red skin problem

[Karyn]

Hi everyone, I am working (trying) on a wedding picture of my brother. The skin is very red. I need help. It seems to me there is too much red in the entire picture, but when I reduce the red in the picture using levels, I still have skin that is too red. I have tried selecting the skin with a lasso tool and then reducing the red using "selective colour". When I do all of this my brother and his wife have a "dead" look to their skin. Is there a better way to fix this picture?
Your help would be wonderful!!!

Karyn

[Juliana Ross]

add a little green instead of reducing red
it will keep it warm....but watch for colour casting in your whites and neutral tones

it looks more magenta than red to me

[Stroker]

Tried a technique that I lovelingly call Hue Squish.
Simple idea, but kind of involved to do.
Going to wait awhile to see some other solutions.

[Gary Richardson]

Hi Karyn, I sampled some of the mid tone skin, and noted RGB values, then took RGB values from a skin swatch. Used a Curves adj layer to alter skin values of picture to those from swatch. Had to modify this slightly, as it pulled some of the other colours. This may result in a skin that is less than it was, but more than you want. If this is the case, simple masking will enable a more radical curves layer to be used.

[Duv]

I didn't use Hue Squish. I used Saturation Squish. Changed to CMYK to increase the Cyan which reduces the ruddy nature of the image. Used normal caucasian skin tone values plus a bit more cyan because they both appear to be well tanned. Sampled some surrounding good skin tone and painted away some of the red hot spots like the nose and her back.

Dave

[Swampy]

The red channel needed correction (obviously) so I copied the green channel into the red channel. Then did some tweaking of levels. I did a color selection AL on the whites and painted in a mask of the brides gown, veil, teeth and eyes and the grooms collar, pocket hankie etc.

I cloned out the twigs that were in the foreground and did a little clone/healing brush on the faces, hands and arms. I didn't spend much time on the cloning since the color adjustment was the main target of this exercize.

[Ken Fournelle]

Thanks to Duv who showed me this method awhile back.

1. Image>duplicate
2. Changed to CMYK made adjustments, adding Cyan, reducing Magenta,
making sure Yellow value was greater than Magenta.
3. Still in CMYK, made a Hue/Sat adjustment layer and adjusted individual
colors there.
4. Flattened, selected all, copied
5. Pasted into the RGB duplicated background image.

k

[Duv]

Ken, great job on the skin..much better than mine. Comparing the two, I think I've got too much Cyan. You've retained a warmer feel than mine which goes well for the time of day. Was wondering though when you dragged the CMYk corrected onto the RGB original, did you change the blend mode to color to resolve the luminosity issue? Just wondering. It does look fine as is.

Dave

[venivedi]

Well, I like the warmth in your work, Ken. Great job!

[Ken Fournelle]

I kneel at the feet of the masters.

Duv, I didn't change to Color Blend, but left it as Normal.

k

[Swampy]

Ken, life experience would suggest that the groom's shirt was white. It could have been yellow, but your rendering leaves the shirt with a the color cast which distracts me. JMHO.

I managed to somehow lose the green in the flower stems though.

[Duv]

Swampy, you're absolutely correct. I think the nature of this picture requires a general overall correction that Ken did very well especially in the skin tones plus some specific corrections such as the shirt and dress to whiten them. I think sometimes we assume that if the general correction is valid the original poster can fine tune the image. I guess it depends on how much time each of us wants to spend on improving the image.
Personally, I think we'd have one heck of a great image if we combined Ken's great skin tones with your corrections in the whites etc.

Cheers
Dave

[Ken Fournelle]

Thanks Dave. You are correct. I concentrated on the skin tone problem and didn't address the other issues that obviously need correcting. You are right also in that those who post solutions to the major problem in an image will endeavor to solve that area and leave the cloning, patching et. al. to the person originally posting the image. It can often take a long time to completely correct a photo. Sometimes it's a fun exercise though!

k

[cardmnal]

heres my try,

I adjusted levels by...

I increased the tonal range by holding alt and clicking on the black slider until pixels first came into view.
I then used the middle eyedropper to choose the most nuteral grey I could find in the photo (on the ribbons of the bouquet).

It was still A little too warm so I added a touch of cyan.

Maybe not perfect but a quick, easy method to be sure.

[Duv]

Speaking of combining, hope Ken and Swampy don't mind. Ken's skin on Swampy's image. Didn't do his hand though.
Looks great to me.
Cheers
Dave

[Ken Fournelle]

Well Dave, the groom is holding on pretty tight-----most likely a circulation problem

k

[Swampy]

heheh... a little of this and a little of that.

[Karyn]

Thanks everyone your help was wonderful!!!

Ken your skin tones are great. I never thought about converting to CMYK and then pasting back into RGB.

My brother avoided the norm and was wearing a yellow shirt - the colour looks like a cast rather than a yellow shirt.

My sister-in-law's dress was a cream colour - not the normal white. I also was frustrated with the appearance of a cast on her.

Both of them had spent a year teaching in Haiti and had dark tans which did not help the photo's problem.

I really appreciate everyone's help with this picture, all the advice gives me something to work with.

[Karyn]

Just another thought

Swampy, you are right the twigs need to go - I was so caught up in the skin tones, that I forgot about the other issues in this picture.

The faces need some fine tuning to get rid of the shine. Swampy, I like what you did. Thanks

[Swampy]

Thank you, Karyn. I never would have assumed a yellow shirt so I went for the white, but that wouldn't be hard to fix if I had saved the white mask... LOL

[Flora]

Hi Karyn,

...yet another way...

Image>Adjustments>Variations:

1) Midtones>Lighter
2) Saturation>Less Saturation.

[Karyn]

Thanks Flora, I am still very new to Photoshop, and I often forget about some really handy tools such as variations. I am still learning how to make the best use of that tool. I think practice, practice, practice is the key. Thanks for your advice.

Karyn

[Ken Fournelle]

Flora,

You know as complicated as we try to make corrections, sometimes something as simple as Variations is a good solution. It looks pretty good!

k

[Swampy]

Yes it does! I peek into variations sometimes to see where I might fine tune some curves or levels adjustmest, but sometimes it is quite reliable.

[Flora]

Karyn,

you are most welcome. Glad we could be of help!

Ken,

Originally Posted by Ken Fournelle

You know as complicated as we try to make corrections....

I remember once, logging in to post my result after a long and complex procedure to brighten up a dark/dull picture ... and seeing that someone else had posted a better result by simply duplicating the background layer and setting its blending to Screen .... (it had never crossed my mind ... )

Swampy,

Originally Posted by Swampy

...but sometimes it is quite reliable

Absolutely ....and if it doesn't fix the whole problem, it's a big help in the right direction!!