Faded Colours: Skin tone

[pjstaley]

I recently restored faded photos of 2 brothers. The one (of the boy in the blue sweater) turned out quite well, but the other (the green sweater) is "flat" on the skin tone. Try as I may, I have had no success in completing the customers request to "make his skin tone the same as his brothers". If anyone could offer any assistance, I would be most appreciative. I'm simply at a loss. "How can it be that difficult" she said..." just do the same thing you did on the first one". I tried. It just didn't work. She (and I) am happy with everything about both photos except the facial tonality of the one (with the green sweater). Help... puh..lease!

[philbach]

I matched the color of the two brothers by using photoshop's adjustments "match Color" command. I opened both files: before-after and steve2. I selected the skin of both faces and copied them to another layer and selected the copied layer in both photos. With before and after selected, I used the match color command. I selected the source as steve2/layer 1 and the target as before and after layer 1.

That is one way of making a color match between two photos

[Vikki]

I could be way off base, but it appears that you've done some colorizing using soft light on the lighter image. Using a light flesh tone over the face has lightened all of the shadows and you've lost definition.
I would suggest doing a levels or curves adjustment to the original, flatten, and put that image over your colored version-setting the layer opacity to luminosity.

[Cassidy]

As the first photo is fairly flat anyway, I painted onto blank layers (especially the face) and set the blending to colour mode so as to not affect subtle tonal changes.

[pjstaley]

Hi Vikki,
I just finished looking at your gallery. I'm speechless! Lovely work! My method for bringing some color back to the photo was simply to add a levels adjustment layer. That brought back the sweater and the background. I had to do a little extra work on the white shirt underneath to bring back some of the contrast and I think that is what the face is lacking.... contrast. But merely adding contrast to that part of the picture (for whatever reason), isn't cutting the mustard. (Can one really cut mustard?)

[Kraellin]

what you've got is a good old pasty face. little to no shadows, little to no texture and almost a total mono-tone. the original is part of the problem. it appears to be almost a pasty face also.

philbach added some color, but didnt fix the mono-tone. cassidy's got the right idea. you can add some more variety of colors by making a new raster layer and painting in new colors with an airbrush. add this in with a low opacity and medium density or so. build it up gradually and change colors often depending on where in the face you're adding. this makes erasing and changing and blurring very easy. and on this layer you might also want add a blending mode. i'd also mask the face on this layer and add some light noise and blur it. very small amounts will go a long ways, so set it low, like 5 or so.

Craig

[Panpan]

I worked on luminosity and color separately.

For luminosity, I started with the original image in luminosity mode. I increased contrast as much as I could. I also dodged and burned some areas.

For color, I started with your colorization. I removed the green cast and increased reds ans saturation.

I lightened the background to make the skin less pasty in comparison.

Concerning the blue sweater brother, the nose deformation is either not there or deemphasized in the original. The client passed it so it must be there after all. I would suggest that you follow the lead of the original and make it less obvious.

Pierre

[Kraellin]

nice job, pierre!

Craig

[pjstaley]

Hi Pierre.
Thank you so much for spending time on my little problem. Could I corner you for a little clarification?
I went back to the original and changed the layer blending mode to Luminosity and I increased the contrast per your suggestion. However, in your response, you said that you started with my "colorization". I didn't colorize the image, but used a Levels Adjustment Layer. How did you remove the green cast and increase the reds? Was it with a levels adjustment layer? Also, on the blue sweater brother... what nose deformation?

[pjstaley]

Hi Kraellin. Could I bother you for a little clarification? You mentioned "medium density". Vas ees dees, medium density? And how do you build it up? You also mentioned "changing colors often". The problem is that I don't know what colors to add or change. I truly do wish that I were more adept at Photoshop, but the only way to learn, at least for me is with the "hands on" approach. Please advise.

[Kraellin]

hi pj,

i dont know how it is on pshop these days. i use psp. but it's most likely somewhat similar. every paint type brush has certain qualities. you've got size, opacity and so on. density would be similar in the real world to how many bristles on the brush. if you were using the airbrush tool, for example, full density would give you a solid 'spray' of paint as you moved along. on 50% density you'd get a more speckled effect. pshop may call it something else, but i'm sure they have it.

so, if you were using the airbrush on a 5% density and a light opacity, you wouldnt be getting a lot of 'paint' coming out at one time. it would be very light and pretty speckled. so, in order to get a tone or texture you want, it's a good idea to start light and simply add more passes with your brush, or, build it up. i find this especially true when colorizing skin. the biggest tendency is to try and put it all there at once, and this rarely works very well.

as for what colors to use, there is a skin color chart floating around here on teh forums somewhere. i dont use it currently. i tend to go more by the picture and what's already there, but others swear by it. sorry, dont know the exact location of where this chart is currently.

Craig

[philbach]

The color charts are: Click Here

[Panpan]

Originally Posted by pjstaley

How did you remove the green cast and increase the reds? Was it with a levels adjustment layer?

There are many ways to remove a color cast in PS. I started by tweaking the hue with image>adjustments>hue/saturation, then I used image>adjustments>color balance on loosely selected areas.

Originally Posted by pjstaley

Also, on the blue sweater brother... what nose deformation?

Sometimes we get so used to seeing a picture that we don't see the problems anymore. To "renew" my eyes, I often flip portraits horizontally or look at them in different sizes.
In the attachment, your "after" picture is in the middle. On the right, I used the original for luminosity and your color information on a color blend layer. Maybe you should make that area closer to the original.

Pierre