Adjusting skin color without affecting background

[babytarantula]

Hi, as a portrait photographer i always have a lot of pictures to retouch so i am always looking for the fastest recipe to do certain things. I have a problem, normally i start with adding contrast to the picture then i adjust the color to make the skin better. As you see in my "after.jpg" feature, the color adjusting also affects the background. What would be the fastest solution to this problem without affecting picture quality?

Thanks

[MBChamberlain]

Check out the "Selective Color" adjustment, it will allow you to change only one color range at a time.

If you don't mind my asking, is there any particular reason you wanted her to have green skin?

Cheers,
Michael

[babytarantula]

haha this brings me to my other question: How to adjust my laptop screen color to the printer? (it's perfectly fine on my laptop but she also complained about "hulk" look

[shotcutz]

hi,
here my "quick and dirty" try. i would use LAB in this case. with curves in LAB mode you can easyly select the color you want to change and leave the rest as it is. i would not trust your laptopmonitor when you do your colorcorrections. the savest way to do it would be correcting by numbers. a good starting point for skin could be 5C 30M and 35Y. hope that helps.

shotcutz

[MBChamberlain]

You'll need to color calibrate your monitor. There are several calibrators out there: Blue Eye, Spyder, and X-Rite spring to mind...

[crazyfly1]

I'm just gwc but I would think that if you are a professional photographer the easiest fix would be to shoot everything against a green screen.
Really like that shot btw.

[MBChamberlain]

Originally Posted by crazyfly1

the easiest fix would be to shoot everything against a green screen

Oh, goodness, no. Green screens are hard to light, difficult to process, time consuming to work with, and even the very best filters are complete garbage.

I paint or build all my backdrops myself. (Well, most...I'm currently watching for an old brick building that will be torn down that I can cut a wall out of to be moved to my studio.) On average, a 6x9 canvas backdrop only costs me about $50 complete...much better than the $300-$500 for a hand painted backdrop costs to buy.

How long have you been shooting BT?

Michael

[babytarantula]

To tell you the truth i started one year ago. Well i tried the selective color trick and it worked quite well thanks guys

[MBChamberlain]

Your two best friends as a photographer are powder and space.

A light, translucent, unscented powder is essential. I use Corn Silk when I can find it, it's hypoallergenic and it's base is yellow (like skin) instead of white or pink (which you can't use on guys particularly). A nice smooth layer over the whole face with a very large brush (make sure you clean it between clients, and pour the powder into another dish so you don't contaminate it). Any powder that is "translucent" and doesn't look pink in the container is good though. But test them on dark and light skin to make sure it doesn't change the tone.

Also, try and keep your subject further from the background, and your camera further from the subject. The closer you are, the bigger their noses will look, and the closer they are to the background, the easier it is to get unwanted shadows. One of the main reasons 105mm is the standard portrait length is that it gets you far enough from the person to make their features look perfectly balanced.

I'm not exaggerating when I say that 90% of what we do as retouchers can be fixed in a minute or less at shoot time. That is why it is SO important to take your time and become a really good photographer first. I recommend to my students that they not touch a computer until they are good enough that they would be willing to sell the raw images as shot.

I quote Deke McClelland "Photoshop was not designed to make bad photos good, it was designed to make good photos great and great photos amazing." When it comes to retouching source material is the key. (Of course for our restoration friends this does not apply.)

Cheers,
Michael

[jam1212]

I might be missing something, but wouldn't the easiest solution be simply to use a layer mask?

[MBChamberlain]

A layer mask would be a good way to do it, but selective color only affects one color range at a time... In this image, the skin tone is unique in the photo, therefore making a layer mask is a waste of time.

Of course, if the background was in the same color range as the skin, yes, a layer mask is the best and easiest way.

Cheers,
Michael

[eraanexact]

I agree with jam1212, layer masking is the way to go. You learn how to mask well, and the sky's the limit.

[MBChamberlain]

Originally Posted by eraanexact

I agree with jam1212, layer masking is the way to go. You learn how to mask well, and the sky's the limit.

Layer masking is a wonderful thing, don't get me wrong. But in cases like this it's like using a chain saw trim a loose thread.

See the example below, let's assume I need to change the red dots to orange and the cyan dots to green. I could mask the red and cyan dots (an operation that in this case would take 10 seconds at most) and change their color. Or I could just drop a Selective Color adjustment layer and target the red and cyan zones which can be done in the time I'd spend making the mask...

In a practical image situation, I have a stock photo here of a rose. But the rose is a bit pink and I want it to be a rich red. I did a dry run and it took me about 90 seconds to make a mask for this image, but adjusting the color with a Selective Color layer took me all of 9 seconds and that was tweaking the greens in the background as well.

For minor corrections of colors that are unique in a photo(skin for example), it's the best tool out there. Of course it the background or clothing are in the red or yellow range, masking is back to being the best way to do it .

Cheers,
Michael

[eraanexact]

Point taken. That's fine for small tweaks with very specific color areas. I'll still stand by layer masking for anything major, if for nothing else, for how easy it makes future changes go much much smoother.