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.

[rramsey]

If you have areas on the face with different color, use the color picker to pick the color you think is best. Then take a soft brush at 30% opacity in the COLOR mode and paint over the bad color skin. Watch it, this painting is cumulative so be careful. (maybe and good idea the dupe the layer and work on that)

[r*po]

Theres actually a tutorial on here from Amy dresser called "sequins" that's worth taking a look. She doesnt do anything that different and Im not fully sure its worth $15 if you know what you're doing but its good to watch and see a step by step that shows more than you could find elsewhere.

It sounds like it would be really interesting to you to see how she evens the skin just selecting different areas and adjusting areas using curves. You could also use levels and color balance to adjust color and I tend to prefer the selective color but its a newer process to me and Im still getting used to seeing those small color shifts.

the stamp tool is pretty great and using it set to color or a new layer set to color can help even areas.

This is something Im working on and havent gotten the hang of yet fully. It can be quite beautiful and used a lot in high end fashion. its hard to tell in that Alba photo if its just the selective color adjusting or its "hand colored" or gradient map.

these are some other images that have that flat even colorized skin that i was hoping to find some insight on in this post

terry richardson
http://www.gq.com/entertainment/cele...photos#slide=1
http://www.designscene.net/wp-conten...uge-Pur-00.jpg

zoey grossman
http://www.sourgasm.com/?p=921

francesco carrozini
http://models.com/work/ermanno-scerv...-fw-11-1/63906

Theres another post on here somewhere where they bring up that richardson January jones image and someone suggested it looked like gradient mapping which is another method that Im aware of and does this but I haven't been able to do a version myself so far I think is good enough even though its pretty straightforward. I've never seen anyone actually do it or explain it so I don't know what step im missing. These do look too colorized to not be some hand painted method and just adjustments, it also has the effect of matting the skin which is also something a lot of fashion clients want as well as just a technique id like to do in my own photos.

Its a common technique, used on all sorts of lighting set ups and by photographers who arent technical or the type to spend hours inside on a computer figuring it out so in the interest of keeping it to just this techniques lets just assume we are talking about working from a good raw image and applying this type of skin colorization treatment after youve done the cloning and dodging and burning.


cheers

[adtechniques]

Originally Posted by rramsey

If you have areas on the face with different color, use the color picker to pick the color you think is best. Then take a soft brush at 30% opacity in the COLOR mode and paint over the bad color skin. Watch it, this painting is cumulative so be careful. (maybe and good idea the dupe the layer and work on that)

I think so. But you must pay attention to the saturation and value.

Make new layer >>> Color mode
Use color picker to get color you want
Use soft brush to paint

[Siciliana]

Here are some thoughts for you:

Color correct the whole image first (ie. fix red/yellow/purple areas with masked curves adjustments) Then, sample a winning highlight color from the face, and then sample a winning shadow color. Use the 'select color' tool to get a selection of the skin. Now create a gradient map layer, using those two colors as the base for your gradient and the 'select color' selection as the basis for your mask. Set the blend mode of the gradient map layer to color, and reduce opacity to the point where it looks good (low opacity). That should give you a more consistent skin tone without looking unnatural.