I've been having trouble trying to get certain color tones in my photos. I notice my images have alot of "pink" and "white" variations to them. Sort of like the attached first photo - Amy Dresser Original.

I would like to the the tones more into what I think are browns and "bronze" type colors. Like the attached photo - Amy Dresser Retouched.

I have included my orignal photo that I'm having trouble with. Erin Original.

I know that in this Amy Dresser Tutorial it says to use curves -

http://enigma-photos.com/AmyTutorial/

But after trying with curves and color balance I still can't get my colors to go as bronze as I'd like them to go. I mostly just get saturated reds whereas the Amy Dresser ones are a different tone then that.

If anyone knows how to get this certain color TONE or anyone with more detailed information on how to use color balance or curves to get close to that color tone, please help.

Feel free to use my photo to showcase any attempts at this color tone. Thanks.

Edit- Wasn't able to put copyright on photos but they are by Photographer Natasha Lee and the retouching was done by Amy Dresser.

You credit your photo but others not!!!!! RED CARD BUDDY!!!

Thanks CMS. I edited my message and let people know who's photos they are, I thought their file names would have sufficed. My first time posting but should I go into their files and put a copyright for them just so people could know? Or is just mentioning they're not mine enough?

I tried...To get this skin tone I usually retouch everything first, add some more red and yellow....convert to BW via channel mixer it's important to not blow out any areas to the skin...keep every channel balanced...then I just take down opacity....

The thing I did with picture was to copy right side to left side and tried to mask inn nostral, eye, eyelash and mouth on the left side...

gerry


EDIT: LOL! It looks to weird....well, well...

Hello.

Playing with curves pretty much is just for how dark the skin tone will be (and the shadows), it doesn't affect the color much, except it may oversaturate your image.

If you boost the curves on a pink face, it may turn a bit bright red. You just have to make a hue/saturation layer and de-saturate it a bit.


I'll go over exactly what I did to get this image tone:
-adjusted a curve layer
-color balance layer - add about 30 yellow (the image has a lot of blue) and a little bit of red
-hue/saturation layer - colorize - hue 23, saturation 54, lightness 7 (a brown) -- opacity 55%
-tweaked the curves again
-made a layer filled with a light "make-up" brown, set it on overlay - opacity 22%
-desaturate by 12 -- her face was getting a little too oversaturated
-tweaked the curves again


Play with these methods to get the tone you want.

here is my go at it

and i guess i probably should have read the whole post, but all i changed in this version was i dropped a solid orangish color down on a new layer, set blend mode to color and played with fill %. its a super quick way to slightly adjust the skin tone i guess..

my try using a Dragan action then KentC skin fix blended over the orig.. did not put in the added the highlights via a softlight layer

Here is my attempt using curves, colour balance, masks and fill layers.

Something like this maybe? Used curves to match the initial color, then did some D&B to get the contrast. Just a quick job, could be improved a bit with more time.

Here's before and after.

The lighting in the other photo is quite different. The 'kicker' makes a big difference. Nonetheless, I gave it shot.

I used curves, multiply layer, selective color, color range mask, large brush on some layer masks then quick clone, blur and noise, and a bit of noise overall to knock off the jpg artifacts a bit... to much I think but more interested in the color...
The curves palette to me is the most effective way to control the color and range of a shot... all this was done in cmyk as that is what I am used to working with...