Neutralize warm skin

[ChrisC]

I have an image where the skin of the subject is very warm. I'm trying to neutralize the color and end up with a fairly neutral skin tone. The image started out being about twice as warm as the attached jpg. I've been able to get to this point by using a combination of curves, saturation and channel mixer layers to neutralize the skin tone. I'm stuck as how to go about neutralizing it further. Removing more color leaves me with a image that looks unnatural. Is there any way to arrive at a more neutral skin tone that still looks believable?

Thanks for your help.

[mistermonday]

Chris, all of you curves, saturation, and channel mixer, have likely made it much harder to repair than the original would have. Most likely the original was affected by a color cast or an excessive camera / film setting. These problems have an arsenal of standard adjustment / techniques that can correct the standard problem. I suggest you post the original image rather than the one in which you have non linearly shift the color values or the relationships between the image channels.
Regards, Murray

[ChrisC]

Hi Murray,

Here's the original scan

[HroadhogD1]

Hi, I dont really know what you are looking for, but I applied two cooling filters, and a curves adjustment.

[HroadhogD1]

Now its very red skin. LOL

[chillin]

I think you got very good results. I used iCorrect to selectively adjust colors.

[des151]

Hi Chris,
wanted to give it a try.
Ray

[Dave.Cox]

Here's my go at this. All I adjusted on this one is the face. I left the rest of the photo as it was.

[mistermonday]

Chris, yes, the image looks too warm. If you look at the skin it is definitely too red. Another clue that the image is too red is that the sky looks purplish and not natural. That is also because it is too red. The image is also too dark and because it is dark, the "warm" look is further accentuated. The first thing to do with this image is adjust the tone (light and dark) and then when the tone is normalized, tweak the color.
You can adjust the tone many ways. A Shadow / Highlight adj will work as will a Curve adj. I used a curves adjustment layer and adjusted each channel separately (if you have CS3 there ia an Auto button to do it automatically if you select the Per Channel option). Once the tone is adjusted a simple Hue Saturation adjustment will fix the color. I used one here and selected the Red channel and moved the hue toward the right. However, what may look like ok skin color to me may not be good for you but you have the hole spectrum to play with. You can also use a Selective Color adj to shift the color. Select the Reds and then play with the sliders to get the color you want.
If you prefer there is alos the Image Adjust Variations if you wish to apply a global color adjustment. There is also Image Adjust Color Balance and other tools you can use. The bottom line is that the corrections should not require more than a quick tone correction and a quick color correction. You do not need to do a whole lot of elaborate stuff to fix it.
Regards, Murray

[lurch]

Dave, your adjustment is very well done. I had to comment on the original scan, though. The warm skin tones there are quite consistent with the low sun angle in the shot and the purplish sky. Reminds me of late afternoon light after a storm. Why change them?

<C>

[Cassidy]

This looked interesting, using the original mainly mucked around with the midranges of each channel.

[Daviskw]

I think it should be warm to match the light...the balance of yellow to red is not that off for low light... I believe you have added too much cyan.

But i gave it a try at what I think you are looking for.

Butch

[ChrisC]

Looks like everyone is ending up where I did. Attached is an example of what I would consider to be a more neutral skin tone (for those who've asked). I'm hoping to end up with a skin tone closer to this than what I presently have. My knowledge of photoshop beyond the basics is limited and everything I've tried leaves me with less that realistic looking skin tones.
For what it's worth the light on the subject is from a flash, gelled to mimic very warm light. Essentially I'm trying to neutralize the colored gel and the redness in his skin.

Thanks

[Dave.Cox]

Are you saying that you want the skin color to look very white, like that on the child? Although that could be done, it isn't going to look right.

[lurch]

ChrisC -

The example you've given us isn't a natural skin tone. It's a baby with a strong cyan cast. If that's the effect you're after for artistic purposes, that's fine. If you're just trying to correct for the gel color cast and get normal looking caucasian skin, aim for (roughly) yellow a little higher than magenta, with cyan between 1/5 and 1/3 the magenta value. Dave's correction did that.

[ChrisC]

Hi Dave,

I'd like it to look a lot less warm and more "natural" (which obviously is subjective). I'm looking for the skin tone of someone who's skin hasn't been aged by the sun and isn't lit by a warm light . The baby is an example of what I consider a neutral skin tone. So I guess I'm trying to achieve the adult version of that. Maybe the photo is too warm and it's not possible to neutralize the cast in a believable way.

Thanks,

Chris

[ChrisC]

Hi Lurch,

Maybe it's the difference in monitors but it doesn't look cyan to me. Cool, maybe, but it's window light on a cloudy day. Dave's looks very red on my monitor.
I tried your suggestion regarding CMYK percentages - I went from 15, 31, 45 0 to 7 34 38 0. This made the image even redder. Any suggestions?

[ChrisC]

Here's the new attempt. Looks red to me

[des151]

2nd try.
Ray

[lurch]

Chris -

When judging skin tones I rely on the numbers first, then how it looks on the monitor. (And try to remember to keep the monitor calibrated . . . ) The baby's cheek measured cyan as high as magenta - way higher than it should be - almost gray. Cloudy day light is quite cool.

Measured in the center of the guy's forehead, Dave's numbers were spot on - 11C 33M 35Y 0K. Maybe they look red to you in comparison with the too-neutral baby. But skin is red.

Your new attempt seems more too magenta than too red to me. The forehead measures 14C 36M 38Y 0K. I myself would aim for a lower magenta and if possible a lower cyan (however less cyan means more red, so it's a tradeoff).

It may be that you need to make a selective adjustment for the skin to keep from screwing up the rest of the color balance. (Dave, did you do that, or just do global moves?) This evening I'll take a shot at your original, Chris, and put my money where my mouth is.

BTW, what color was the t-shirt?

[lurch]

Chris - as promised -

A simple curves adjustment layer to set light point, black point, and neutral got the skin tones in the ball park. I assumed the t-shirt was black, or at least neutral (knowing what happens to black t-shirts after a few washings). Darkest point was in the back of the shirt; lightest (not white!) on the guy's cheekbone. Once those points were set on the curves, I sampled the face mid-forehead and tweaked the curves to get numbers and image that looked ok. The image was still somewhat darker than I think(?) you want, so I added another curves adjustment layer set to luminosity and pulled the 3/4-tone to lighten. In the end result the forehead measured 8C 31M 45Y 0K, well within the range one might expect for a healthy caucasian adult.

Does this work for you?

[Dave.Cox]

Hi Lurch. You are spot on with your explanation I didn't take time to go into detail, but what you posted is exactly correct. First, you should always rely on the numbers that can be found in the information pallet, as many thing can throw the perception of color. Second, you should always keep your monitor properly calibrated, as not only do monitors vary between make and model, but even the same make and model will have a wide variation. Also the age of the monitor can have an affect on the colors that it can display. That is why I calibrate my monitor often. It is critical that your monitor be calibrated to see the correct colors. Some artists will even paint their room a neutral gray, to keep the other colors from changing the perception of true colors.

Also, in the color adjustment that I made, I applied the adjustment to only the face. To do this I made a selection of the area, and then added an adjustment layer. This way my adjustment were only applied to the selected area, leaving the rest of the photo untouched.

One other comment, Skin that is natural and healthy looking on an adult, and that on a baby are two different things. Even a youthful women such as seen in model shoots does not look like that of a baby. If you make the adult's skin look like that of a baby, he will appear to be very pale, almost like a ghost. A Caucasian adult's skin does have a lot of red in it. In the outdoors scene that you have, a rugged look outdoorsy look fits right in. So unless you are going for a Halloween look, I would think that the pale baby skin probably isn't the best look. But that is just my humble opinion. Don't let me stop any creative ideas that you may wish to explore.

[lurch]

Thanks, Dave. Good elaboration on the points I was trying to make.

For Chris' benefit - in my correction from yesterday evening I limited myself to simple global moves and a quick fix. In doing so, I allowed some 'defects' to persist. Would have liked to bring the yellow in the skin down more but that interfered with the shirt's neutrality. As a result the subject may look more tanned than you like. My approach also limited definition in the sky. I would have liked whiter clouds and more contrast.

<C>

[Cassidy]

Chris C, I did a colour match on the baby pic and face of the recipient, not a good look at all, he looked part gothic, part cyanotic, part dead, even the twilight zone would lend a bit more colour

[Daviskw]

Another version

Butch

[chillin]

Nice outcome with the face, but could you low down the blurred grass in the background. Maybe if you use some masking would help. Great work Daviskw.

[ChrisC]

I want to thank everyone for trying to help me out with this image . Let's assume that all of the examples are correct when judging skin tone by the numbers. What I'm trying to achieve is a cooler more neutral image. An image closer to "cyan baby" than the original image I posted. I'm not trying to match the baby - the baby picture is only an example of, to my eye, what I consider a fairly neutral skin tone. Obviously color is subjective. What's pleasing to one person isn't to another. I'm trying to remove the yellow/warmth that was added to the skin by the gelled light. When I use curves to correct the image I get weird color patches in the transition areas between light and dark. Using Hue/Sat to desaturate the yellows and reds leaves me with a image that looks like a colorized BW photo. Is it technically possible to do this?

Thanks
Chris

[unimatrix001]

I used the match color under adjustments checked the neutralize box. selected the red channel copied and pasted and set blending mode to luminosity reduced to about 70 percent came up with this

[Cassidy]

this guy has a rugged look, so can't sport more temperate colours without looking spooky, he really needs the ruddiness in my opinion

[lurch]

Chris,

Is it technically possible to do this?

Certainly. In spite of the communal attempt to talk you out of it, it's your image and your taste, and if that's what you want here's one way to do it. For convenience I started with a copy of your original and with the variation I did on Friday.

Using the original I made a copy of the red channel and adjusted it with a curve to greatly increase the contrast. Made the clouds gray and the face highlights blown out with some detail left in the skin shadows; rest of the image dark gray or black. This will be the layer mask in the next step.

Moving to my Friday version, I added a selective color adjustment layer and clicked ok without doing anything else. Then used Image>Apply image to load the doctored channel from the original into the layer mask that was automatically created for the selective color layer. Double-clicking the selective color icon re-opens that dialog box. I selected red from the drop-down list of colors, made sure the method selected was Absolute, and adjusted the sliders as follows: cyan +59, magenta +10, yellow -29, black 0 (you can play with those values and find what pleases you). That's all there is to it. The layer mask limits your skin tone modifications to the areas where it's light or white.