Even color skin tones?

[mayday]

Hi does anyone know of any techniques that are used get even skin color throughout a image, where only the tint of the color changes?

I am not talking about dodge and burn to even skin am talking about color tone.

I've seen this technique in many magazine and high fasion ads

Like on this great Amy dresser retouch

[DCobb]

Lee Varis in his book SKIN discusses some methods. Sybex is the publisher and can be found at:

www.sybex.com

Whether these techniques are those used in the picture you posted, I don't know, but they might be helpful.


dc

[shellby]

use tools like selective colour, hue saturation to remove Magenta and Cyans out of masked areas

[snook305]

Hey Shelby... How have you been.. Like your new icon... Very Nice.
Hope all is well
Snook

[edgework]

Originally Posted by DCobb

Lee Varis in his book SKIN discusses some methods. Sybex is the publisher and can be found at:

www.sybex.com

Whether these techniques are those used in the picture you posted, I don't know, but they might be helpful.


dc

Dresser's doing more than just balancing skin tones, but one technique that can be effective, particularly if you have uneven reds, is to use a selective color layer, pull magenta and add yellow to the reds, pull yellow and add magenta to the yellows, and add a touch of cyan to both. If the contrast is already to your liking, do this in color mode rather than normal.

[pixel_monkey]

You can still use dodge and burn to even color tone. Chris Tarantino has a section in Katrin Eismann's Book explaining how it works. Basically, you sample the color from different park of a person's skin and paint with that on the neutral layer to offset the color shifts. That's a great book to have around the workstation.

[mayday]

Thanks for the tips Shellby and Edgework ill give that a try

[snook305]

What is a Neutral Layer?
I usually do this but on a Color blend mode layer.
How do you paint on a Neutral layer.
You mean a Blank layer?
Thanks for more info..
Snook

[Syd]

Technically there isn't such a thing as a Neutral Layer. What Pixel Monkey means is to do your dodging and burning on a new layer set to Soft Light or Overlay blend mode. (To all intents and purposes these two blend modes have almost the same effect on an image except that Overlay is stronger that Soft Light.) Now fill the layer with a Neutral color e.g. 50% gray. 50% gray has no effect on Overlay or Soft Light mode and ,therefore, it is not necessary to even use this step. The only purpose it serves is to provide a background for your retouching. White and black show up clearly on a gray background (turn off all your other layers, except your D&B layer to see this effect) whereas you won't see much if you put them on a transparent background.

[Dave.Cox]

Snook, Add a layer, and fill it with 50% gray, (Neutral Color). Set the layer mode to soft light. Paint with white or black using a small brush set for about 50% hardness, and low opacity. About 10-20%. This is also know as a non-destructive way of dodging and burning.

[shellby]

also use H Sat adj layer and desaturate the reds

[snook305]

I know what painting with Light or Dodoging on a nuetral grey layer.
But that is not what he was saying nor what I was asking. He says slect the color from one part of the skin and paint it on a neutral layer to make it even.
I do not see where that works.
That was my question.
Thanks anyways, I am well aware of D&B on a Nuetral grey layer. I do it often..:+}
Now what is he talking about?
I often pick color from one good opart an paint on acolor blended mode layer around where the skin is not even colored.
But not on a nuetral layer grey?
Snook

[racheljoyMOBD]

use curves, you get more than double the amount of control that you do using hue/sat
if you select areas with the eye dropper and put them in CMYK the formula is cyan 1/3-1/5 of the magenta and yellow...yellow is usually 1-20 points above magenta depending on the persons skin
if you are retouching someone with dark skin the cyan amount usually increases
example:
C: 5%
M: 25%
Y: 30%

[pixel_monkey]

I was simply referring from the book. The book titled it Neutral Layer Technique, so I'm assuming there's such a thing as a "neutral layer" unless the book is wrong. Yes, you're actually sampling colors from the good skins and paint on the 50% gray Soft Light layer, the very same layer where you do your dodging and burning.
I urge you to get the book if you want step by step explanation with color images. Visit your nearby Barnes and Nobles, Borders, or whichever you prefer and look for Photoshop Restoration and Retouching 3rd Edition by Katrin Eismann if you just want to look at that section.

[cricket1961]

Originally Posted by Syd

Technically there isn't such a thing as a Neutral Layer. What Pixel Monkey means is to do your dodging and burning on a new layer set to Soft Light or Overlay blend mode. (To all intents and purposes these two blend modes have almost the same effect on an image except that Overlay is stronger that Soft Light.) Now fill the layer with a Neutral color e.g. 50% gray. 50% gray has no effect on Overlay or Soft Light mode and ,therefore, it is not necessary to even use this step. The only purpose it serves is to provide a background for your retouching. White and black show up clearly on a gray background (turn off all your other layers, except your D&B layer to see this effect) whereas you won't see much if you put them on a transparent background.

Syd

There are reasons to use the fill on the soft light (or hardlight/Overlay) layer and reasons not to.
I prefer to because it is more visible for what I have done (as you point out) so I can easily see where I might need to take away or see where I might have painted with the wrong color to get rid of a cast. It also affords me the ability to blur if needed or add noise or sharpen better, or use curves, or use liquify on or countless other things.

There is such a thing as a "neutral" layer. Whether you fill or use the button in the dialog. Neutral only means that it is not going to affect any other aspect of the pixels in the image unless tampered with. So yes, "technically" there is not a one click, built in, portion of Photoshop but it is called that
by the software engineers who built the program.