etc... All represented in grayscale, the lighter the shade the more red or more cyan it will have. Looking through one that didn't have any spots for example. You could then copy the section in the good channel and paste it over the bad section. This will leave it looking kind of funky, as the new piece will not match the tonality of the old. Then adjust this new section with the curves to make the grayscale tonality even.

To sum it up, you basically copy a section of good "information" and paste it over the problem spot, they look the same now only the shade is different, adjusting with levels makes the grayscale tonality match, when switched to RGB mode it will all be in color and no blotches.

Another example is a blue pen marking on a photograph scan, when looking at the channels the red and green will be free of any markings, the blue channel will have the pen marks in it...this is assuming its pure blue pen ink.

It sounds harder than it is, hopefully I didn't confuse you :)

No not at all going to try it now, thankyou, did try the digital grin, with the baby?, lol just got a hot mess am afraid

To remove the tan lines:
Basically you will have to not the RGB value of the regular skin and not rgb values of the tanned skin and match them, doing this on an adjustment layer so you can feather the mask out and adjust and tweak.

Hope this helps

sorry again, not rgb??? whats that mean?

ok, just got it note, lol, been a long day sorry xx

Whoops typo :)

I meant:
You basically have to match the rgb values of the untan skin to the values of the tan skin so they match up.

Havent tried the Dgrin picture yet...looks like a tough one, might be kind of hard to follow dans technique if you dont have the book though.

Hi there

Since there are no pores to worry about why not just used a screen blur with a multiply duplicate to darken.
Simple easy and effective.

Butch

still doesn't get rid of the tans lines thanks though...

Hi there

Now I'm not sure what you are looking for...but a layer set to darken and sampling adjacent color and building with a low opacity brush will darken the lighter skin.

Maybe i am not understanding what you need.

Butch

i simply sampled nearby areas and painted the lighter places with a soft brush set to color mode. The painting is done on a new, transparent layer.

Is this what you had in mind?

Stosh

I'll post my try later on tomorrow, have to go to the hospital tom. morning for a checkup bright and early. Tryout the curves method and see how you like it, ive used it for sunburn victims a bunch! sometimes the edges of your mask will be too bright or dark so you might need to duplicate and clone away the junk depending on the image.

Something like this?

Hi Flora,thankyou,

yes something around that in fact please tell me, how you got there, is it airbrusehd? I like the eveness of the skin tone,if i know the steps i can apply it, then i can work on the colour and contrast maybe bring back the sharpness, then work on the rest of image

dodge and burn baby ..

Hi risenshine,

glad to be on the right track... :)

In pictures like yours, evenness of skin tones is usually my first aim... The rest, is a matter of personal taste (colour, lighter, darker, smoother, sharper etc.).

Usually, I tackle uneven skin tones as a simple 'colour problem'..meaning... too red, yellow, magenta or too dark spots in some of the colours.

My favourite Tool for minimizing those problems is Selective Colors which, IMO, gives the greatest control for correcting each colour individually.

That's what I used with your picture.

1) Created a Selective Colors Adjustment Layer.

The values I used here (I tweaked Reds and Yellows only) (Attachment 1)
The immediate result after...(Attachment 2)..good already, but I could still see the tan lines...

2) Created a new blank Layer set to Lighten and, sampling from surrounding skin ares, I used a fuzzy brush (Opacity 20-40%)to paint over the darker lines. If necessary, you can add a bit of noise to the corrected areas and 'play' with the 'lighten' Layer's Opacity.

For skin smoothing I used Neat Image. (free noise removing software that can be downloaded here (http://www.neatimage.com/download.html))

Hope this helps.

P.S. The values I used in the Selective Colors Adjustment Layer are for the size and resolution of the image I worked on ... you might have to adjust those values ...

Thankyou All, will apply these tips and post my results soon xxx

I have a good excuse, been away getting married and on honeymoon

once again dodge and burn on a 50% grey softlight layer

To get rid of the mottled look zoom out to 100% or even 70% and lighten those dark lines. You dont always need to be zoomed right in.

wow, congrats shelby, cool still working on it quite slow at the mo x

Thanks, it does take time so don't worry

Congrats Shelby and best wishes for the future :)